Tag Archives: dal baht

After the trek

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May 20, 2013

I am finally back in Kathmandu after an extraordinarily arduous trek. But man, was it worth it! Snow capped mountains, close up encounters with yaks, flowing waterfalls from melting glaciers, the beautiful, warm and generous people of Nepal’s regional areas. Truly a life-changing event for me and a fantastic chance to re-evaluate my priorities and perspective.

I had a moment where my guide Dipak (a gentleman if ever there was one) insisted I rest during a particularly gruelling climb. I had been insisting we continue to get to our destination for the day but he demanded I stop, saying I needed a rest. He handed me some water and a mandarin and said simply: “Angie, look”.
I looked up and was surrounded by majestic mountains, a gushing river, waterfalls, tibetan mountains with their uneven coats of snow. And at that very moment, everything in my life made sense. Had things not happened the way they did, in the order they did and to the magnitude they did, I would never have found myself trekking through the Himalayas doing something which was purely for me. And right then, I was grateful for all which had gone before. And that feeling has not left me a full week later. If anything it has grown.
I love Nepal and find that my needs are diminishing daily. Give me a bed with a mattress an inch or more thick; a pillow which is not stone; a toilet which is indoors (even if it is a very smelly and cold squat toilet during minus five degrees) and I am pretty happy.
The food is astounding. Who the hell would have thought yak’s cheese would be so sensational? I am a convert to Dhal Bhat (lentil soup with rice and vegies on the side cooked with chilli) and have left meat behind me for the duration on this trip after having heard some horror food (meat) poisoning stories.
I leave Kathmandu on Thursday for probably a two week advenure. I am loving not having internet or phone access. It is amazing how that break from technology clears the mind. I like it, a lot.
I don’t know what comes next. Nepal continues to show me very few things happen as you expect. And that is cool. It really is when you are not in a hurry, on deadline and trying to satisfy the demands of 10 people at once.
I am happy. In a way I would not have thought possible a month ago. But things are changing for me and I really reckon I have to be one of the most blessed people in the world.
All the best my friends,
A

A touch of ashram wisdom

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June 10, 2013

Surely it would not be the worst thing in the world if I stayed here in Pokhara!!! This place is amazing. Sometimes, just sometimes, the level of laid back gets to me a little. At the ashram they wake us with a cup of tea at 7am. That means it can be anywhere between 6.30am and 8am. The last meditation session of the day – Satsang which means celebration of the day – is supposed to start at 7pm. I have yet to see that happen. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen at all.
Life is so simple here, so very different from ours. I was talking with the teacher Baba Ji the other day about how to take home what I have learnt. He said to me to find an open window and just sit there and be. I thought about this for a while and responded: “I do not have any windows in my life which open”. It was a revelation. Our rented apartment has only the sliding doors to a balcony which faces a main road and a small widow in my son’s room. The office I had worked in for the last four years had no windows which opened.
Baba Ji thought about what I said for a while and said: “but what do you do for air?” It was impossible to explain to him.
A couple staying at the ashram tried to post some clothes home to Holland. The post office told them they could not post clothes anywhere. When asked why not they were told “because it is”. When they pushed the matter and asked why is it, they were told “it just is, that is all”.
You really do need to put your logical mind aside here and just be. Which is very cool.
I seriously think – okay maybe it is just a fantasy – that I could live here. Maybe run a little guest house (with staff who would do the work of course). A foreigner cannot own real estate in Nepal. The majority ownership must be held by a Nepali national.
The people here are gorgeous and smile so openly and freely. They are so completely unaffected by the stresses we labour under in the west. They know how to live. They sleep a lot, dance a lot, eat dal bhat for every bloody meal (am totally over that) and just sit around being. They don’t think about tomorrow or material things or ambition or acquiring or travelling. It is a little narrow-minded but that’s okay. The Nepalese are happy. How many societies can you say that about?
A