Tag Archives: Nepal

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

Marking my journey – in my own way

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End of June, 2013

It’s one of those moments hopefully you will never forget. But people do; all the time.
I am sitting in Kathmandu and wondering whether now is the time to get another tattoo. I am busting out of my corporate life, but I also know common sense means one day I will probably end up back there. A very visible tattoo can – let’s call a spade a spade – have a serious impact on your future employment options.
I already have a tattoo on my right forearm which is very visible. I don’t feel a need to hide it, but I also don’t want to be an advert for tattoos and have another in plain sight. So this is a decision which needs careful consideration.
Tattooing is one of those weird things which becomes insanely addictive and the self-control and common sense required to keep it under control becomes a testament to a person’s sense of judgement and maturity – or not.
So I wander into one of the world famous tattoo artists in Nepal with a clear idea of what I want and where I want it. Discreet and meaningful without being, well, crass.
I flick through the dozens of books to be sure I am doing the right thing. I have just had – in the last few minutes – a half dozen people trying to sell me hash. I am not a drug taker as a rule and so do not need to make this decision in an altered space. But suddenly I understand the dynamics of a lot of really bad decisions being made by hundreds, if not thousands of people.
I had walked into maybe a dozen tattoo studios throughout Nepal but each place kind of screamed at me “not here”. It has taken a long time but I have learned to listen to that voice.
So I find myself in Kathmandu and feel a need to mark this period in my life; a period of radical reassessment, of self reflection, of coming of age; of achieving balance. And I know what I need to do.
I completely understand that tattoo virgins won’t ever understand this. And power to them. But I am driven. I need to mark this period in my life. It is about me and no-one else so I don’t care if another human being ever sees what I am about to do to my body.
I pick the perfect image. It is identical to a charm a dear friend gave me a few months before; it is a metaphor for my recent past – the tree of life! And it is beautiful. Intricate (read painful), but quite perfect. I tell the artist the word I want written underneath it. It is a direct translation of an English word. He suggests a Nepalese version which has greater meaning. I call my Nepali host to make sure I am not about to deface my body with a word which is frankly, having a laugh at my expense. He assures me it is in line with where my head is at.
So I agree, checking first and foremost we are dealing with clean needles, clean ink. The pain is, well, what one experiences getting a tattoo.
But then there is a brilliant distraction. In walk two really young people, maybe 20 or so. They have a German accent and are walking with a swagger. They are young and wearing US basketball outfits right down to the backwards cap. They make me laugh. He is a tattoo veteran. She has never had a tattoo and, at maybe 20, is keen to enter the fold.
She decides to get a love heart on the middle finger of each hand. One will be filled in, the other not. I am wincing in pain as the tree of life is inked into my body, but I am also fascinated by the sideshow of this young, supercool, serious attitude woman, getting her first tattoo. The outline of the heart on her first finger goes well. I can channel the pain I am feeling as my own tattoo takes shape, into sheer curiosity at this very young woman wanting to impress her boyfriend.
But then the artist starts working on the second love heart. It is literally a matter of seconds before our über-cool tattoo virgin passes out; literally. One second she is sitting being tattooed, the next she is on the ground unconscious. The staff try not to laugh. Her boyfriend looks disgusted, embarrassed and concerned all at the same time. I am in enormous pain but boastful I am still conscious yet concerned this young woman is literally unconscious.
Clearly the staff here are used to this. They have been doing this gig for a long time. I am totally pedestrian by comparison. We all share a kind of uncomfortable chuckle, and I feel further emboldened. Sure, I don’t need to take my tattoo to the next level, but I am pretty impressed with myself nevertheless. I have trekked the Himalayas, I have been on the most terrifying bus rides ever, I have quit my job and taken off to Nepal on a whim. I can handle a tattoo in Kathmandu. This woman’s unconsciousness curiously, perhaps uncomfortably, emboldens me, and I gather strength and grit my teeth while the artist finishes my tattoo.
There are maybe only half a dozen people who have seen my tattoo since I returned to the corporate world. Even fewer know what the Nepali word is and it’s meaning. And I like that.
We are built of so many facets. We are not one person, we are many and only gradually reveal ourselves to those we trust.
I like that. It is not withholding who I am. It is taking my time to decide who I share that with.
And always in the back of my head I wonder, did the baseball cap German woman follow through or is she wandering around with half a tattoo? I like the metaphor – each person’s journey is so individual and so intimate.

Still smiling despite the pain!

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It is quite surreal to find myself back in the workforce after a six month hiatus and incredibly I am feeling it. A dear friend suggested I write a blog about the physical rigours of working in an office three days a week. Yes, she was joking, but after six months of wearing shorts and t-shirts and either no shoes or thongs (again, flip flops for non-Australians), my feet and shins and calves were protesting painfully after just three short days. To have my poor feet encased in shoes felt a lot like I imagine those Chinese women of years gone by who had their feet painfully bound must have felt. Okay, so I am prone to exaggeration. But I am sure you get the drift.
To find myself back in corporate clothing was a shock in and of itself. To hear the alarm go off that first morning was a hell of a jolt to the system. For my time to not be my own was something altogether different.
It is so brilliant to be having a whinge about having a job. How blessed I am that these are my circumstances. That after six months of wandering – literally and metaphorically – to find myself in a position where my skills are valued and I genuinely have a lot to offer and be excited by.
It amazes me how quickly we can get used to a set of circumstances or lose the rhythm of a lifestyle we have lived for years. It is weird not to be working with my friends and trying to remember a succession of new names and faces. To try and remember where the kitchen is and make sure I strategically pick as generic a mug as possible for my tea so I do not inadvertently upset someone. To understand the subtleties of a new workplace – the expectations, the mood, the philosophy about lunch hours and finishing times. But it is also very exciting. A new start; a new opportunity. A chance to shed the past and embrace a new future. A distraction from what would otherwise have been an extremely difficult week for me emotionally.
I liked coming home tired and intellectually exhausted and, as a consequence, being able to sleep well for the first time in months. I liked having to adjust to a new routine. Hell, I liked having a routine after months of ambling and rambling and wandering. That said though, I wouldn’t give up those six months of lack of structure for anything in the world.
I loved having that six months for myself. Again, I am blessed to have been able to take that time. To adjust and adapt and grow and learn and just be. To hang around in an ashram in Nepal, to trek the Himalayas, to undertake terrifying Nepalese bus rides, to wander around Melbourne with friends, to sleep in, read books, do some online courses, cook meals again, spend time with my son, watch really bad daytime television, start a blog!!!!!
I love that I am lying on my bed and my feet hurt from having to wear shoes. I love that I have to be organised in terms of food and shopping and washing because I can’t just do it the next day. I love that I can’t stay up all night wandering around the Internet or watching HBO.
My life is truly blessed and I am thankful. What an amazing place to be in.

Reflections on a trippy journey

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June 29, 2013

Namaste all.
So I am down to just a couple of days left of this adventure and at the nightmare end of trying to get everything back to Australia. It is a logistical problem I don’t think can be solved with a suitcase and a second bought bag. I think of this as my first world dilemma in a third world country.
I want to thank you, each of you, for sharing this journey with me. I have enjoyed travelling by myself but sometimes there are events which you just want to share and these emails to you as a group have allowed me to be so self-indulgent.

I don’t know what happens now. I quite seriously don’t have a clue . There are a few possibilities but I need to decide how much I want change in my life; what needs restructuring in line with my current priorities. And for me, the number one priority is now time. Nepal has taught me this is even more valuable than money. Time changes perspective enormously and I found that I had stopped making time for myself and as such my perspective on a lot of stuff had just become completely out of whack.

On my good days (which is most of the time – yay!) I don’t mind not knowing what is about to happen. I am excited by the possibilities because there really are so many possibilities. I like the idea of recreating my life, following my heart this time.

On my not so good days, I miss the certainty that was my old life – well as certain as you can get really. I miss my old job, the staff and the work and being in what was a comfort zone even if it exhausted me completely. I liked the lifestyle the job afforded me. But the company as I knew it, no longer exists and for now, maybe I just need life to be simpler.

I want to say something profound about what Nepal has meant for me, but words are woefully inadequate for the journey I have been on. Instead I will share some things I did learn in Nepal: Everything which needs to happen does – eventually; Accepting life as it is at every moment is really the best thing we can do for ourselves; Nothing is permanent, not even grief or heartache; dancing is meditation; Man I used to beat myself up a lot; Things usually don’t go to plan and that’s okay because sometimes our plans are short-sighted; Nepalese bus rides are an extreme sport in themselves; I am stronger than I knew, climbing the Himalayas and all; Life really is funny, like really funny; Indian and Nepalese television is hysterical; Poverty is a relative concept.

I have been blessed and humbled and overwhelmed and awe-inspired and just inspired. I have become a vegetarian, eaten food I never dreamt of, had the most terrifying bus rides of my life, found peace and re-trained myself to laugh more. I have experienced pure joy and bliss and think I may finally have stopped crying. The shock and trauma of the last nine months feels to have passed and I have come to terms with the losses I have had to accept. I have found my passion and energy for writing again. Right now my life is good and that is what I am holding on to – NOW!

I hope you have enjoyed taking this journey with me. I have enjoyed having you along for the ride. Again, thank you.
Hugs and all that,
Angie

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

Getting my chill on in Pokhara

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June 5, 2013

Namaste!
So I a now ensconced in an ashram in Pokhara. It is weird being in a place like that, with all that love and good will and no electricity and hot water only when it is sunny (which is suprisingly often despite the onset of the monsoon). Gonna hang in Pokhara for quite a while, probably until just a few days before I fly home. It is a very cool place with lots of laid back people and nature is just everywhere.
I realise now the total level of disconnection from nature I have been living in and I dig having to make way on the roads for bullocks, cows, goats, camels, dogs, ducks, chickens and a few other bizarre item.
This place is hippy central and has lots of internet cafes and whatnot. It seems everyone here is trying to find themselves, some by getting lost trekking, others by meditating and others but just getting really, really stoned!
The ashram is kinda hard work and is hurting my knees more than the trekking did. We do two yoga sessions in the morning, one meditation session and then a break before two more meditation sessions in tne afternoon which are mostly dancing! There is also healing and all sorts of stuff in between. Quite exhausting really and raising some big issues. Not the peace, love and chill out I was hoping for but I am confident this is what I needed.
What is strange for me is that I keep seeing myself returning back to my life, but that life is no longer there. I am struggling a lot with that. I see myself returning to my old home with my son and the dog and cat and then going back to my old job. But that isn’t going to happen and a couple of times I have found it really hard not knowing what is coming up next – there is a freedom and exhileration in it but also a kind of terror.
Everything I used to define myself by has gone and all that is left is a void of uncertainty. Scary stuff when it comes down to it.
Other than that, loving Nepal. There is a spiritual undercurrent to life here which I really like. A tolerance and acceptance of people, ideas, religions, beliefs, individuality. It is refreshing.
In Chitwan I spent a heap of time with elephants – riding them, swimming with them (utterly childlike cool) and just watching them. They are brilliant creatures. Also managed to see some rhinos, peacocks, loads of deer, crocodiles. And they were all soooo close. I loved it.
In Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha, we were watching a local game of cricket – seriously, it is played on every ounce of grass there is in Nepal – and the game had to stop while a couple of water buffalo just wandered slowly across the pitch. The batting team used it as a drink’s break! It was surreal because up the road were busloads of Indian pilgrims being herded by loudspeaker on to their buses to get going to the next holy spot, the sun was setting, fields were being burnt in preparation for the next sowing and a cricket game just stops to make way for buffalo. I have completely fallen in love with the place.
Am avoiding Kathmandu because it becomes nothing more than a boggy marsh in the monsoon and too many revolting men keep asking to sleep with me. Yuk! And then there is the bus ride there.
I am sooooo over Nepali buses. The stuff of nightmares. Hot, over-crowded, smelly, breakdowns, roadblocks, washed away bridges. They have it all going for ’em.
I am supposed to be at a meditation session now but my body was just so exhausted.
I am due to come home in about four weeks!!! Man, how time flies.
A

Introduction to Nepal

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May 2, 2013

HELLO FROM NEPAL!
Wow! I honestly don’t know where to start. I sat next to an English coal miner’s daughter between Brisbane and Singapore (really!!!) who wanted to tell me all about her dying mother – an occupational hazard; eneryone feels a need to tell journos their life story! The flight in was extraordinary (not including the poor Nepalese woman who passed out on her way to the loo, directly in front of my seat (still waiting to make sure she had no contagious disease!). The view of the Himalayas was breathaking, amazing, awe-inspiring. I had the same reaction when I saw the Taj Mahal but this time was with a plane full of people, many of whom were experiencing the same level of awe as me.
Kathmandu is bizarre, No other word for it really. Hot, heavily populated with locals hoping to make a quick buck from “rich” tourists. My hotel room is as basic as a room can get. The shower is quite literally a hole in the wall. There is no air con which is fine as there is very often no power (up to 12 hours a day Nepal “power sheds” which means the switch is flicked and the power is out.) Thankfully my motel has a generator which works some of the time. It kept sputtering and then shutting off last night. I watched as they drained fuel from a motorcycle and fed it in to the generator which duly sputtered back into action for about 20 minutes – making the entire building shake with its noise and vibration as it did so. The toilet flushes only when there is power (truly a mystery to me!), my room clock says it is 4 at all times and there is no bin or even facilities to make tea. Yet a guy in the street yesterday told me the hotel I am staying at is kind of top notch. I seem to have one of the best rooms in the place thanks to a former colleague arranging the room through an old school friend. My room overlooks the courtyard/garden (read carpark) and the residence of the motel owner Kiran and his extended family. It is humbling to see how this family lives. I realised last night that everything I packed in my suitcase and backpack was probably more than most Nepalese own!!!
Cows have right of way on the road on the odd occasion when they do move – except when they stop in the middle of the street which is unfortunate for motorists and pedestrians alike. Strays dogs are a dime a dozen spending hours searching for food but ignoring people. I wanna feed them all.
Buffalo, it turns out, does not taste at all like chicken. More gamey and well, kind of yuck!
More to come. Hopefully some of this will start to make sense soon – or not!