In the minivan...

On the way to Kep, a beach town on the Cambodian coastline, listening to the album for Shaitan, hit Bollywood movie... So figured it'd be a good time to update the blog on our stop in India! It's long overdue as we've been in Cambodia for a week already.

Well, back on June 6, we flew from Dhaka to Mumbai to see Nat's old friend, and now star Bollywood actress, Kalki. Little did we know that a star's life was one that was so hectic!

We had learned a little ahead of time that her filming schedule had been pushed back a couple days and that she'd only be back in Mumbai now on the 8th. So the first couple days were a little relaxed and we got to enjoy the film library of Anurag Kashyap, star Bollywood director/producer and also Kalki's husband! We took the chance to watch Kalki's first hit film (and directed/written by Anurag), Dev D... Which was excellent!

The next day was also relaxed and we did a bit of sightseeing... We had originally wanted to go to Elephanta Island, but the seas were too choppy meaning the tour boats weren't operating. Instead we saw the Gateway to India, walked around Colaba and then up to Victoria Station and its surroundings. In the evening we met up with Mitali and Amy, two other of Nat's lovely high school friends! Those two were a hoot to hang around with! Thanks for taking us to the mango milkshake place! 

It's the day after when our 24-hours of the star's life experience began! As soon as Kalki got off the plane in the late afternoon, after wrapping up filming early that morning in some rural Indian town 5-hours from the closest airport, we were off to a press conference for her film that was being released in a couple days, Shaitan! Which BTW, is awesome even if we didn't understand the dialogue! This was followed by a 9:00pm screening, which was almost 3-hours long... Did you know that Indian films have intermissions? And the next morning we all flew to Delhi at 6:00am, where there was another cast press conference and other promotional events including a nightclub appearance... It's nonstop ALL DAY! We fortunately skipped the daytime events and took in some of Delhi's sites including the National Museum and India Gate... Yes, there's a Gateway to India and India Gate!

The next morning we parted ways, with Kalki and Anurag returning to Mumbai and us heading to Goa. We weren't alone though, as Gulshan Devaiah, another one of Shaitan's main actors and up & coming star and also one of the nicest guys around, was on the plane with us as he was heading to Bangalore (and our flight flew through there before heading to Goa), his hometown, to perform in a play there. His character in the movie, KC, is a playboy rough & tumble guy... Which makes Gulshan's performance so impressive as he is so different from his character in real life! Anyhow, enough talk! GO SEE THE MOVIE! It should be available on iTunes soon I'm guessing as Bollywood movies generally have short theatre runs compared to Hollywood movies and are released on DVD within weeks rather than months!

Goa... You know what, I prefer Thai beaches. Maybe it was because of monsoon season, but for India's busiest beach area, it was pretty rundown. But, that didn't stop us from doing what we wanted... Relaxing and swimming in the ocean, although a bit choppy. BTW, when the monsoon is on, it's better to be in the water! Though, the best shower we had in Goa was when we got caught on the scooter in the monsoon!!! (Aside, the minivan I'm in right now almost hit two kids on a motorcycle that decided to turn in front of the oncoming minivan... Oh well, survival of the fittest.)

As it was monsoon season, a lot of businesses were packing up for the season and their owners heading off on holidays. And this didn't only mean padlocking the front door... It meant that the whole business disappeared, structure and all! One restaurant even demolished their brick clay oven! We were told that these business owners did not lease their land through the monsoon season and therefore had to leave the land bare. Day by day, another business had literally disappeared. This left only a handful of restaurants open, and we only liked two of them! It did make our personal Nepali waiter very happy when we showed up at the only open beachfront restaurant daily, or even twice or thrice daily!!! We were even the last customers that our guesthouse owner took before he flew to Europe the next day! Anyhow, it was a nice relaxing few days... But next time I'll head to Thailand for the beach!

Well, almost in Kep now... Will write again soon!

As I wait...

For my 11:30am pick-up to go to my first day of official "volunteering", I thought it would be a good time to catch up on the last 2 weeks of our travels as we now have a high speed Internet connection on our phones! (YAY for iPhones and 3G!!!). Originally I set my alarm to wake up at 9:00am, but I got woken up at 7:00am by the hotel staff telling me there was a "bus waiting for you downstairs", which I had no clue about... so I got dressed and went down wondering if I had missed something yesterday... but they were the ones confused...

Anyways...Bangladesh...was our next destination after 2 weeks in Nepal. We spent 5-days in Dhaka with our lovely hosts Aabed and Tani. We spent a night at BRAC CDM in Savar which was located on the outskirts of Dhaka. Nice place, lots of greenery, and it was the beginning of the jack fruit season so the trees were full with enormous fruit. Next door to the place that we stayed at is a BRAC college where students spend a semester learning English away from Dhaka, which Tani had done. It was dormitory style much like Hebron in a sense.

The political situation in Bangladesh is an interesting one, as Aabed told us... it primarily involves 2 parties lead by women who dislike each other... one is a surviving daughter of the "father of the nation". He was involved in fighting for independence for Bangladesh and separating from Pakistan, but him and most of his family were assassinated by the army (kind of like the Ghandi family in India and the Kennedys in the USA). We went to the BanglaBandhu museum, much like Indira Ghandi's house in Delhi but not as well maintained. The other lady is the opposition party lady and I don't remember too much, but the political power in this country yo-yos between the 2 of them and to me it seems they work to spite each other more than anything.
Dhaka was a more developed city compared to Kathmandu, in terms of larger buildings, bigger city, but traffic was almost as chaotic. We went to a stand-up comedy show one night, which was interesting, well it was 10% English so that's how much we understood. It was Russell Peter's style comedy introduced by this guy who was an architect in the USA so it's not mainstream comedy there.

Finally, Bengalis like to eat well...we were fed continuously, had delicious biryani, prawn curry, chicken curry, pooris, mangoes, lychees, and more... and left Bangladesh with a larger waist size!

Photos from Bangladesh, India and Kuala Lumpur

https://picasaweb.google.com/natsufujita/DhakaMumbaiDelhiGoaKualaLumpurJune2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCIqjr42T97XweQ&feat=directlink

WAHOO!!! The Canucks won Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals!!!

We couldn't stream the radio broadcast live because the Internet connection was down here at the hotel... but thanks Dad for the update!!!

GO CANUCKS GO!!!

Pokhara

It was a 6 hour bus journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara which we slept most of the way thanks to Gravol! We did manage to catch some of the scenery, lush green rice fields and mountains, there were a lot of young trees on top of the hills which they must have planted quite recently, and the monsoon rains have come early making everything so green.

Our hotel, called the Sacred Valley Inn is located beside Lake Phewa in Pokhara near the tourist strip, there is a lovely Bougainvillea tree with white and pink flowers which shades the veranda of the hotel. The room itself is very basic with a bed and a bathroom, but serves its purpose for $18 per night...yay to clean rooms, hot water, no bedbugs and wireless internet and safety! (might consider Sacred Valley Inn in KTM).

Pat enjoying WiFi on his iPhone!

We have walked along the tourist strip which reminds me of a more open and cleaner Thamel (what do you think Gloria?). This time of the year there are less tourists, so the streets, restaurants, and shops are not busy at all. I mean REALLY not busy, that the waiters don't come to give you the menu for about 5-10 minutes, and there was no shopkeeper at the tea shop we went into (so we decided to come back, which then it was closed!!!! They really don't seem to want our business! :p). It's the "bisthare" (slow) kind of life... especially in the heat... we saw this guy taking a nap on a tree branch while we were walking along the lakeside back to our hotel (I thought he was part of the branch at first!).

The World Peace Pagoda (left).

On our first day here, we took a day hike (well about 2 hours total) to the World Peace Pagoda built by a specific Japanese Buddhist sect to spread the word of Buddhism and Peace. We took a guide since the guidebook and the innkeeper said that there have been robberies in the forest. His name was Hari, a courteous quiet guy. He took us through the forest and along the mountain ridge to the Pagoda...the hike itself was not that hard (although, being out of shape I could feel my heart pounding in my throat!), but the heat and humidity was incredible!!! We were dripping with sweat and we both drank so much water but didn't have to pee for the whole time!

The pagoda was nice and breezy, and we got to see the whole Pokhara Valley which is quite large and has a population of 3 million people! It was a cloudy day so we didn't get to see the mountains unfortunately.

At the pagoda, Pat discovered a little black but plump leech that had burrowed through his sock and was enjoying its blood meal on Pat's ankle, and another one attached to his shoe...thank God it was not me!!!! And it bled for quite sometime after.


During our descent from the pagoda it rained which cooled us down, however made going down the stone steps deathly (OK, I'm exaggerating... slippery is what Pat says)... Oh did I mention that our guide Hari was wearing sandals and had no trouble flying down the stairs in the rain?

We stopped by a peaceful resting place shaded by a big Bodhi tree which overlooked the other side of the Pokhara valley. After our descent we headed to the Gupteshwor Cave which is a naturally formed cave which serves as a temple for Shiva (a Hindu God), interesting but really dark and crowded with Indian tourists in their pretty saris and their slippery shoes (not so good in a wet cave...). Again garbage in these caves as well...

Inside the Cavern, I think the other side is the Davis Falls.

Across from the cave we also visited Devi's Falls...apparently named after Mrs. Davis who died whilst skinnydipping near the falls with her husband in 1961- she fell I think. So it's meant to be Davis Falls...not too much to see as the water levels were still quite low.

Papaya smoothie!

It was too hot and humid to take any pictures yesterday, and today we have decided to stay in away from the heat, and close to the bathroom...it seems that my stomach doesn't like eating Indian food in Nepal.... We miss our fresh green salads... although the banana pancake and eggs bennys were decent this morning :)

A friendly dog decided to join us for breakfast, and waited patiently watching us eat...the waiter said that it was OK to feed him so he got 1 piece of toast and half a banana pancake. He was cute but suffering from some type of skin disease...like all the dogs here.

View of the lake from the restaurant.

 Tomorrow, we fly back to Kathmandu, when we hope to get a glimpse of the Himalayas from the plane... then on Thursday, it's off to Dhaka (Bangladesh) to visit Pat's friend Aabed!

"Welcome Home"?.......

Some things never change.....the lack of productivity, efficiency and order. As we got off the plane in Delhi for our 3 hour transit at the airport for our next flight to Nepal, we were made to line-up single file for security check. I was impressed by the single file lines initially, but alas I spoke too soon...apparently there was a "women only" line-up which was not labeled...and all the women were made to go in a different line, but the bag went through the same x-ray machine as the men's because the other one was not being operated. There was about 10 security people attempting to increase efficiency yet there were creating chaos.... I went into a curtained cubicle where a female officer practically molested me and gave me a really slimey smile...I got out of there as fast as I could.... here I was back in India and Nepal, not in North America any more.... Going through this tedious security process and various other things... Pat's impression of their method was "quality by quantity".... by employing more people to do a task, they achieve quality??? (maybe)

Anyways, we arrived in Kathmandu safe and sound, managed to get our entry visa...officers sitting around reading newspapers, no line-ups, just push your way through kinda thing...

Kathmandu was more populated, dusty, polluted than 6 years ago with houses everywhere!!!! where there used to be fields and empty lots were crammed with new buildings...every other day was "bandhas" or protests (which affected us quite a bit since the protests took place mostly in front of the parliament building close to our  hotel). Although, taxis were still running so it wasn't a problem most of the time...so weird...
Compared to 6 years ago, the city has become significantly expensive...inflation...mostly affecting us tourists with 10% service charge on top of tourist price and VAT which is 13%...I know its all relative and if you convert it to dollars it is cheaper but still....really? I have been feeling quite ripped off...and not knowing the value of goods, it is easier to get ripped off!!!

We have visited the tourist spots like Thamel, Patan, Durbar Marg (the Royal Palace is now a museum!), and Swayambhu, other than that we have been doing a lot of family/friend stuff. Went to our old house/farm where I grew up and finding that the house, the trees and everything gone....even the walls! the bamboo that used to line the driveway to our house was also gone...

We went to visit our land where my father's ashes were buried, all the trees that were planted had grown and everything was so green and beautiful and peaceful...glimpse of what Kathmandu was like in the old days when my parents generation was traveling around being hippies....everybody refers to the "good old days"....without frequent protests, the tourist industry was booming, less cars, less populated, no water shortages, electricity was more available (no "lights out" for 14 hours/day) etc., etc...

I can only hope that things will move in a more positive direction for Nepal in the years to come...I would hate to see my old neighborhood be crammed with houses.

The Daily Momo...

Kathmandu... what can I say... it’s a city of good food, a melting pot of different people (who don’t seem to like to work a lot), and a cesspool... all at the same time.

I’ll start with the good... Although we’re both experiencing a bit of diarrhea currently (it was inevitably going to happen sometime along this trip), the best thing about Kathmandu... you guessed it, the MOMO!  What is a momo?  It’s basically a Nepali dumpling shaped like a Shanghai soupy dumpling (siao long pao)... chicken, vegetable, buffalo (or buff for the Nepalis), and mutton... and steamed, Tibetan style (which basically is just a gyoza shaped dumpling from what I can tell), fried, or some other style I haven’t tried yet.  My favourites are the chicken Nepali or Tibetan style ones!  And they come with a sweet orange coloured sauce too... not sure what it’s made of, but it’s yummy!

The rest of the food in this city is pretty good as well... there’s a bit of everything, but from what I can tell, the standard fare is Nepali, Indian, and Nepali Chinese cuisine.  Nepali curries tend to be a bit soupier than Indian curries and are more flavourful.  The Indian is excellent with tandoori restaurants all over serving all types of Indian food.  And Nepali Chinese, well, so far I’ve only had the noodles which seem similar to any other Chinese noodles, and “chop sueys”.  The only chop suey I’ve tried so far is American Chop Suey which is basically crunchy fried noodles topped with veggies and meats and a fried egg, then doused in a ketchup based tomato sauce... Was decent, but not sure it’ll ever be on my menu again!

As for the people... well, Nepalis are a hodge podge of people of different descents who have all procreated together.  You see Nepalis with faces from Oriental, Indian, and Central Asian/Persian descent, and mixes.  And they all wear different types of clothing from the various ethnicities, such as an Oriental Nepali wearing a sarree.

No, we're not joining the protests! They're dust masks!
And that's Nat's brother, Soichiro, on the left.

One problem though, is that a lot of Nepalis don’t seem to like to work.  Though mostly due to the upcoming deadline for the current legislative assembly to enact new constitution (which the 600(!) assembly members haven’t even been able to agree on a draft yet), there have been calls for constant bandas (general strike protests).  In the week that we’ve been here, we have already experienced 4-5 of them!  And the general protest area is only about 200 metres away from our hotel where the current legislative assembly meets! The first banda we experienced was the worst, where ALL public transportation and businesses were closed.  There was even a protest against the protests that day!  The ones since have been a little less burdensome, with most public transportation services running, and only private vehicles staying off the street.  Actually, it’s rather nice walking during these partial bandas, as the traffic is pretty much non-existent and it’s not dusty.  We’ll see what the next one is like (today, May 28) as it is the deadline day.  It may prove to be quite violent... and we’ve been staying in on the hotel’s grounds relaxing.

Now, the really bad side of Kathmandu... what makes this city a cesspool in my opinion?  Let’s just say that the city’s residents have created a lot of natural composting sites... AKA mounds of trash... everywhere.  You can’t walk a block here without having to walk around, smell, or see trash rotting away in the road, on a vacant lot, or in the river.  On top of that... mounds of sand, gravel, and bricks are all over the place near a construction site... most roads are in disrepair... many buildings look like they will crumble in the smallest earthquake (and they’re expecting a big one sometime)... and there are few traffic rules that are followed... cars, motorcycles, bicycles, animals, and pedestrians all share the road in chaos.  Cars and motorcycles weave through traffic honking at anything and everything to let you know they’re there or to simply tell you to get out of the way, pedestrians cross roads in front of oncoming vehicles, and there are no traffic lights!  If there are lights, they’re usually blinking yellow or red.  At best, there is a cop of two directing traffic at the busier intersections... but then, there are always some people who don’t listen to them... or the cops simply don’t care.  We got stuck in a round point a couple days ago, where cars came into the round point going in the same direction on BOTH sides.  As you would expect, everything came to a grinding halt, and we got out of the taxi and started walking.

And I did mention animals above... so far I’ve seen the following roaming the roads: dogs, a cat, a dead crow, a half-dead rat, chickens, a donkey, cows, monkeys, ducks, pigeons, goats, and bulls.

Outside of Kathmandu is a different story... the countryside is beautiful and full of lush green mountainous fields where the primary industry is farming.  Few machines can be found and all seems to be done manually by hand or with the help of animals.  It’s the simple life!

That’s it from Kathmandu... we’re heading to Pokhara tomorrow for a few days.  I’m told Pokhara is a much more beautiful city and the gateway to the Annapurna range of the Himalayan mountains!  Maybe we’ll do a day of hiking while there!

For photos from Kathmandu:  https://picasaweb.google.com/natsufujita/KathmanduMay2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMjE1PWbqve7xgE&feat=directlink