Career Break Central

April 10-14

After leaving Nepal, our favourite destination of the trip thus far, we had mixed emotions about visiting India. Since our primary reason for visiting India was to visit our foster child, Hansu, near Bikaner, we had decided to limit our visit to Rajasthan and stay only 12 days. Everything we had heard from fellow travelers was that India was a beautiful, but often difficult, country to travel in and to expect to have a love/hate relationship with the country. They were not far off the mark. Read the rest of this entry »

Why, you might ask, would I devote an entire blog entry to the Indian Embassy? Well, considering the amount of time, energy and patience I expended there, it deserves an entire chapter. Let this be a lesson to those of you who wish to obtain an Indian visa at the embassy in Katmandu (or, I have a sneaking suspicion, any Indian embassy) – do not underestimate the power of mindless bureaucracy to reduce even the most even-tempered individuals to raging lunatics. After our experience at the embassy in Katmandu, I’m starting to believe that the Indian government has a secret conspiracy to keep tourists out of their country by making it next to impossible and utterly distasteful to get a visa. A few words of advice:

1. Before attempting to obtain your Indian visa, take a large dose of Prozac for at least two weeks (it’s widely available over-the-counter at most pharmacies in Nepal);
2. Plan to do nothing else for at least two of the next three days;
3. Paste a bland smile on your face and resolve to keep it there no matter what;
4. Bring along a good book (preferably a joke book);
5. Set your expectations low so you won’t be disappointed – plan for anything and everything to go wrong;
6. Set aside any preconceived notions you may have about customer service and remember that these are government officials you are dealing with – it’s not their job to serve you; they are there to confuse, frustrate and exasperate you while acting as if they are doing you a favour. Read the rest of this entry »

Reflections on Nepal
April 7-10, 2007

Before going back to our hotel in Katmandu, we had two more places to visit. First, our driver took us to Nagarkot, a little town perched on a small peak about half an hour from Katmandu that is famous for its panoramic views of the Himalayas. Bishnu told us that on a clear day, you can see Everest. Unfortunately for us, the smog in the Katmandu Valley is so heavy in April that we could barely see to the bottom of the hill, let alone any distant peaks. When we arrived at our hotel, the Country Villa, I took a picture of our splendid “view.”

Shortly after we arrived, it started raining and soon it was a full-blown thunder and lightening storm. When we discovered how expensive the restaurant was in our hotel, we decided to brave the elements and walk down the hill into the town to find cheaper food. As we stumbled along in the dark, getting drenched and cringing when the lightening struck, I wondered aloud if it was worth it to save a few dollars. Then Claude reminded me that one of the purposes of this trip was to challenge ourselves to learn to live on a budget and do with less – the harder we worked for our meals, the better they would taste. In the end, we found a nice little place where we enjoyed great food for half what it would have cost us to eat at the hotel. We even got to eat by candlelight when the power went out halfway through the meal. Read the rest of this entry »

Chitwan National Park

April 5-7, 2007

I thought it would be difficult to top our jungle walk, but Gupal still had more surprises in store for us. That afternoon, he took us to the Baghmara Bufferzone on the outskirts of the park where we did an elephant safari.

Apparently, elephants aren’t afraid of anything (even mice) and nothing in the jungle is stupid enough to attack one so we felt perfectly safe from our high perch. This time, over the course of 2 hours, we got to see 10 different rhinos, including mothers with their babies.

They seemed unperturbed by our presence as they bathed or grazed serenely while we snapped dozens of photos. We also saw many monkeys, mongooses (mongeese?), peacocks and exotic birds before our elephants dropped us off by the river to watch the sunset. What an amazing day! Read the rest of this entry »

Chitwan National Park
April 4-5, 2007

When we returned to Katmandu, we discovered that the temperature had risen over 10 degrees since we left and was now hovering in the low thirties. This had created an inversion effect and a heavy blanket of smog had settled over the city, making it hard to breathe. We still had almost ten days to go before leaving for India, so Bishnu organized a car and driver to take us to Chitwan National Park for a jungle safari and to Nagarkot and Bhaktapur for sightseeing. The five hour drive to Chitwan was interesting, to say the least, with cars, motorcycles and buses all competing for the narrow, winding road that clung to the mountain high above the Kali Gandaki River. Drivers passed each other with horns blaring on blind turns and I wondered how the people perched on top of the buses managed to keep from falling off as the buses careened around the harepin bends. Read the rest of this entry »

The long downhill trek back to Jomsom wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I wore two thick pairs of socks to protect my ankles and didn’t suffer too much. The wind blowing up the river valley was intense, though, and we had to cover our faces with scarves so we could breathe. When we arrived at the Majesty Hotel in Jomsom, our trek was officially over. Over the past ten days we had trekked over 100km/60 miles, climbed over 2500m/8500 vertical feet and crossed more than 20 suspension bridges while experiencing some of the most incredible scenery in the world. We had discovered that we could do anything we put our minds to and that our kids were capable of amazing feats. It was now time to bid goodbye to our faithful porters, Dhorzi & Kumal, and our kids were not about to let them go quietly. After a twenty minute wrestling match and many hugs and photos, they were off to their next trekking group.

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Annapurna Circuit V
Muktinath

When we arrived in Jomsom, Claude told me that he was enjoying trekking so much that he was considering completing the entire Annapurna Circuit. This meant continuing on from Muktinath over the Thorung La Pass (5600m/18,500ft) and down the backside of the Annapurna Range. We agreed that it would be too dangerous to attempt the pass with the kids since they are more susceptible to altitude sickness and less able to articulate when they are having symptoms. In the end, we decided that Hari, our guide, would guide Claude safely over the Pass and then return to Muktinath to escort the kids and me back down to Jomsom to catch our flight to Pokhara. Claude would complete the Circuit on his own and then catch a bus to Katmandu to rejoin the kids and me. Read the rest of this entry »

Ghasa to Muktinath

After saying goodbye to our new friends, we continued up the valley toward Jomsom and Muktinath. By now, we had all the kinks worked out and felt like seasoned trekkers. Along the way we met some interesting people and got to really enjoy seeing the Nepali people living their lives the same way they had done for centuries. In Tukuche, we happened to be walking by a school just before morning classes started and the yard was full of laughing children.
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Tatopani to Ghasa

The morning after our marathon trek to Tatopani, Alexa dramatically declared that she needed a wheelchair to go down to breakfast and that she wasn’t walking anywhere that day. We had been considering taking a rest day in Tatopani (since we’d skipped the one in Ghorepani), but the more Alexa whined, the more determined we became to not give in to her tantrums. In the end, we decided to leave late and make it a short day. As we began our trek around 10AM, I began to question the wisdom of not taking a rest day as my calves screamed at me with every step, but after about an hour we all seemed to have walked off the stiffness of the previous day. Read the rest of this entry »

Poon Hill to Tatopani

We had planned to take a rest day in Ghorepani before the 7 hour trek to Tatopani because we wanted to climb to the top of Poon Hill for sunrise. Because we had to leave before 5AM to make it to the top in time for sunrise, we all went to bed early (8:00PM). Unfortunately, a group of locals decided to have a party next door and stayed up late drinking, singing and laughing. Just as they settled down around 11PM, a dog started barking and continued nonstop for over an hour. He finally stopped at around 12:30AM, just in time for one of the drunken revelers to pay a late night visit to his girlfriend who worked at our guesthouse and was sleeping just down the hall. I had just drifted off to sleep when I heard the load crash of a door slamming open and the sound of someone careening down the hall to the bathroom. Read the rest of this entry »