Memories of Nepal

Motorbikes given for nothing. Fast and dangerous on the worst roads on Earth. One accident and lucky to be alive. Everyone amazed to see a female driving alone.

Jungle trekking . . . rainy leeches. Bridge breaks, Chris falling into browning water. Baby elephant eats trails through 9-foot grass.

Cover my face with pashmina . . . avoiding, move to other side of street. I hurt him. Not sure why I did it.

Deep chocolate lusty hungry eyes. Young men with old women–looking for a green card. Mint tea in a pashmina shop with a 21 year- old Kashmiri. Innocent, faithful, guilty. Never been in love. Quick to fall. Sincere. Boyishly nervous.

Vajra hotel, polished dark wood. Carved into ornate shapes. Shipped in from Bhaktapur. Monkeys in the garden.

A purple, gold sari. Every eye on the blonde foreigner, walking down the dirt streets at night. Eager and pleased I’ved adopted their own traditions.

Charming Englishman, good teeth (for an Englishman). Easy, assured, accepting of both people and situation. Is in the moment. Magnetic but unaware of it. I learn a lot from him.

Rats in the ceiling.

Young boys. Silk pink scarves. Rhythmic, aggressive; Earth-bound dancing. Beating and connecting. Moving in circles. Athletic but light and almost feminine in its grace. I love it. Meet one. He’s enthusiastic. Unsullied.

Shanghai Subway

Using the subway during rush hour in Shanghai is a one of a kind experience. I’m fairly certain that there are few places in the world where you’d find as many persons crammed into such a tight, lidded place at once. Like little black marching ants everyone makes there way through the underground tunnels, squeezing and pushing. Up, down, around, through, on, off, on, off again. I feel like part of an ant farm, trying, along with the mass, to navigate the tunnels and find my way back into day.

The actual subway car is the most compact. At rush hour I don’t have to hold onto a bar or grip. I’m blocked in on every side by Chinese, just slightly swaying with those around me amid the stop and go. One red-head in a sea of black grass. It’s hot and stuffy. And it makes the transit seem longer. After awhile I feel we’re melting together, like black licorice packed too tightly and left in the sun. I peel away at my stop, relieved at the sudden rush of air.

Pitter Patters in the Ceiling

In Beijing I went for a massage. Normal enough. I picked out a little beauty parlour on a dodgy street because I wanted to save some money. First mistake. The girl that was going to give it was wearing a black minnie skirt and stillettos. But most Chinese women wear incredibly uncomfortable heels all day every day, so that was normal too.
 
She took me to a back room, private, and had me lay down on a circus peach coverlet that hadn’t been washed since 1987. Then she proceeded to touch me. Or slap me on the leg, whichever, it wasn’t a massage. More what my little niece would do to get my attention if I was ignoring her. Maybe the girl knew she wasn’t any good and wanted to make up for it . . . so she climbed up onto the peachy thing with me, sitting herself between my legs. She took one and laid it over her own. At this point I could see her underwear . . . and when she began to massage my arm my hand was way too close to her . . . for comfort. When it came time for the other arm she didn’t move around the table; just leaned over real close until our faces were almost touching. She told me I was beautiful.
 
And that was when I bounced up . . . thanking her for the lovely time, paying her, and then exiting as fast as I could. That was two firsts for me. The first time I’ve been groped by a girl, and the first time I’ve paid for the services of a Chinese prostitute.
 
* * * * * *
 
Then in Kathmandu, I dropped off every piece of clothing I owned to a laundry service called “Asian” laundry. Two minutes later, I had already forgotten where it was, but I didn’t worry, how many laundry services could there be in this part of the city?
 
Three days later . . . wearing the same outfit . . . still looking. Apparently there are a great many laundry services in Thamel. I walked around the streets for hours every day checking every one. I really wanted my underwear back. And wasn’t looking forward to the radically different, size -0 Asian undies I saw in the windows.
 
Four days later . . . wearing the same outfit . . . I recruit six Nepalese guys to help me find it. Seven of us look for three hours. But don’t find it. I think I recognize something that night, but its closed.
 
Five days later . . . wearing the same outfit . . . (you have to understand, everything for sale was hippy, with elf cowls and the marijuana plant pasted all over, I couldn’t bring myself to wear them). I pick-up my laundry.
 
* * * * * *
 
In Chitwan National Park, (it’s a refuge for rhinos, tigers, and bears), I checked into a guesthouse that looked ok. The first night its raining, or at least I think it is. I hear pitter patters all night but sleep well. The second night, it definitely isn’t raining, and I still hear little pitter pattering in the thatch roof. So many in fact that it could be raining . . . except that I hear the little pitter patters collide and squeal every few minutes. But my roommate and I are too tired to change guesthouses and besides, are expectations are so low by now after traveling through Tibet, so we stay.
 
During the night I hear the water bottle get knocked over on the floor, then my bag, propped against the wall, falls down. I realize that there are little pitter patters on the floor below the bed, not just in the roof. I turn on my flashlight and see holes in the thatch roof, just big enough for something to squeeze through. One right above my head. But I can’t catch a glimpse of anything. So I fall back asleep. (Amazingly I know).
 
In the morning we tell the owners. They know already and seem unconcerned. “Rats” they say. They have them too, in their rooms. They tell us we should get used to the extra company.

Nearer the Earth

Kathmandu is a paradox. At times I feel the most human. And at times I feel like a commodity, someone or something to be exploited, used. Walking into Thamel in the heart of the city, where most foreigners stay, you’re barraged by beggars, little children, cripples, young mothers with their babies on their backs asking for milk. And it never lets up. The next wave are those wanting to sell you pre-packaged tours to the countryside. Countryside that doesn’t need a tour to be seen. And if it isn’t these, it is young men hoping for a thrill with a pretty white girl, or even better, a white girl that will marry them so they can have a green card.
 
I feel like my humanness is erased and in its place is a dollar sign. To be obtained by the person who can manipulate, persuade, squeeze, or simply tire me the most.
 
And yet, at second-take, you look past the brightly clad, spotless, Nepalese women, the exotic smells, and the shiny wares for sale, realizing that the streets are dirt, the children are dust-covered, garbage lines the roadways, and theres an underlying stench of something clearly unhygenic. What I took for eagerness to sell, now seems more like desperation. And perhaps I can’t blame them for treating me this way. 
 
But there are other moments.
 
Like when the guard at the hotel salutes me every time I enter the courtyard like I’m the first person he’s seen in a long while.
 
Like the 70-year-old cleaning lady at the hotel who greets me every morning when I wake-up. Who notices my habits, what kind of covers I like, and begins to make-up my room that way. Who shows me how to get my laundry done, who takes such pleasure in serving.
  
Like the young woman who came and carried my bags up the hillside after a long day of shopping and laundry.
 
On the whole, they are a kind and sincere people. Nearer the Earth I think than we are. Humble, looking for an opportunity to rise.

Mountains like Old Wisdom

It took two bumpy, trying, exhausting days to reach Kathmandu. It started in Tingri, a forsaken place, where we hired a truck to take us to the Nepalese border. The driver spoke little English. And the other two companions, Australian and Singaporean, spoke little and seemed to be the type that things happen to, not people that make things happen.  

The first six hours I was trapped, listening to a collection of the world’s worst music. Mexican techno, Tibetan folk rock, Asian house. But it got better. The highway (if it can be called that) from Tibet to Nepal winds its way through huge mountain passes. A winding of rocky, muddy road that sheep herders use more than cars. And here I saw views I’ve only imagined.  

I remember looking in museums at the Chinese parchment paintings of landscapes larger-than-life. Of mountains dwarfing small fishermen and farmers; mists clinging to their tops like old wisdom. And here I felt like I had stepped back hundreds of years into those paintings. And I was the smallish figure in the foreground.  Waterfalls fell down the green mountainside, brightly white, like fresh ribbons of silk. And you heard the water, and the baying of hundreds of mountain sheep, which I helped herd off the road so that our truck could pass. The height, the sheerness, the massiveness of the mountain, its mystery. Didn’t leave you intimidated. But wondering.

Warm Yak Butter Tea

Tibet‘s people are gracious and patient and smiling. Such a surprise given their hard history these past 100 years. They must have such resentment against the Chinese who have hoisted their flags everywhere in Tibet, including the top of the sacred potala (the home of the exiled dalai llama). But they show none of it.
 
I hiked Everest over a four-day trek. Eight days in all including driving. I was sick most of the time. When my hands started to turn purple and my arms and hands turned to sausages from swelling, I knew something was wrong. I had a migrain most nights from the altitude. But I made it. Along with 5 others. One Israeli, another American Chinese, and three Dutchmen.
 
We spent one night in the home of a Tibetan nomad family. It was a tiny village in one of hundreds of valleys in the Himalayas. Completely isolated. The home was made of cement walls and dirt floors. But the outside windows were decorated in the usual bright red and blue paint of the Tibetans. And the inside was warm and cheery–they kept a stove burning and served warm yak butter tea. The room we slept in had no light, only dirt floors and dried goat feet and horns–so I pitched my small tent. I have done that a few times, at hostels where the insect population outnumbered humans 100-1.
 
There was a young girl, about 15, who took especial interest in my beauty routine. I don’t think she had ever seen so many lotions and tubes, and unnecessary products. She stared unabashedly at me all morning and then would laugh with her brother-in-law. After pinning me as a very girly girl, she mimed for nail polish. I fished some out and gave it to her. She inspected the bright pink liquid and satisfied, she tucked it into the folds of her long skirt. I think she will enjoy it more than me.

Llasa Express

I unscrewed the cap on my lip gloss and all the pinky juice went squirting everywhere! I guess that’s when you know you’ve reached the top of the world.  The highest point during my grueling 48 hour trainride to Tibet was 5,000 meters. The highest mountain in the Alps, Mt. Blanc is 4800 meters. I think Mt. Mckinley is the same. So we’ve literally been traveling along the skyline. Which explains why the landscape is completely bare, no trees, not one in 24 hours. The environment is stark and austere but the color of the sky makes up for it. It’s the clearest blue I’ve ever seen. It looks like new. Like it’s the first day of the world and we’re the first to be in it.

  I’m relieved to be in Llasa. I shared a cabin with four others the first night. Three of them Han Chinese who snored abominably, spit on the floor, and . . . smelled funny. The last part was the final straw. So I cabin hopped after that. The best part came when a Chinese man tugged on my sleeve saying “Miss, your skirt”, then pointed to my exposed flourescent green and fuschia pink underwear (gap’s colors last season). Somehow in trying to use the squatters I had managed to tuck my skirt into the waist. Mortified, I realized I had already walked the length of three cable cars. I hurried and changed hoping no one would recognize me. Somehow I think it was a hopeless case.  

And I think the worst part was the noise. Not the talking or the snoring. But the spitting, if it can be called that. It’s different from what we think of as spitting for a number of reasons. First they must gather all available, free, fluids in their body, as evident by the long, drawn out, startlingly loud preparation. Then, they must find a suitable place to aim. Preferably, in your line of walking, or on your shoe.  But their generosity almost makes up for it. They are always offering me strange sausages I can’t identify, which I’m too polite to turn down.But seriously. They do go out of their way to take care of me. Even when we can’t understand each other, a conductor will find me in a crowded room to make sure I board the right train, or they’ll give up their seat in a crowded train so that I can sit. They are extremely generous and sincere.

Ray Charles and the New York Skyline

So I’ve had some cumbaiah moments. (Nevermind that I have no idea how to spell cumbiah). Ironically, while in the middle of Shanghai today on my own I thought of nothing but America. I just finished an American novel about growing up in Brooklyn and I listened to Ray Charles’ America the Beautiful all day. I imagined the New York horizon and appreciated it like I never have.
 
All the flack I get for being American . . . my accent, my government, our ways, really makes me evaluate whether or not I appreciate being American. And I do! I love being American! Sometimes I think it takes leaving someone or something behind to make you see it for the first time. The Brits, the French, the rest, they seem to have no respect for us. But I know instinctively that if a country’s way of life was threatened, there would be no people on Earth who would jump to defend it so whole-heartedly, so willingly, so joyously as the Americans would America. We ooze criticism and sigh and moan about what it has become . . . but I know we all love it as fiercely as we sometimes hate it. Because it is a magical country. Born of dreams. Made real and defended by indefatiable tenacity.
 
I get the same flack for being Mormon. I’ve never experienced prejudice before. It is my first sampling. Now I know how ethnics feel in a small way. It is a very unpleasant experience knowing someone willingly misunderstands you and defines you in unflattering, uncompromising ways. It makes me evaluate that too.

Shanghai eats me alive

I’m here to inform you that bikes are the greatest cause of death in China. (Well at least it seems to me). Every day, every hour, it looks like a bike race or bike-a-thon. Old women, young ladies, old men, middle-aged men, all on rickety-rusted piece-oh-hud, squeaky bikes that you couldn’t pay someone to take off your hands. They come at you in hordes . . . Occasionally I’ll get stuck between the mess of them and panic, skipping between them, like frogger. The worst part is that you can’t really predict their movement. The biking hordes don’t abide by traffic lights. I rented one this weekend (in no better condition) and rode it around almost taking out a cop and a woman with shopping bags talking on her cell phone. (It didn’t have any brakes).  

If I’m not killed by a bike, I probably will be by a car. The traffic rules (if there are any, I can’t really tell), are reversed here. Pedestrians are to stop for cars. By no means at any time, for any reason is a car supposed to stop for a pedestrian. There are strict laws against this. As I realized the other day when a bus came at me at 50 mph without any intention of slowing down. I watched it loom closer . . . but luckily I remembered it was my responsiblity to move and not theirs. I remembered just in time . . .  

China must have its beauty. But I’m having a hard time finding it. Or maybe it just takes someone with a better eye than myself. Maybe it takes more time. Or maybe I have to work harder or look in different places. I do love some of the people here. But you have to go outside of Shanghai to see friendly faces for the most part. I don’t know why big cities tend to kill everyone’s humanity. Shanghai wants to become an international city, but it isn’t there yet. It isn’t like HongKong or Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. It has a hard time welcoming its foreigners despite our number. It is still very much Chinese– but without the saving grace of its traditional culture. It is all hard lines and concrete. It is all buzz and no rhythm. Once you’ve discovered and walked under all of its impressive architecture you find that Shanghai lacks imagination.

Disneyland . . . but not.

So I’ve decided that living in China is sort of like Disneyland. Except no rides. So your left with the heat, the crowds, and the lines. Well and maybe no lines. The concept of the line never occurred to the Chinese. It’s more of a bull-charge, offensive, elbows flying sort of a deal, and the last man standing wins. Even when I finally get to the window at Mcdonald’s . . . a little lady will usually butt in front of me. Or if I do catch a seat on the subway, someone will sit on me.

And then there’s the spitting . . . it’s amazingly noisy and involves processes I never knew about. But my favorite is the squatters. The toilets that are porcelain holes in the ground you have to squat over when you can find toilet paper. Even when you do find Western toilets you can’t sit on them because of the footprints on the seat. I don’t know how you can squat on our toilets but there it is. 

But my culture shock is starting to wear off and I’m actually enjoying myself. I’ve met quite a few internationals and have seen many sights in the city. Shanghai is actually really cool because there are so many posh restaurants and cafes and day-bars, that are affordable, even cheap. The city is always surprising you.