Global Nomad Travel

Kathmandu to New Delhi, India

03/24/10

While in the shower, I realized I could probably make a great living as an actor who specialized in commercial that require a character that has immense difficulty performing simple tasks: At least, this was the case traveling. Guesthouse showers have been making people feel moderately stupid for at least 50 years.

I had no chocie but to enter the shower bent over like a hunchback and a lonely prisoner’s dream, but without the blonde wig on, although wearing one might have been fun. I could barely turn on the showerhead, the heat would not turn on and found shampooing my hair near impossible. Something had happened to me while sleeping.

There was a sharp pain in my back as if metal fists were drilling into the muscle through to my rib cage. Somehow, almost unknowingly and seemingly from nothing, my back infused with pain. It was the same confusion I had as a Grade 8 boy when something used to pop up for nothing at all. “Not again!” Ah memories. This often happens to backpackers - back pain, not having an erection in public, just to clarify - from sleeping in worn-out beds without any proper support. Throughout the trip, Boxie-boo and I often rolled into each other sleeping, as our weight on an old bed caused turned the mattress into a taco. The last time I felt this hurt was after I was hit by a drunk driver who was driving on the wrong side of the road in Canada who smashed into my buddy’s SUV, causing us to roll into a gas station. On this day, a slight bend or turn, even a degree of angle while flexing a sexy pose, sent me into debilitating shock. I usually don’t feel pain when I’m being sexy, just sexiness, so it was a strange morning, nevertheless. My Tiger Balm later became my savior…at least for a couple hours.

If you pictured me in the shower, please note, Boxie-boo made me trim my nipple hair, I often lather my whole body shampoo and I had the facial expression of a grumpy child – arms crossed to try to heat myself with my lips extremely tight and closed, my tactic to avoid taking in any of the water that could cause traveler’s diarrhea or something worse. My legs constantly twitched, while my entire body vibrated, shivering uncontrollably.

Within a minute the entire bathroom was flooded since the building had poor plumbing. The water would not heat at the Garuda Hotel, bringing no relief from my pain. I toughed it out, rubbing ice cold water on my body, bending as little as possible to avoid agony, showing a complete disregard for my Mr. Chubbs, who apparently, was in the process of disappearing. Had Boxie-boo walked in during this moment, she may have asked me what my gender was. Shivering, I washed as quickly as my feeble state would allow, occasionally kicking away the garbage can that floated into my ankles, moaning from the throbbing pain, trying not to slip on the flooded floor, all the while, managing to balance without a penis.

At the airport, our bags were checked four times before boarding our plane. The airport had separate lines for men and women. For every 30-or-so men, there was one woman, which meant Boxie-boo spent a majority of the afternoon waiting for me to pass each checkpoint. This was no surprise. It was not until December 2005 that the Supreme Court of Nepal ruled that women no longer needed their parents’ or husband’s permission to apply for a passport. Although the laws had changed, the culture had not. This means that Nepali men are far more likely to travel than women. I think Boxie-boo secretly enjoyed watching the security officials pat me down. They seemed to enjoy it themselves, although, they showed little amused when I winked and never joined in my girlish giggling. I talked briefly with a young father who had a baby and told him his child was cute. Until I realized he was on the same flight as me crying. I then decided his baby was stupid.

The third time I was padded down, the security officer figured out my terrorist plot - give the pilot a Tiger Balm back massage, relax him, then take over the plane and smash it into the Taj Mahal. Wa-hahahahaha!

“No take,” he said, with a stern face, as if I had just asked to take his daughter out to dinner and he knew I had no penis and therefore could not give him any grandchildren. I used my usual handy trick and began playing the role dumb foreigner or the pathetic person from a commercial: When he was talking to me, I nodded and then thought about other stuff. Walking away, he placed his hand on my shoulder.

“No take,” he said again, confusing me this time, because he gave me a comforting smile.

It was the only medicine I needed, so I fought back. “Are you serious? Tiger Balm? My watch is more dangerous.” Again, his response was “No take.” He then placed it on the table beside him, the only item confiscated. Meanwhile, a man in front of me walked by with a metal framed umbrella, another with a wooden cane used for style, as the young man was fit and walking without putting any weight on it. When the Tiger Balm wore out mid-flight, I spent the entire ride sitting with the best posture of my life, moving on my hands and my neck only to avoid the aching agony, listening to a crying, stupid baby.

The Delhi airport was very modern, organized and easy to navigate. Custom officials were friendly and quick, although my guy held me up for a bit as he said I looked nothing like my clean shaven, short-haired and suit wearing passport photo.

“He hasn’t shaved for a while,” Boxie-boo said, the guard looking at me peculiar, as if I was wearing a dress.

“I also don’t smell as good,” I joked. He squinted, as if trying to divide pie by the square root of this-guy-is-an-idiot.

“Okay,” he responded, handing me back my passport, and with that gesture, we had entered India, our eight country to date.

My back was still sore, so we wheeled our bags on the airport carts, later greeted by a man holding a sign with my name spelt incorrectly. After stressful landings in other countries, we aimed for the rest of the trip to use guesthouses and hostels that offer airport pickup. He drove like a 16-year-old boy, swerving through traffic constantly to maybe save us a couple minutes on the drive. Like other parts of Asia, the painted lines were meaningless, people honked constantly and there were no flying pigs in sight. At red lights, beggars came up, while young kids tried to sell us giant wooden pencils. An hour later, we arrived at the Ajanta Hotel, two nights free including airport transfer, thanks to our travel agent at STA Travel.

The hum of the air-conditioner. Another small guest house room with only enough floor space for a mattress. It was the early evening after another long day traveling, so we decided to relax.

We had not only a working T.V., but one with a couple English-speaking channels, including H to the flippin’ B to the O. We were stoked, as sad as that is to admit, as we both love movies and it was nice to take a break from the chaos of the third world for a night and simply do nothing. We were in the comfort zone. We even treated ourselves to room service, including butter and tandoori chicken, with a side of rice, another of cucumber. we high-fived at all these free comforts. I had eaten so much butter chicken that halfway through, I could not remember a time when I was not eating butter chicken. I did remember to ask Boxie-boo for a tip and she told me, “Be careful when you zip.”

Nothing could ruin our spirits. We laughed when the air-conditioner - the first one we had since Thailand - conked out, leaving behind the smell of elephant farts. We laughed when the power to our lights went out mid-meal, leaving us in darkness while grabbing for our meat like cavemen. And we laughed again, this time when the power went out to our television, right at the climax of the first movie we had watched since Chengdu, China. We had been through this all before and I felt prepared, even confident that the two of us were ready to take on India.

I had organized our itinerary to build up for this country, our halfway point, as if its reputation was true, the culture shock slaps you right in the face constantly. We had already walked outside and seen the poverty, been hit with aggressive salesmen and beggars. We had been through this in other countries, from Thailand and Cambodia, to parts of China and almost every street in Nepal. In India, the heat was hotter and the population was over 1.1 Billion. As confident as I was, looking back, I realize we had no idea what we were in for.

That’s all for now.

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Pokhara to Kathmandu

03/22/10

“Are you a safe driver?” I asked the driver, examining his eyes. “Yes,” he nodded, then closed his eyes, giving me the same glowing smile a five-year-old gives when asked if he’s Superman. “We have precious cargo, you understand?” I asked, pointing at Boxie-boo. He looked confused, as if I had just told him I was pregnant with dinosaurs and she was the father. I asked Phil, the owner of Phil’s Guesthouse who recommended the driver, to relay my statement and remind him to be careful. This message in a bottle was lost at sea, later discovered by pirates who used it to make rum, then got drunk and sank to Davie Jones Locker. I realized this within minutes of watching our driver’s hands grip the wheel, turning him completely, and utterly, insane.

In his mind, I imagined, the driver was running from a war zone while being chased by a helicopter firing bazookas. The result: He broke late in mid-corners, the tires squealing and near locking up, sliding Boxie-boo and I together in the backseat, smashing my face into the window. He could have been a rally driver on time trials, bouncing the car over potholes, turning his suspension into mush. The taxi swayed like a boat white water rafting, knocking my head into the ceiling, causing my stomach to be pinched by the seatbelt.

“Please slow down,” I said, the first time politely.

His shifting was about as smooth as a Prairie Fire - a tequila shot topped with tobasco sauce - is on the stomach. My breakfast from Be Happy Restaurant was unhappy. The eggs had hatched in my stomach and the baby chicks were flapping their wings, flying through my bowels. I even thought I heard them chirping, until I realized it was actually the sound of us bottoming out so badly the tires were squeaking high-pitched against the car, while the metal frame scraped across the pavement.

Passing a sluggish truck, he turned us directly into oncoming traffic ever-so-slowly, before jerking back into our lane right before a head-on collision. In this moment, I knew, without a doubt that one day this driver would die behind the wheel. I did not care whether I offended him or not. I did not want to be there when it happened. I began taking backseat driver to the next level out of fear for our lives. This driving tactic continued – from speeding recklessly, to going slowly in the wrong lane, even through blind corners.

Each time I told him to slow down, it lasted five minutes tops. It was the first time in my life I was motion sick in a car without a hangover. I was going to puke and told Liam, who asked Mr. Madman to pull over. On the side of the highway, I swallowed my nausea medicine, then waited for Nepal to stop spinning around me. I was so stiff and tight from fear, I could almost hear my butthole tightening. Standing still on the side of the road, I felt the strain of my entire body, which was easy to do, since my brain and I were no longer on speaking terms. I had told myself that hiring a driver would be safer than taking public transit and not too expensive. I walked aimlessly on the side of the road, venting to Liam who tried to calm me down.

At this point, we had a solid four hours left to go before making it to Kathmandu.

“I’m gonna kill him,” I told Liam. “I am going to rip him out of the car and drive it myself. He has near sent us off the cliff a dozen times and almost caused at least five head-on collisions.”

Back on the road, our driver had calmed down for at least a few minutes. I thought he had finally come to his senses, until I realized he was not even paying attention to the road. Mr. Madman was busy searching his glove box and other holder areas, before he began throwing his cassette tapes out the window while trying to dial a number on his cellphone. Meanwhile – while skidding us into corners and constantly bottoming out, cutting off cars and coming within inches off the cliff edge – he showed us one of his favourite things to do on a long drive. He ironically liked to point at road-side wrecks, from rolled trucks, fire-burnt taxis to de-capitated buses, as if to say we should be careful. I hoped he wasn’t foreshadowing.

Take a hint you moron, I thought.

As we skidded on a late pass, cutting off a massive truck to avoid another head-on collision, while we bottomed out hard, my head slammed into the window and then the ceiling, almost simultaneously. I again asked him to slow down, this time sternly. By sternly, I mean I was screaming and cursing, while control the urge to not use the back of his seat as a punching bag.

He did slow down. I realized this was not a good thing because he lacked common sense.

The only time Mr. Madman went slowly was when he passed cars right before blind corners, then often in them, the engine bogging by his inability to drive a manual car properly. He was too stupid to down shift gears. Within a few meters of one blind corner, he bogged the engine, going 35 km/h in fourth gear. The one time we would have wanted him to go fast was while passing, but that was the one time he went slow, causing my nails to dig into the seat and every hole in my body to tighten, making me look ready to disappear into a puff of smoke.

“Please stay on our side of the road on blind corners,” I said, leaned forward between the two front seats, pointing with two open hands for extra effect. I never thought I’d have to tell someone this on a two-way highway with one lane in each direction, where there were no railings, massive steep cliffs and gravel, with only the occasional honk for our protection from certain death.

Minutes later, he swerved through a village at 90 km/h dodging children.

I. Lost. It.

Completely.

“Slow down you maniac, there’s children!” I screamed, adding in words that rhymed with duck and bucking. In response, his head shaked from side to side - the Nepalese way to say okay – while he honked at the kids. I swore I heard a rattling sound in my state of rage; his small brain bagging against his near empty skull. Had I choked him, his ears would have released a sound similar to a squeezed rubber ducky. For the rest of the drive, I took backseat driving as seriously as an erection problem, which looking back, may have possibly saved our lives. I literally would be surprised to find out that he was still alive today.

As we began to climb another steep road that would deposit us into Kathmandu Valley, we came to a grinding halt. We have found ourselves at a traffic jam outside the city that had us traveling no more than 20 km/h for well over two hours. Although tiring and time consuming, a part of me was glad.

I knew we had made it to Kathmandu when Boxie-boo spotted a bicycle covered in live chickens, dangling from their tied feet off the handlebars. I praised the gods for our survival, from Zeus to Allah, to Wayne Gretzsky and Oprah Winfrey. As he helped to lift out backpacks from the trunk, I looked down and discovered he was unable to tie shoelaces. We had put our lives in the hands of a man wearing Velcro shoes.

We grabbed a room at Hotel Garuda in the Thamel district, amid the madness of the “Seven Corners” - an area of Kathmandu for foreigners packed with restaurants, lodging, stores and Internet cafes. I talked down our room from 2500 Rupees per night to 3500 Rupees for two ($75 Canadian/US). It was not a great price, but we were too exhausted from being on edge driving for hours, from dealing with aggressive salespeople as we walked into the guest house, while at the same time, men grabbed our wrists to buy Tiger Balm and others attempted to guide us into their shops with gentle pushes.

At night, two hours later after refusing to move from the bed, we headed outside to discover a group of Nepalese blocking the entrance to our guest house. Traffic in the alley-wide street was at a standstill. Everyone was laughing. I stood above the short Nepalese men and peered out onto the street, telling Boxie-boo to stand behind me for protection. I thought this might have been a Maoist demonstration. A fight was lit up by stilled motorcycles, their headlights illuminating two larger men who had pinned down a small man, maybe 120 pounds. They pounded his ribs and face into the concrete, beside a small pile of garbage that was kicked by his flailing legs. The locals continued laughing. It was a two-on-one beat down. I was not amused.

“I’m pulling them off,” I said, moving through the crowd in a swimming motion. On my way, I saw the build of the young man, maybe in his early twenties, looking thin like a Grade 8 boy. A Good Samaritan pulled him out, dragging him against the concrete - and he ran. I followed an Internet cafe employee into his shop, who laughed out loud with each step.

“You think it’s funny?” I asked. He smiled in response. “Those guys easily outweighed that guy by 50 pounds each. I outweigh you by about 50,” I said, glaring down at him. “Would it be funny if I pounded you into the concrete?” His smile diminished. “No, it wouldn’t be,” I said.

Back in our room, I felt bad for scaring the guy. I just hate violence, especially when two people beat on the small and weak. Maybe I was still grumpy from the drive, annoyed by the salespeople, hungry, exhausted and pissed off by own exhaustion. Regardless, there was nothing funny about two men beating a small one. I will never forget the two sounds battling for control of my understanding – a crowd laughing, while one man yelped, coming up for air in agony between blows.

Maybe I would have felt different, I suppose, if the man had been wearing Velcro shoes.

That’s all for now.

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Kathmandu to Chitwan

03/16/10

As the bus bounced from the top of each hill the Himalayan wind tore through the ceiling, and at times, removed my hat, spraying occupants with slashing filth and the inhale of powdered rocks. The dust rose so strongly on the unpaved sections of the Nepal highway that neighboring trees were turned grey, appearing like a black and white photo. Out front was the crest of narrow cliff edges, a far-reaching tumultuous region, covered in loose rock and wind-driven bursts. It some ways it was marvellous, this play of low level clouds, the shifting of dust, wild with light; the sun illuminated greys and whites and sparkling the jagged edges of sharpened stones. The bus swayed with the balance of an untamed drunk, learning along each cliff edge spitting rocks down 2,000-plus meter cliffs, launched pebbles into an abyss turned grey and blackened by the dust that entered our windows.

The shocks wallowing, the brakes yelping for the mercy from steep and tight downhill corners, the transmission painfully trembling, each window pulsating, the scraping of rubber, bending, breaking away, shattering against the unforgiving road, each sound, united and battling, overpowered all my other senses. All colours were consumed by these distractions, the sounds. Below me, small stones bounced by feet, jumping up above my ankles. Each wrinkling of plastic, the bending and pop of metal, shot against my skin with electrifying volts. The rapid-fire falsetto of the rocks shackling on the undercarriage, the lost colour of the sky, waves of grey, the stone images of trees, and below, the foaming white of violent rivers, altogether, were jagged with piercing reverberations, colliding against the raging wind, leaving many passengers fearfully laughing: An expression of humour, tragedy and contempt, all released in hushed, fearful whispers.

Our ride from Kathmandu to Chitwan started at 7 a.m. at a bus stop crowded with backpackers and salesmen. The dyed hair, the never-shaved faces, the combat-damaged, the runaways, the drug runners, men possessed by no jobs, all of us homeless, the condemned, immigrants, explorers and photographers, and the not so far removed, the often drug and boozed haunted, giant meatless skeletons, and tiny ones, too, all shapes from all over the global, united by being foreign. In Nepal and India, it was common for us to come across many drifters and nomads who tried to look more backpackerish by having a couple dreads or randomly shaving one section of their head, almost always wearing baggy, pajama-like pants. I figured they did this to stand out, but they often looked the same, except one guy sporting a 1980’s rat tail and two Jamaican flag tubes jetting out of his chin pubes. He glared at me for having western clothes. I smiled and said, “Nice horns” before he boarded a private tour bus packed with tourists while we jumped on public transit. Locals in India later told me they found it offensive when foreigners dressed in worn, tattered and unflattering clothes, as they felt the western’s attempt to blend in mocked their poverty.

So many things had become routine for us. Boxie-boo reserved us a seat that looked down towards where baggage was stored so we could lookout for potential theft at “unplanned” rest stops, while I waited outside to watch the luggage compartment close before boarding the bus – these tactics, to ensure we arrived with our bags. A day before we had already prepared our snacks and food for the bus, charged up all batteries and had our bags packed, ready to be unlocked from their place against the bed frame before being placed on our shoulders. We knew the direction we had to head to get to the bus station before leaving our guest house, our tickets were laid out and our money belts hidden below our waists, always double checked for the essentials – passports, immunization records, etc.

Once we were out of the city, we climbed up and down the twisting highway, leaving the Kathmandu Valley behind us. The highway was tight, causing our driver to stop when the road was shared with other large vehicles. They slowly passed each other, sometimes turning their mirrors flat against their vehicle’s frames to make enough room. I helped by doing nothing. My specialty. My Dad taught me how to do this every night as a child while my Mom cooked.

Railings were limited or non-existent, standing a maximum of two-feet high, preventing only only small boulders from shooting off the cliff, where they collected the spray of dust. Construction trucks, hand-painted with dangling balls on the steering wheels, continuously passed. Their horns sounded like high-pitched adolescent elephants reaching puberty. I looked closely to see if their second exhaust pipe had dropped, while they cracked multiple, bizarre and out-of-tune notes. It was either a recording of moose in heat or the sound Dumbo would make before crash landing. While people around me started to relax, I found myself fixated on the deadly, unprotected cliff faces below us, the doom and gloom oblivion of guaranteed death, waiting to tumble down the mountainside, across sharp rocks to my demise. This way, I knew I would be ready for it to happen and this way it would not. It was quite the burden for me to be able to control situations with my manic alertness, but it felt good to save so many lives.

During our long haul, the bus driver pulled the usual income-earning tactic by stopping as various places for “breaks,” which were always markets. At one stop, we watched a Nepalese woman buy 20-plus oranges for 80 Rupees (about $1 Canadian/US). This same gentleman tried to sell us six for 100 Rupees. I knew that foreigners pay more, it is inevitable, but this increase was ridiculous so I refused. Six-and-a-half hours later, including a few seconds, we arrived in a gravel parking, an open field surrounded by tall grasses, located a short distance away from a sign that warned about wild tiger. I growled outside the window, but was relaxed, when some round Germans got off that I knew I was faster than. Plus, I looked less appetizing. Canadians are too mixed to taste good, same as cheap hotdogs.

Getting off the bus, my clothes stuck to my back, revealing my figure to a group of men yelling while holding up cards. I pretended, in my boredom, they were betting on me for a date at an auction…100, 200, etc. In actuality, they were holding up various signs for guest houses. In my delirious state, possibly mildly heat stroked, I followed Boxie-boo’s lead as she spotted a guy with the Rainbow Safari Resort catalogue. The term ‘resort’ is used lightly, as I later learned our stay with limited electricity and running water also included free bed bugs. We jumped in the back of a truck with no roof and bounced our way down the rapids of side streets.

At the “Resort”, we were greeted with mango juice. Lunch was tomato soup (good) and a vegetarian burger with one bun (horrible). Liam was still recovering from a night praying to the porcelain goddess, Boxie-boo’s stomach was still adjusting and I was walking around armed with Pepto Bismol just in case. Needless to say, we weren’t feeling the fake meat, but forced some of it down.

Our rainbow cottage was located inside Chitwan National Park. It was a quiet place. The only sounds by our cottage-like room were birds chirping and Boxie-boo humming the notes to “Final Countdown.” At 4 p.m., we met in the cook house before our first outing. Although our cottage came with a lock, I also added mine to the door, another routine that I did without thinking.

Our guide Kumar led the way through to the village, stopping at a large patch of wild marijuana plants, growing naturally a few feet from our cottage. I have a few buddies back home (Bumpy, Frodo, Ghetto Cowboy, Sir Darkness) to name a few, who probably would have been so excited by this sight, they would have stocked up with Dorritos, replaced the English language with the word “dude” and set up a tent next to the field. It was a pot head’s heaven on Earth.

Stopping at a hut built on straw, bamboo and mud, Kumar explained these houses are often destroyed during the monsoon season. “Only the richer people have homes with brick,” he said. He referred to these people as the “Chitwan Malaria People” due to their ability to develop their own defenses against the disease, like smoking out the bugs every night by cooking indoors. While Kumar continued, the family ignored us, continuing to eat and pump water from a well. It made me feel a bit strange; to have a guide point at people and talk about them in a language they could not understand. I worried about invading their privacy.

Originally from India, Kumar explained, the Chitwan people originally lived in the mountain jungles, before moving inland. They lived mostly off the land through farming. They also believe, Kumar noted, that if they eat spicy food, their blood will be too hot for the malaria-infecting mosquitoes.

Walking down the street, we passed an orphanage and a small hut called “Meat Shop.” Across from the butcher, local men worked together driving a large pole into the ground to build a well. Beside them, a woman walked by whacking a goat with a stick. Everybody seemed to know each other, many waved, offering each other help, while walking door to door to make small trades. A feeling of community rose in the air and you could feel that each person worked together and genuinely cared for their neighbors…but not the goats so much.

“Namaste,” many locals said to one and another. To show respect, I said it back, with my hands bowed together in a prayer position, bowing slightly. It is an important greeting here, one that honestly makes you feel genuinely welcome in a village where time has almost stood still for centuries.

But not everything was beautiful.

It was a common in Chitwan to come across villages with elephants attached to wooden posts, their ankles chained, their bodies pulling away, trying to break away for freedom, some hollering out depressed moans. One elephant’s head continuously swayed back and forth, seemingly gone mad and I stayed far away, extremely fearful of the massive mammal. We were told they are walked each day to feed in the jungle, had social events and were well taken care of, but still, a part of me felt bad for the animals, especially since I knew I was supporting this financially. We were only two days away from riding them ourselves.

That’s all for now.

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Burning Bodies, Kathmandu

03/15/10

My eyes must be playing a trick on me, I thought, paused mid-step, asleep in my own thoughts, inside myself fully awake, at this place by a river in what seemed to exist within a dream. Before me, smoke floated with black shining feathers, seizing each of my sense one by one, surrounding me like echoing expressions: The faces amongst the smoke, where like apparitions, these men walked, appearing pulled forward by the sweeping wings of death. The smoke. In this strange nocturnal world, there were a hundred variations of shadow, a calming, inconsistent wave of smoke, where through the incoming heat and smouldering flames, six men, six different expressions, carried a recognizable image through the fog, dark and dense, moving past me without eye contact; their shoulders holding the shape of a human body, wrapped tightly in a yellow blanket. This cannot be, I thought, the pulse in my wrist jumping, while the ash landed against my skin.

The air became thicker with smoke as we entered a bridge overlooking the Bagmati River, where along the shorelines covered in garbage, more bodies wrapped in yellow sheets were spotted, some carried by men casually smoking cigarettes. There, ricocheting down this fiery corridor of stacked blazing wood, the sleepless blood – heated by erupting flames – lugged through the veins of the dead one last time, boiling, while the pungent hellish stink of smoke resided and my understanding of death crumbled. I looked at the transition we will all face, naked and open, where bodies burned, children played and mothers scrubbed clothing on the shoreline opposite, all of them smiling obliviously to burning of human flesh nearby. Feeling as though we, the three foreigners, were the only ones to react to the blazing bodies, left me feeling out of place, as if we were unseen ghosts hallucinating amongst the living.

It is along these shorelines of the Bagmati River near the Pashupatinath Temple where “Ara Ghat” resides, the most widely used place of cremation in Nepal. It was a scene set with maddening fire and amused conversations, like looking into the smoking end of a smiling gun, where by the river bodies turned blackened by burning smoke, making the combusting flames appear bone-white on top of the corpse, as if witnessing the departure of a soul. I thought of what is left behind, the dreams and aspirations, and I sensed those solid words and hollow memories, a feeling as though I was eavesdropping on a person’s last thoughts: The secrets heard by lonesome church pew. The prayers of a sleepless night. The words of drawn-out tears.

We stopped on the bridge, listening to locals casually chat nearby. I waited for a silence that never came.

The dead encroached on the living, circle after circle in passing smoulder, creating a wall of smoke almost too dense to breathe in. There was a strange richness in the air I had never experienced before by knowing my body was breathing in the remains of another: Darkened flesh, the boiled and evaporated blood, entered my lungs.

Looking over at Boxie-boo, her eyes hardened wide open, silver and blank, reflecting the smoke. In them, she tackled across each body scorched by the fire and the hot, Nepali sun. She bravely looked on, one by one, at each body lined together in a singular fate, appearing to care for them. There was something that was left unsaid about this setting, where death was faint as dust. Our mutual gestures, her blinking, my blinking, were becoming hypnotic to us both, as if we were dismantling our own understanding of death. There, publically, all the pains of the world were cleansed, all that was known and forgotten felt unlocked and set free, and as her eyes strolled towards the crackling and snapping, we bid them farewell – burn on, burn on – and the pulse in my wrist cooled to a pray-like whisper. Liam, Boxie-boo and I said nothing on the bridge.

A Nepali man tapped my wrist and pointed towards a small building, and I came back, suddenly, back with the living. As we crossed the river with him - a salesmen keen to sell wooden flutes - I looked towards the darkened room he had pointed my direction towards. He explained it was a place where people were waiting to die. I thought about this, trying to somehow rationalize my culture shock. On one hand, I felt sorry for these people, dieing beside one of the most disgusting and garbage-polluted rivers I had ever seen, knowing full well they will burn beside piles of trash. On the other hand, I realized these people would die amongst religious leaders, feeling comforted by their beliefs made stronger in the shade of the Pashupatinath Temple. In the West, people often spend their remaining days in cold, unwelcoming hospitals alone, away from their loved ones. My Great Great Uncle was no different. Maybe, for them, this was a beautiful way to die.

The Pashupatinath Temple is one of the biggest Hindu temples of Lord Shiva - the Hindu destroyer god - in the world and is known as Nepal’s most important Hindu temple. Believers in Pashupatinath are allowed to enter free of charge, while we paid a staggering 500 Rupees each ($6 U.S./Canadian). We did not complain about the price, as many Hindu temples in Nepal were closed to non-believers.

Sitting on the elevated walkway above the river, locals watched the bodies’ burn, seemingly unaffected. Multiple bodies are cremated here every day, and I supposed, this sight was as common for the Nepalese as scooters. In the water, men with what appeared to use rakes moved the garbage around the gentle currents. Above them, monkeys walked along the steps leading to the water’s edge. By the bridge, the monkeys walked amongst the onlookers, sneaking up behind and sometimes successfully stealing their food. As the smoke rose, we decided to hike up the man-made funnel towards more temples; the walkway of white concrete looked as if we walked in the middle of frozen ocean waves that had turned tos tone.

Well above the river, we continued through smaller temples, looking like large tombstones. Religious followers walked by ringing the large bells attached to the stone structures. To combat the monkey population, poles were covered in jagged glass to keep them from climbing. Monkeys seemed to run this section of the city, especially one alpha male, which walked towards me as I attempted to take a closer picture of his temple, before showing me his teeth. I thought of showing him mine as well, but instead, I backed off.

A closer look at these temples revealed small carvings of deities. Some held blankets inside, which we were told we often for final prayers of the sick and dieing. On the outside of other temples, metal bars were positioned to allow followers to hold on while they bowed to their gods. Around the corner, young couples listened to romantic songs on their cellphones, resting their backs against the stone, flirting. This is a strange place for romance, I thought, so close to the river. But this confusion was caused by the mindset of my western upbringing. Death, back home, is behind closed doors. I think this may be one of the reasons it is so feared in our culture. Maybe the Nepalese were onto something, sharing the end of life in public.

After all, many people were happy to relax beside the river, casually watching the bodies’ burn, smiling with their faces in the sun. Businessmen were busy trying to sell souvenirs to tourists; Hindu’s dressed in traditional gowns chatted away, their facial expressions exaggerated by the paint on their faces; children giggled and played tag, couples fell deeper in love; all of them, smiling.

And below them, a smoke-choked river reached up towards the light of the sun. The fire gave nothing for the circling birds to feast on, where the bodies burned without wind in a be-stilled fire, the way stars appear motionless, while they travel at the speed of light. There, grown bright, almost whitened, like the bodies of angels, they departed from the hollowness of shadows, into faltering yellows, orbed into pearls of red glow. The flames alit low with indigo blues, lighting up the happy faces of onlookers. Unseen to us all, was the mistress of music, the nightingale of our last sleep, the widow to our thoughts, amongst the cacophony of crackling fire, above it, beyond, below and through the center, watched by our neon-lit eyes, engulfed in her dancing flames: Death was there, the oldest of the old, and she was a welcomed visitor.

Yet still, something more was happening along these glazed waters - the drifting of the gold-pieced light - where looking at the bodies, I felt I existed within the thin boundary between sleep and waking, between life and what is beyond. I had become a part of the process, sharing a stony grin, bidding my own farewell to them, burn on, burn on.

All those that were cremated that day had likely watched the cremations of others. They had come here, by their own choice, to die, one in the same as those before them and those after, unmasked by the fire, this grinding of stars, to hover in smoke one last time, breathed in to the grinning lungs of the living. Maybe this was the peace here; maybe the crowds sucked away their last tears with their smiles, before turning them away, breathing them outwards to what exists beyond our world here on Earth. I, too, came to realize I would rather die amongst laughing children, romantic lovers and caring mothers, then alone in a hospital bed, before being cremated in the dark of some trapped basement room, cradled by cold rock and a concrete-framed building.

Death was all around them, and by this river, the people were full of life.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

Nepalese Food Adjustment

03/14/10

Before we left on this trip, I had told lots of my friends and Boxie-boo’s our route of travel and flight schedule, which I hoped meant people would join us for various sections of our grand world tour. I did this through email. Some people I emailed twice and pissed off. Then I later emailed everybody again, pissing off the angry ones some more, by letting them know the address to my blog. One friend even told me “Spam me again and I’ll shit on your car” (we’ll call him Doug). Back home, I never felt I had enough authority in my life to say such things. I received a lot of curiosity about the trip and tons of ball busting from my friends, including some soccer teammates, who claimed they had started a gambling pool with each other, where they bet on the date in which Boxie-boo would return home early from the trip without me.

I suppose they were right about having reservations with me taking Boxie-boo around the world in often discomforting and unsanitary conditions. She had it great at home. Her house was always spotless, her mom cooked high quality dinners each night, which Boxie-boo often followed by doing her nails, watching HD television and ridiculous shows like the Jersey Shore or taking long baths surrounded by scented candles. This is not to say she needed to be more outgoing or adventurous – if that were true she would have never agreed to backpack – but it was safe to say the concerns of friends and family were warranted. She had, after all, never backpacked before and never spent so much time away from home. She was also traveling with a man who wore a battered brown hat, baggy and stained shorts, and often, a bright yellow shirt with a bear holding two guns, who was drenched in sweat, with a patchy beard, habitually battling diarrhea and likely smelling like someone drenched in sweat who was battling diarrhea.

Prior to leaving, we were invaded with horror stories about travel from well-meaning friends and family. People had warned us that tourists get shot right outside customs in Johannesburg. They shared stories of travelers having spiders climb into their ears in places like Nepal and India, then months later, their brains giving birth to hundreds of spider babies. They warned me about developing bizarre stomach bugs, waking up missing organs in hostels, getting raped or kidnapped for political reasons, though that never made much sense to me, as I think I would be raped for sexy reasons. While I had backpacked a couple times before in third world countries and been relatively fine, I did my own research on safety at the library with Boxie-boo and felt confident; however, such tales did not really help Boxie-boo, especially when we watched nature shows detailing all the poisonous animals that are home in countries we were set to visit. Like Nepal.

Sitting at an internet café catching up on emails, I received an email from formerly pissed off Doug with a forwarded emailed entitled Monkey Pissing In Its Own Mouth. He had also told me how jealous he was of my trip. I watched the video and laughed. Others that were invited on the trip had said they were following the blog, some even noting how envious they were of our travels. This always felt very ironic to me, such emails, especially from those who said “I wish I could do what you are doing” when I knew they were more than capable. The problem I have always found with people is they get too caught up in their lives to free themselves from the clutches of routine. The idea of budgeting for over a year to save money, only to put your career on hold for six months, was seen as impossible for many people who could, if they put their mind to it, leave their tedious lifestyle for an adventure, if only, somehow, they could find the courage to be in full control of their lives – no bosses, no schedule, no rules.

I was in power now. I no longer had editors telling me what to write and when the story was due. Neither of us had bosses or a work schedule. Boxie-boo and I decided where we were going and what we were doing every single day. We were the ones in control. I had the full authority over my life. I could tell people I was going to shit on their cars. Instead, though, I focused on telling people the truth about traveling through writing, even things they may not want to hear, just not the misplaced organs stuff.

Perhaps, though, this fear has its place. Maybe those that warned us about horrific things, even ridiculous scenarios, helped us to keep safe, but I always found the most comfort in being prepared and educated on where we were visiting. I thought about this in the internet café, thinking of what illness Boxie-boo was battling, while beside me, another tourist’s breathe smelt of old goat cheese. I thought of what little I could do to make her feel better in the morning…

Boxie-boo laid flat on her stomach, her eyes looking at our small travel clock on the bedside table in search of time. The wood creaked as I moved off the bed, down on my knees, entering her sleepy gaze. The filtered light from the curtain made her cheeks a shadow, toned in this darkness, brightening her brown eyes, the dusk settling around us within the sound of the creaking bed. Beside her, two pillows leaned against the backboard. Boxie-boo’s head was against a lump in the sheets. Nothing else, only the two of us and the presence of the untouched pillows below a darkened ceiling.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, rubbing her back. With my hands moving through the incoming sunlight, shadows and glare set her face in movement with each stroke.

There was no tension, a face at comfort with itself. Her eyes grew up, glowed, accustomed to the early morning darkness, where she could see the rounded crown moldings and below it myself kneeling motionless, looking through the blackness towards her. She sat so still that I heard no sounds until I thought of listening for them: I heard the familiar horns and salesmen shouting from outside, motoring through the air. Minutes seemed to pass without a reply to my question.

“Not so good,” her silk soft voice responded. She added nothing more, continuing to look at the clock.

She had spent the night visiting the bathroom, battling a fever, as something she ate upset her stomach. Rolled in the blanket, her position was influenced by the curves of the comforter. She had cocooned herself in the blankets. She was either hoping to turn into a functioning adult or a butterfly, neither of which was possible for us, the immature couple. I continued rubbing her back and running my fingers through her hair. As the sun rose, light freckled across bed through the curtains, illuminating the arch in her slender back, the smooth collar bones, her beauty. I did what I could to bring her comfort. From my bag, I gave her medicine, reminding her to drink as much water as possible.

Throughout the day, she asked me to leave, feeling bad her illness kept me by her side in the bedroom. I, of course, did not go anywhere until she was up to leaving. There was no where else I would rather be. Nobody likes to be alone while fighting an unknown illness, especially in a third world country. I read to her from my journal and packed novel, allowing the stories to accompany her into her dreams, adding characters and a setting to the world beyond (and hopefully me as well). She was able to travel away from what troubled her, leaving her unaware of the world outside, where as she slept, a place where the honking and shouting had vanished. By the late afternoon, she joined me in the guest house’s internet café.

And there we were, side-by-side in Kathmandu catching up with friends back home. She was comfortable wearing a dress she had bought in Bangkok, where I was forced to hold her purse, as she tried on five others indistinguishable to this one before buying it, myself drenched in sweat and inhaling the scent of garbage and fish from a nearby street vendor. When she was shopping, she was immune to the discomfort of her surroundings, something friends back home would be shocked by. She could have been standing in elephant poop in an acid rain storm, and still, she would have been focused on trying more identical dresses.

After I updated my writing, I thought about how much tougher she was than people back home gave her credit for. Then I thought about all those people, reading my blog and feeling envious briefly, before they watched a video of a Monkey Pissing In Its Own Mouth. They told me they were jealous of me, this man they did not know I had become, sitting in stained piss yellow t-shirt, battling diarrhea and hoping I would not poop my pants. I wrote back to their emails quickly always, telling them how wonderful the trip was but also exhausting. Inhaling more of the goat cheese breath, I decided using words like “wonderful” did not help. I then thought of a way to tell this poor woman her breath stunk, but shouting out, “Hey, I’m bored, wanna go brush our teeth together?” was all I could come up with. I choose instead to say nothing.

In the early evening, when Boxie-boo fell asleep again mid-chapter, the sun hid behind the horizon. There were no shadows on her while my flattened left hand moved back and forth along her back, as if I was trying to brush away her illness. She woke once to kiss my arm, magnifying her appreciation more than words. Each sleeping gesture was a kind of talking. A deep exhale. A shift in position, bringing me away from myself. I hoped these movements were a sign of improvement. I turned the page of my novel, listened closely to its lonely echo, the flip and turning, the stillness between lingering, a lonely echo, continuing to read. I missed her, strangely enough, even though she was right by my side.

When she woke, we walked downstairs to watch the lone, tiny television in the lobby. For the first time in over a month, we were able to find a western station. The Discovery Channel in English, which of course, was focused on the poisonous insects of Asia. It was short-lived, only 30 minutes, until the transmission was lost due to wind, according to staff.

As the night darkened, Mother Nature whirled into life; her voice of thunder sparking lightning through the clouds. Each flash turned this city into mere outlines of architecture, the rib cage of the metropolis. The smell of fresh rain on dry concrete was drawn from the air, entering our windows. From our room, we could hear the broken voice of the wind, crackling through streets and branches. The dogs were barking, mixing in with the ever-present sound of engines and horns. In preparation for another power outage, we removed everything between the bed and the bathroom to avoid bumping into things in the night, then took our malaria pills and listened to my stomach. It grumbled in unison with the thunder.

It was a strange night of lightning with little rain. When the thunder calmed to a murmur, my stomach followed suit. Boxie-boo was fast asleep, cloaked in the darkness. The power went out again. The revved up engines continued. The horns honked. I put in my ear plugs, silencing the world outside, wondering what our future will hold.

I thought again of all those who envied us, while the humidity drenched us both in sweat and I wrapped my flashlight around my arm in preparation for midnight bathroom runs, noting another night ahead with little sleep. I knew it was time for people to know the truth about traveling, the diarrhea and the dehydration, to the glory and the adventure. This way, people would understand travel, not just the baby-spiders-growing-out-of-a-brain bit they hear in the media and the misuse of the word ‘wonderful’.

And in the darkness, she woke once more. I saw the same storm in her eyes I heard from outside, and I waited, patiently, to ride the lightning. I knew something was wrong, and somehow, I was to blame. She was staring at her Bangkok dress on top of her bag on the floor, and it was in this moment, I learned that once a month, women go completely crazy for about 30 days. There she was battling a stomach bug in Kathmandu, getting over a fever, with no electricity and any real certainty on where we were and where we were headed next. I asked her what was wrong.

“I should have bought the other dress, but you rushed me,” she responded.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

First day in Kathmandu

03/13/10

We stepped into the alleyway narrow streets, passing a man washing his underwear in a blue bucket sitting in brown dirt, a couple feet in front of his house. He held his underwear up to me, between scrubs, presumably to show how clean he had made them. I did not know how to respond, though had I been wearing tear-away pants, I could have instantly shared his enthusiasm for showing off clean underpants. I choose instead to nod and smile. Meanwhile, cars flew by within inches of his bucket, but he did not even react. Behind him, his wife hanged clothes to dry. Out front, their children yelled “Hello” to us, giggling and taking turns piggy backing each other across the street between fly-by motorcycles. Rickshaws bounced along the potholes beside us as we made our way towards the center of the city under a beaming hot sun…or so I hoped.

I had asked the manager of our guest house for directions. His route of travel was confusing, especially since he had no street signs to really speak of, just landmarks that described things I had never seen before. Plus, it probably did not help that I made a common mistake of mine in my recently-woken-up state of mind. I have definitely asked a question, ignored the answer and been too ashamed to ask again, way more times than I would like to admit. For this reason, I was only slightly confident on how we would get to the Monkey Temple.

Within minutes in Kathmandu, we saw what we missed last night in the darkness. My pupils were already dilated with sights and we had only turned one corner. The world around us was shaded brown. Brown gravel roads, to the brown concrete and brick boxed buildings that surrounded us; the buildings looking like old baked good, the falling bread crumbs, which seemed ready to turn into a cloud of dust. White was easy to spot, available in many directions, on the teeth of smiling faces of Nepalese people, which was a welcome change for us. They were happy living amongst garbage-strewn streets with few possessions. It came to show, as I’ve said before, that happiness is disposition, not circumstance.

Ahead of us was a steep, Dr. Seus-shaped wobbly street. In the foreseeable distance, I spotted what I hoped to be our destination, the infamous Monkey Temple, perched golden on top of a hill of trees. I pointed at the temple, something everyone could easily see. Boxie-boo gave me the same impressed look I received in Australia after I bragged about using a payphone. She looked at me like I was the reason companies have to write “do not eat” on stereo equipment.

The route in front of us was, however, scattered with waterways, narrow swerving streets and tight-fitted bazaars, looking like a brown maze cluttered with strewn-garbage, bridges and cresting hills we could not see beyond. I realized that taking people on a walk when you are uncertain of your destination is like making a dog wear a costume: I knew it was wrong, but I convinced myself that they were enjoying as much as I was.

Walking across a bridge, the water was so polluted that garbage piles made small rapids. Pigs and dogs walked amongst the slow current, tearing at bags of discarded food. It smelt of heated sewage, while the midday sun rose, surrounding us as we crossed the bridge single file trying hard to breathe out of our mouths only. For a moment, all I heard was water, the bending of plastic and the murky footsteps of diseased-looking animals seeking food out of filth.

My arms were already a shade darker from rising dust of passing vehicles that stuck to my sunscreen. The sun felt good as it returned to my face after our time in China, while the world around us constantly changed. At times, the streets were so busy I felt like a single oxygen bubble in the veins of this crowded city. I worried one of us might get knocked over by a car or fall into one of the road side puddles. At one point, when two opposing cars met, I stood, my feet wide, back against a brown building, stretched in dry pockets over nauseating puddles of brown water, while the garbage floated near my shoes. Other times, we found soundless side streets, where quiet worshippers kneeled to make prayers at small, roadside temples.

Before the Monkey Temple, we entered a small Hindu temple, stepping over a white dog, lying motionless in the dead of sleep at the entrance. As is customary, we walked around clockwise, passing locals ringing bells and spinning prayer wheels in praise of their deities. Golden candle holders burned incense on shelves permanently stained black with smoke and bizarre shapes from fallen wax. In front, followers left offerings of rice and flowers. When I was handed rice, I followed their lead always, placing the offerings where others had been left behind.

The temple centered on the goddess Durga (below), depicted in bronze with eight arms. Goddess Durga is the mother of the universe and believed to be the power behind the work of creation, preservation, and destruction of the world. Hindu followers worship her as the supreme power of the Supreme Being and she has been mentioned in many scriptures - Yajur Veda, Vajasaneyi Samhita and Taittareya Brahman.

She is often depicted with eight or ten hands in temples, which represents eight quadrants or ten directions in Hinduism. This suggests that she protects the devotees from all directions. She is armed with many weapons, rides a lion, which signifies that she can release her followers from their fears. Not only a warrior, Mother Durga controls both aspects of energy, the potential and kinetic, and invokes her devotees to attack the challenges they face in life without losing their confidence.

According to some Hindu texts, Durga was created as a warrior goddess to fight a demon named Mahishasura who had unleashed a reign of terror on the earth, heaven and the nether worlds. Upon initially encountering Durga, Mahishasura underestimated her for being a woman. In response, Durga roared with laughter, creating an earthquake, before later defeating him with a sword. This weapon she is often depicted as holding symbolizes knowledge, which for Hindus represents freedom from all doubts.

Outside the temple, the elephant god Ganesh had many tombstone-like concrete carvings throughout the streets, allowing locals, I supposed, to pray to a deity on their daily commutes. He is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. Beyond Ganesh, prayer flags were seen covering many small homes. We watched monks stroll by, chatting with market owners and offering blessings. Temple after temple, statue after statue, Religion and Kathmandu were one, as if they whole city was designed for worship.

I was thankful for all these temples. Not only were they culturally important and interesting, they distracted our group from being aware that I had little idea of where we were going.

“Do you know where you are going?” Boxie-boo asked me.

Maybe the temples weren’t as distracting as I thought.

I pointed at Ganesh. Boxie-boo did not even glance in the deity’s direction. This did not distract her either. Thanks Ganesh, I thought. We seemed to have entered another residential area, with no giant temple in sight.

“Umm,” I murmured, then paused. I paused long enough to make it appear that I was thinking.

Above us, monkeys walked along the power lines from outside apartments as if they were renting rooms. Boxie-boo and Liam both enjoyed watching the monkeys, which was a much appreciated new distraction possibly sent by the god of education. Thanks Ganesh, I thought again, this time not sarcastically.

“Yes, it’s this way,” I responded in albeit an unnecessary delay, feeling proud, looking up at monkeys who gripped the thickened electrical wires, before swinging themselves to neighboring buildings. I looked around the streets, rather bigheadedly, as if I had just answered a very tough question on Jeopardy, but no one around me seemed to be impressed. Some of the Nepalese people were even laughing at me.

It turned out the locals found amusement in our admiration of the monkeys, finding it strange how much we enjoyed watching them jump from building to building. To them, the monkeys were nothing more than annoying pests. They proved this by attacking them with brooms and tossed rocks.

Thankfully, a few blocks further, we met the base of the small mountain that held the Monkey Temple.

Boxie-boo and Liam led the way, pointing to a street-length wall of prayer wheels that surrounded the hillside. Boxie-boo moved under an archway, which featured a golden Buddha in the middle, guarded by paintings of white lions. Inside, Buddha statues sat in a meditation positions behind concrete lions. Monkeys were everywhere, focused on stealing the food offerings of believers. The trees were lined with prayer flags, creating waving shadows and the flickering of light across the walkway. We were followed by begging children, tugging at our pants and felt horribly sorry for them. Their little hands and faces were stained with caked-on dirt. Some of them mimicked for food, while others looked ready to cry. We had to keep moving, as in my experience, when you stop, you are quickly surrounded and risk being pick pocketed. Looking back, it is to think how quickly we almost got used to such sights and detached from the rawness of poverty that is common place throughout the world.

All the while, Boxie-boo’s Italian skin tone left locals confused, as many market owners asked her whether she was from Nepal or India, while some young men glared at me, thinking a foreigner had stolen one of their local beauties. Greetings came to her in Nepali language. This we would have to get used to as it only became more commonplace later in India. While she blended in, sharing their welcoming smiles, I often felt like an intruder.

The stairs led the way with three steep and narrow steps, followed by a larger wide one, over and over again. Reaching a market partway up the hillside to the temple, a local woman chiseled a Tibetan calendar out of rock, complete with symbols into circles of flattened stone. She wanted 3,000 Rupees for one, a special price for tourists. In the end, I bought two for a 1,000 total. “

You bargain hard like Nepal man,” she said. “You win, I lose.” We both knew, even with such a price drop, a local would have paid far less.

Towards the top of the temple, Boxie-boo pointed at monkeys grooming each other in the shade of concrete statues. When they looked at her, she jumped back, hiding behind me, while Liam and I focused our cameras. It was only our first full day and I had already snapped tons of photos. It was easy to become photo happy in Kathmandu, a city that seemed to constantly cause sensory overload.

It cost us 200 Rupees each to enter the top section of the temple. The area was centered around a bronze pole of circles, gradually getting thinner towards the top. It was surrounded by prayer wheels, which at times, were almost constantly spinning by circling worshippers. From here, we looked across the expanse of Kathmandu, while pigeons flew around us, landing to eat the thrown rice. In some sections, there were enough pigeons to block the concrete below. From above, they looked like a one large grey shadow that moved gently in unseen wind.

…Hours later…

Have you ever been so disgusted you did not know whether to laugh or cry? This was Boxie-boo’s end to a day of sightseeing. Let me explain.

Liam was busy bartering with taxi drivers outside Patan Durbar Square. An outdoor concert had the streets sardine packed around the corner. Suddenly, the crowd changed, slamming tsunami-like towards us. They ran forward, looking back behind, with the faces of fleeing, harsh, stony and frightened. Liam stopped bartering immediately and was smart to usher us into a cab as quickly as possible. Kathmandu is sometimes the focus of political demonstrations, strikes and even forced curfews. These crowded situations have a reputation for leading to violence, which of course, is not necessarily the case. We decided it was better to be safe than possibly sorry and get away from the chaos.

(I apologize for the following description)

There is no easy way to write this, so here it is: The cab smelled like semen. The car may have been small, but the scent of sex was so strong in the backseat, there may have been an orgy of midgets in it minutes earlier. The sex-scented parade entered our nostrils, swinging across the nose hairs like chandeliers, propelled by what smelt of tuna-scented farts. Boxie-boo and I immediately rolled down our windows. She gagged once. I told her to focus on breathing from her mouth and to relax her hands. She did. On a damp seat. This wet feeling of a soggy cushion only increased the lingering smell, while we felt our clothes moistening as the smell worsened to dead fish. She instantly lifted her hands off the seat, a little too quickly, as this caused her hands to rise up near our faces. I felt vomit rise up in my mouth and hung my head out the window just in case.

By the time we got out of the cab, our bottoms were soaked through to our skin. In something wet that smelt of semen. It is safe to say this was not the highlight of the afternoon.

“Only in Nepal,” Boxie-boo said, feeling the dampness of her pants. She began to laugh while crying.

“It is on my pants,” she screamed, her fingers outstretched, hands pushing downwards as if trying to push away the smell.

“Eww,” she said laughing.

“Eww, eww,” she repeated, this time crying.

We hugged while avoiding each other’s lower backs in the slow dance position of a young man trying to hide his arousal, then chaotically into the hostel. Our day of sightseeing ended with Boxie-boo running into the shower, then scrubbing our clothes in the sink. By nightfall, Boxie-boo had reinvigorated her skin with her body lotion. We went to bed, shuddered occasionally when we thought back to the smell, armed with our flashlights under our pillows as we faced another electricity cut, a fact of life in Kathmandu, as electricity was rationed throughout the city.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

China to Nepal

03/12/10

Many travelers had them. Most did not know why. There was no real way of knowing its potency, like that of death, the terrifying peace, the eternal sleep that waits for us all. Held so closely to me, it traveled along my side without a shadow. It was my blank canvas, my white pages without words; waiting for my pen, the scars that remind us that the past is real, where new thoughts and forgotten epiphanies traveled together at the speed of light, to be placed together, these little bones, the unspoken verses that slipped through the fierce snap of a tensed jawbone. A person is at their most honest when they write to themselves. My notebook – and there were eventually three - was uniquely mine and came to bring me a sense of belonging no matter where I was in the world.

I can quite confidently say that there were many times on the trip when Boxie-boo did not like my journal. There were only a few times she ever said anything directly about it. Her comfort was always put first before my writing, but maybe, there was a sense of jealously, as I can confidently say there were times I shared more of myself with my notebook than I did with her. No matter how sleep deprived I was, how stressed or uncomfortable, I always took the time to write, not only at night before bed, but during the day – walking, riding an elephant, hiking, off-roading, waiting, listening to the lull of waves, etc. – to ensure moments turned to memories and memories turned into stories.

With her head rested on my shoulder on our eighth airplane, I focused on remembering my thoughts, waiting for her to nod off to sleep. I noticed she smelled of expensive body lotion; something she swore was a necessity for the trip. Perhaps, she was right. With her eyes opening and closing, she scrolled through my researched notes with photographs and ideas of things to see and do in Nepal. Turning the pages, she sketched her excitement with her hands. Through my imagination, I could see the energy, the flip and turning, her sudden excitement moving towards me. No matter how tired we ever were, there is something to be said about flying to a country you have never visited, to feeling exposed and alive, naked and reborn, vulnerable and free, where your bravery battles your fear, especially when you know you are to land at night, overcome with uncertainty and that ever-present, pure sense of adventure.

As Boxie-boo nodded off, I pulled out my notebook and thought hard about where we had been and where we were going, not only on this trip but in a greater sense. One of the biggest benefits of travel is the ability to take the time to reflect fully, honestly and openly with yourself and yourself alone. I realized what I was doing was more than traveling, but saving myself from myself.

If I knew I would regret not doing something, I would do it before it was too late, giving me a sense of peace for that horrifying end, the sweet oblivion. Then instead of crying towards my death, I knew I could smile at the memories, while allowing the air to lighten around me, so gently that my life could no longer exist within it, leading me to find my pathway away from the seasons, taken in by the spell of music, the song and dance of days spent in full control of my life. In death, I believe those that accomplished their dreams are sheltered by them, warmed, consoled, loved, who need nothing more than the release of one last relaxing exhale. It was easy to think of death both before and during Nepal, a country where bodies were burned publicly and death has its blinds broken and doors wide open for all to see.

Before I left Canada, if someone had asked me what I would do if I knew my time on this planet was limited, I would say, travel the world. The truth is our time is limited. I believe it is only when you accept your mortality that you truly live. I have thought about this often in my life, about what I would say on my deathbed that I wished I would have done. If your answer to that question – possibly one of the most important you can ask yourself – is where you are presently, then you, my dear friend, are living the dream.

If not, be the change you want to become. Nobody is buried with their possessions. And even death, I believe, cannot take away our memories. Discover your dream. Live your dream. Wave goodbye to your fear of death.

I thought about this on our flight from Kunming, China to Kathmandu, Nepal. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Although, the plane was fireplace hot and served a hard boiled breakfast at night, leaving the cabin smelling of eggs. It was midnight Kunming time. Most passengers slept while one ‘”gentleman” watched a movie with the volume on full blast on his laptop without earphones, with complete disregard for those trying to sleep. Oh China, I thought, it is time to say goodbye.

I was living the dream, yes, but this flight left me damp with sweat, feeling near feverish, exhausted and nauseaus from the food. I was glad I went to China - an unforgettable and exciting experience - but the often rude, pushy and selfish nature of the Chinese culture had gotten to me and it was time to move on. The worst part of China, in my opinion, was in many major cities it was hard to spot someone happy, their faces almost all sad, while the sky beyond them was constantly overcast and depressed with pollution.

After three hours, we arrived at the same time we left, 10 p.m., due to the time difference. I was excited to enter this country in classic third world fashion – by walking across the concrete runway, passed parked airplanes, into an old building of red brick. Inside, a smiling custom’s official, the first friendly I had seen in over a month, showed me where to fill out my visa application. The cost was $25 U.S. per person and I received my visa within two minutes of filling out my application. This was the fastest visa on the trip. Boxie-boo and I were smart, leaving Canada with money for visas, job letters and paystubs for employment proof and the necessary passport photos.

After receiving our bags, we walked up to the x-ray machine for luggage scanning. A custom’s official gestured to us to not bother. We skipped the scan, looking back at the line-up of Chinese being examined. We had no idea where we were headed and how we were getting there, just that we had paid a small deposit online for a cheap guest house with great reviews in what we believed to be the heart of Kathmandu.

Outside in the darkness, we could see only the passing lights of scooters and hear the random honking of cars. There were no streetlights on, no police in sight and no sense of direction. A tense silence loomed beyond the horns. Boxie-boo asked tentatively with her eyes for a connection and I quickly grabbed her hand. I had seen this look before - vanished, frightened, frozen and fretful – looking out at a world so bizarre I’d swear the universe was upside down. In this half-lit glance, seen only in the spray of moving vehicles, I pulled her in close, while she stepped more than into my embrace, but towards what was familiar and understood. I lifted her hand to mouth, smelled the lotion once more and gave her palm a kiss. Our hands joined and uncontrollably gripping, were all we needed to know, while the unseen depth of Nepal waited, whirling this clasp alive as we moved together finding a way through the darkness, as if letting go would release a curse held from within. With no options available beyond a transit booth, we pre-paid a taxi for 600 Rupees (less than $8 U.S./Canadian) for our ride to the International Guest House.

Our taxi was a tiny van covered in giant Suzuki stickers, a late-70’s model at best, sounding broken in its own roots and weakening, twig by twig, like some shattering tree in a storm. Liam, Boxie-boo and I sat in a tight row. The roof was covered in dotted green, red and blue lights that were cheaply sewn and taped into the ceiling, powered by a dangling wire into the ashtray lighter plug. The van had one working headlight, causing us to drive half in darkness in the unlit streets of Kathmandu. There were few buildings with lights on, only those with generators as the power was out and there were no street signs in a city without names. We drove down the left side of the road, dodging the dips and occasionally bottoming out, scraping the battered metal against the pothole dissolved concrete.

I looked out the window above the tightly-fitted buildings, like blasted mountain trails for trains, blackened by the night, scanning upwards to the sky to see the stars for the first time in over a month. Finally, freedom from China’s pollution, I thought. The poke-a-dotted sky overwhelmed me, as if I saw the constellations that were guiding us on our long way home, and I knew Boxie-boo saw the same thing, where like glowing crystals the stars exploded in the reflection of her eyes, proof to me of their passing. I saw them as she looked into me for support, while the van reared and bucked, the metals turning and cracking with the sound of breaking ice, as if the engine gently cried over top of hard fought tears. She stayed still like a slim cat under my right arm, my left hand massaging her right, and I saw her fight that flicker under her eyelid, the twilight state between the current of adventure and the blood rush of fear.

This whole time, I ignored the driver’s colleague, who was trying to convince Boxie-boo and Liam that our hotel was attached to a loud disco in the party district. He told them he will show us another one on the way. At one point, I intervened and said aggressively and politely, “No thank you. We will go to the guest house we reserved.”

He persisted, showing Boxie-boo a catalog. “It’s on the way. Look at the rooms,” he demanded.

“No thank you. We hired you to take us to this hotel. We will make no stops,” I replied firmly. This time I raised my voice, folded up the catalogue and passed it back to him. It was safest to go to a hostel that received strong reviews online and not to go exploring our first night in the darkness with a driver we just met and his forceful companion. In many third world countries, taxi and tuk tuk drivers earn a commission by taking you to a colleague’s establishment.

He tried to show me the catalog. I felt I had to give him some sense of victory and saw business cards in his cup holder. I then asked him for his card in case we were unsatisfied with our hotel. He agreed, finally, to take us to the International Guesthouse, seemingly upset. Five minutes later, we arrived at our graveyard silent hotel with no disco in sight.

In our room, the ceilings were pink, lined with spray-painted gold crown moldings and hardwood creaky floors. It had two single beds. The next day I lied to hotel staff, stating we were married, a necessity, in order to switch us to a room with a large enough bed for us to share. Boxie-boo got scared, sometimes, sleeping on her own in foreign countries, especially in Nepal, where power outages often left us in the uncertainty of darkness.

We discovered that Boxie-boo’s backpack was damp. Her hair mouse exploded inside her bag. Luckily, she remembered to place the bottle in a plastic bag so most of her clothes were dry. It was near 3 a.m. and after hanging up her clothes to dry, we pushed the two single beds together, and prepared for much needed rest.

I loved and hated this common exhaustion we battled on the trip. Ironically, it was something I longed for at home, where in my day-to-day life my adrenaline ran thin and in my future all I saw was more of the same dull routine. The thought of what I had left seemed so abstract, even more so than this city without power. It came to me, suddenly, that I was in exile.

I made my way back to my notebook, using a small flashlight to illuminate the page as to not to disturb Boxie-boo’s slumber. I felt a sense of conquering my own dare – to travel around the world – as although I was organized and well-researched, nothing could have prepared me for where we were presently, without power in a city where we could not see the surroundings we were living in. The faces I had met in the building were unacquainted, but also open. The unaccustomed, the openness, the hunger to understand: That was who I had become. I held little knowledge of each country we visited, Nepal included, but I was willing and enthusiastic to soak it up, the same as the blank pages of my notebook.

The room faltered in the expanse of the narrow flashlight. I pulled the pen from my pocket – always wet-tipped and dripping – and I was stuck with myself and this peculiar place. I fought to figure out how to describe the experience.

I reached into our small carry-on bag and took out Boxie-boo’s lotion, spreading it evenly over my hands that had been dried by China’s winter. I was sure to use very little, as Boxie-boo always did, to see how long we could make it last. I would not find the same kind for her for some time. She was always very sentimental of these little things, of tiny pieces of home she brought with her around the world – the stuffed turtle, Ipod with family photos, her favourite lotion. My hands begin to smell of her hands, and in writing, my notebook began to smell one in the same. It seemed as though my pen was about to write, but I placed the words elsewhere.

I wrote in lotion on both my forearms and felt reminded, suddenly, that though different, we both had our own ways to connect with where we were from and where we were going. Perhaps, this is why she was always so helpful when I searched for new pens and why without realizing it, I too, felt it was important to hand her the stuffed turtle when she was feeling ill in Shanghai. Placing her Body Shop cream back in her bag, I aimed to find her a replacement, which came later when needed most; a welcomed surprise on a day when Boxie-boo was most homesick after a long tiring safari in Africa. It may have been that which brought her a sense of belonging, no matter where we were in the world.

That’s all for now.

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