Love your health care.

Well, the altitude and dehydration caught up with me. I was eating dinner at a restaurant and I knew I was going to pass out. I made eye contact with a guy a few tables away and as he got up, I went down. I woke up to him and two other people trying to make me drink water. I must have been delirious because I told the guy (he's Israeli) that he looked like an angel! They helped me back to my hotel and I spent 3 miserable days with some type of stomach bug and I was weaker than I've ever been in my life. I actually got a little scared for a minute...being alone on the other side of the world when you are sick is not fun! There was a little old lady who must have known I was sick because she brought me white rice a few times. She also brought me a cold washcloth. She didn't speak a lick of English, but she was very nurturing and sweet. At least I got to catch up on some reading. I started to feel a little better and I walked a few blocks and spotted a can of pringles. I ate almost the whole thing and knew I would be fine soon.

The poor children here are really making an impact on me. We take for granted having adequate clothing, food, shelter, and health care. Some of the families don't even have close to that. I can't imagine precious David breaking out in Dengae fever or the mumps and not being able to do a damn thing about it to make him better.

On a lighter note...I spent the past 2 days in Chitwan, which is near the border of India. the heat was unbearable. It's in a lower altitude, so instead of the mountains being prevalent, it's jungle. Once again, very beautiful! I slep in a lodge with a mosquito net, although I didn't see any mosquitos. What I did see were bugs the size of my fist! One night when I got back to my room I opened the door and there were 2 of them on the floor. I screamed and the 2 men working there got a laugh and swept them out of my room. I just loved that mosquito net.

I saw wild black rhinos and peacocks and strange looking deer. It is ideal to see a tiger, but I guess that is rare. I saw a man play a flute for a cobra and it danced like how you see in the movies. I was pressured to go on an elephant ride. I wasn't too happy about the way they are treated. The guide was relentless so I went on the first ride, but not the second. We went through the jungle and at one point the elephant decided to sit down in a river to cool off. We came close to getting soaked. It was pretty funny. That night I went on a sunset tour and then to a cultural show. Most of the tourists who I ran into were from India. Apparently, they come to Nepal to get a break fromt the heat of India. I can't imagine that there is a place hotter than where we were! The Culture show was really cool. Men and women danced with sticks in crazy outfits. Then in the morning I went bird watching.

On the bus ride back to Kathmandu from Chitwan we got stopped by a huge traffic jam. Buses were backed up for miles winding around the mountain. A bus went over the side of the mountain. Rumor has is that there was a wedding party on the bus. Very sad. We had been sitting for about 2 hours and people were getting on and off the bus to stretch legs and stuff. I had to go to the bathroom so I ventured to find a hole in the ground. I was gone for maybe 6 minutes and when I came back there was a space in between the buses where my bus used to be. I was in a panic! I looked around and yelled, "My bus! My bus!" This local guy laughed and imitated me and pointed down the road. I could see the dust from my bus as it was going on the "shoulder" of the road past the other buses. I have never run so fast! All I could think about was that my backpack was on top of that bus. I ran for what felt like forever. Luckily, it got to a point where it couldn't go any further and it had to stop. Drenched in sweat and out of breath I got back on the bus. I said to the driver that he left me and he said, "so you run a little" like it was no big deal. The other people on the bus said that they were yelling at him to stop because I wasn't back yet and he just kept going. Most of the people I encountered in Nepal were so accomomdating, but not this guy!

I'm back in Kathmandu now. I met a girl from Finland and we are going to grab some food.

I hope all is well back home!

peace,
nikki

I never knew 7 hours on a bus could be so enjoyable...

I'm in Pokhara now, which is a 7 hour bus ride from Kathmandu. Remember when I said I had seen the beauty of Nepal? I was wrong...NOW I've seen the beauty! I swear, it just keeps getting better and better. We drove down winding road through the foothills of the Himalayas...amazing. I could see snow covered mountains that were so beautiful. The clouds settled about 1/3 of the way from the tops of them. I didn't once get bored during the entire 7 hours. Again, I was mesmorized. We passed many poor villages. It seems as though it is perfectly acceptable to lie around and do nothing. Quite different from the workaholic place where we are from. Many people were actually doing labor work, but at a very leisurely pace.

The driving is interesting. These drivers fly around the mountains...they just honk when they are going around a curve and hope that no one is there to meet them (us) head on!

The best thing I saw was a "gondola", which was a basket hanging from a wire from one side of a river about as wide as a football field to the other side. It was about 100 feet in the air. You could hardly see the 2 people in it because there were so many crops in it with them. The people were manually hand-over-hand pulling themselves across. It looked frightening! The children entertain themselves with rocks, sticks, and each other--seeing as there is no TV or Nintendo! There were all tourists on the bus and I met a brother and sister from Oregon. Someone tell Grampa that they have many uses for burlap sack including cradles for babies! They hang in them like a hammock. Cattle were grazing on cliffs so steep that they looked like they shoud tumble over.

It's 98 degrees today. It is seriously hot. I began a trek to Sarangkot yesterday. I hiked for about 4 hours up to the small village. Very hard work! I should have hired a porter to carry my backpack. I didn't realize that it is very common and many locals make a living carrying bags for tourists. Anyway, I hope my pics do justice to what my eyes were seeing! There were many families that live all the way up. Every once in a while I would see a hut and the children would ask me for "sweets" and "school pens". They would fly right past me like the broken stone steps and mountain side are so easy to climb! When I got up to Sarangkot I talked for a while with a girl my age who wanted to practice her English. She had a baby girl that is David's age--made me miss him! I was very disappointed because I had to go back down. My shoulder injury that has been haunting me for years started acting up. Not to mention, I've been feeling the effects of the altitude, so it's better to take it easy. I don't think I drank enough water on the trek...I was drenched in sweat the entire time. I was a little weary of the bottle of water I bought along the way because it wasn't sealed, so I didn't drink much. Will someone drink a glass of tap water for me? And not the Britta stuff.

A local gave me some bengay type stuff for my shoulder today. He also helped me find some ice to put on it. That was quite a challenge! We finally found a guy with a freezer and he chipped away a chunk of ice for me. It had raw meat stuck to it. I just held open my plastic baggy and he dropped it in and I sealed it up. I'm feeling much better now!

more later...

peace,
nikki

All alone...and loving it!

Now I'm really about to babble... Today I went to the offices of Volunteer Nepal. Basically it's a 4 floor home and they rent out the bottom floor. The other girls I met (we met by chance at a restaurant) warned me that I should continue to stay at the hotel (the hotel is only $2.50 a night). I thought I would give the office a shot anyway. I'm glad I went because I really saw some Nepalese culture. The "office" is about 7 miles from the city. I was literally the only non-Nepali person in the area. For some reason, I loved how that felt. There is a family who lives in the office and they insisted that I eat lunch right away. I had to take off my shoes and sit on a mat on the floor of the kitchen. They served me a traditional dish which is a HUGE plate of rice, leafy green stuff, cauliflower, lental soup, and curry. It is disrespectful not to finish what is on your plate, and although it was good, there was no way I could fit it all in. Not to mention, the heat hasn't helped my appetite. I was so full that I thought I might throw up...then they seemed bothered that I didn't want more! The family ate with me and they ate with their hands. The girls warned me that if I stayed there I would get very sick of the same meals and I would also get sick of the bathroom. The bathroom consists of a hole in the ground that you squat over and the shower was a tap about waist high. I decided that my desire to experience how they live was not great enough to want to stay there.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. There wasn't any guidance and the people in the office were all either reading or napping. I thought I was supposed to be "volunteering", but we'll see. I took a walk for about 2 hours. I walked slowly to take everything in. The area was much wealthier than in the city. The homes are unique and large--they are just beautiful--and are situated on dirt hills and roads with a clear view of the foothills of the Himalayas and many valleys. Once again, amazing and unlike anything I have ever seen. Boys were playing a Nepalese version of baseball and I was entertained by watching them for quite a while. It was almost like something from a movie. Women were in their saris chopping corn and washing clothes in bsins. As I walked, I passed many local children and adults. The children wanted to talk to me and the adults didn't glance my way. No one was going to bother me, so I didn't bother them. I sort of felt like an intruder, but I felt very safe. The whole thing was mesmorizing! I'm guessing I have what they call "culture shock". That experience was much different from being in the heart of Kathmandu, which is where I'm back to now. Here there are many beggers and people everywhere wanting you to buy things. There are also more tourists.

I'm off to do some more exploring.

love,
nikki

Sensory Overload

Talk about sensory overload! I finally arrived to Kathmandu. Seeing as the furthest I've been from the states is Mexico, this is quite a different experience. The mountains are beautiful, the city is dirty. It's strange...this place is so far from Western civilization, yet Eminem is blaring in the streets. The children are so beautiful and the women wear saris that are all unique. Old women squat on the side of the street and drink what looks like dirty water out of bowls. I'm staying in a hotel for the first 2 nights while the other volunteers have orientation for teaching English, or at least that's what the person who picked me up at the airport told me. He didn't say a word to me until I asked him 3 times where the other volunteers were. By the way, it's really a good thing that I brought toilet paper.

My first night I only slept from 10:30pm to 2:30am, so around 5:30am I decided to walk to the area that I was originally going to catch a bus to. On my way to the Swayambhunath Stupa I had to walk down very narrow streets. The buildings are tall and people live closely in them on the top floors and their vending areas are on the bottom. The streets were still empty and people were just waking up. Since the polution in Kathmandu is really bad, people have what seems to be a lot of phlem. They are not afraid to get the phlem out very loudly. Tissues just aren't available. So, I was walking and the next thing I knew I was dodging phlem balls coming from the windows above! I walked quickly and made it without getting hit. My journey to the Stupa was amazing. A Stupa is a temple with clusters of places to worship. They worship cows here and every so often I see one randomly walking around. Anyway, I had to cross a shaky old foot bridge and I was kinda weary, but people wouldliterally run across it no big deal. I went for it and realized it wasn't that bad.

This is when I began to see the beauty of Nepal. I am now a witness that parts of the world exist that you can't even fathom unless you are looking at them! Some mountains were green and sparkling with sunshine while others were dark and scary covered with clouds. I made my way up the probably 2000 steep stone steps to enounter tons of monkeys along the way! They would stand inches from me. Most of them seemed friendly, but every once in a while there would be a psycho monkey that chased the others around. I got to the top to find monks and men doing Tai Chi and sit-ups. There was a temple and a small village and a weird military training camp up there. The sun was so much brighter up there! I could see so much...very poor villages and some larger palace looking structures. Women carry baskets larger than them that are attached to their head with straps all the way up the stairs...and they are barefoot!

On my way back from the Stupa I took a ride in this cart that is pulled by a man riding a bike. To clarify Namaste, it means love, peace, happiness, thank you, etc. all in one. Okay, I've babbled enough.

Have a wonderful day!

love,
nikki