Back in the Big Dirty

Cloud lightning out the window of our new apartment in Thamel.

Update time!

Many things have happened in the past month since I last posted to this blog, so bear with me:

We had a fantastic time with Austin and Beth between March 5th and 25th. Thanks to a whole bunch of unexpected factors (see last post) we had a chance to show them a bunch of Kathmandu's sights and sounds before and after our trip to Langtang National Park. Once we finally got up north we had a fun, albeit dramatic, trek through fire, ice, sunshine and rain. Oh yeah, there were a few big mountains, too. Check out the Langtang photo journal in the gallery!

It was great to have a bit of home fly in to visit us, and made us extra-excited to be back in Portland. Our return date is coming up quickly (less than a month, now!) and we're scrambling to squeeze in everything we still want/need to do here.

As Beth and Austin were leaving, Ash and I were busy moving our stuff to a new apartment in Thamel, in a building owned and managed by Sanu's family. For our last month in Nepal, we'll residing in a downtown fifth-story penthouse of sorts... Amenities included consist of running water (brown), a leaky sink drain (a bucket underneath seems to take care of it), a briquette stove, a wooden bed frame, a chair, a coffee table, horribly sooty walls and ceilings, curtains (very important), one functioning incandescent bulb, and one power outlet (we still only get power for eight hours a day). A shared squat toilet, sans sink or shower, is down the hall. Despite this downgrade in accomodation, we're pretty stoked on this relatively impoverished and totally different urban experience. Not only are we in the gritty heart of urban Kathmandu, we're close to everything we need to do and have had an opportunity to get to know a few more of the subtleties of this place.

One of the biggest changes here over the past two weeks has been the onset of the spring rains! The weather patterns have been all sorts of unusual for the past fourteen months or so as Nepal experienced a dry monsoon season last summer/autumn and a very dry winter. As a result, electricity production has been pretty much impossible, and wells are drying up all over the country. A bunch of scientists are even concerned that large portions of Kathmandu valley could collapse as water tables are sucked dry. The recent afternoon rains (and snow in the mountains) have been bringing some relief and have provided some very entertaining thunderstorms in the valley. We can't get enough of it!

Over the past week I've been busy finishing up the written agenda and reports for the project we've been doing in the Ramechhap district (click here to download the latest pdf), getting photos gathered, researching product concepts for FoST and getting acquainted to our new digs, amongst other things. In April, I'll be focused on following up as necessary with Ramechhap (and maybe going back for another short visit) and developing concepts at FoST. Meanwhile, today is Ashley's first day shadowing at Martyr's Memorial Hospital, where she'll spend the next month watching and helping out on various rotations. Our friend Krish, also pre-med, did the same thing in February and had a great experience, so our hopes our high.

Aside from that, we're looking at a bit of river time (I'll be safety-boating for a large class II/III rafting trip on April 11) and three or four days down in Chitwan National Park riding elephants and (hopefully) spotting some rhinos and big bright birds.

The Royal Palace (just down the street from our new penthouse) opened as a museum about a month ago, and we joined throngs of Nepalis last Saturday to check it out. The sprawling palace and grounds have been pretty much vacant since the massacre in 2001, and sits today much as I imagine it was eight years ago. The buildings have this super-cheesy and sparse 60s/70s architecture and interior decoration, and it was pretty bizarre to consider that the place represents/ed the 'lap of luxury' for this nation..

Politics have continued to provide a never-ending comedy in the daily papers here.. Every day brings news of more back-stabbing closed-door meetings within the countless parties and subsets of parties, which usually result in pointless riots, bandhs, strikes, or killings. Nobody can figure out how to integrate all the small party-loyal militias into one army, the Maoists in charge seem to be driving for a one-party system empowered by social disorder and poverty, and China's (anti-Tibetian) whims are frequently carried out without a second thought. Stability in all sectors is still quite a ways off here...

We made the mistake of buying the first four seasons of House MD last week (ripped of course, at a cost of around $12), and have been sucked into 3-5 episodes per night lately.

We've been toying with the idea of spending a few extra days in Bangkok on our return trip to see some more temples, enjoy more massages, take care of some dental work, and maybe even participate in their never-ending political demonstrations (or not)!

And finally: what's up with this website/blog's new name? In short: 'hajur' is one of those Nepali words that can mean just about anything.. it works for 'sir,' 'pardon,' 'hello,' 'whaddup,' etc... So way back during the final days of the Annapurna trek we had a great night in Tatopani getting wasted on Marpha apple brandy. Krish (now infamous for taking gigantic gulps of the stuff rather than sipping it like the rest of us) had also been enjoying slices of a chocolate cake that was sitting under the bar. Upon finishing his second slice, Krish started talking about how much he needed a THIRD. The bartender (and cake enabler) was nowhere to be seen, and out of the blue Krish blurted, "WHERE'S MY HAJUR? I NEED SOME MORE CAKE!!" The phrase has stuck with us like .. um .. frosting on cake .. ever since and is somewhat emblematic of our whole experience here :)

Delayed

After my post the other night, Ashley came down with the same digestive issues I had a few days prior.. and we decided to hang out for an additional day in Kathmandu to give her a chance to improve. We moved our base of operations to a cheap, but nice, hotel in Thamel, and were planning on getting on a bus this morning. However, since today is Holi Day (more below), we soon learned that we'd have to stay in Kathmandu another additional day, since busses aren't running.

The children of Kathmandu have been preparing for Holi Day all week long.. What began as a celebration of color and culture in rural villages has turned into a water balloon throwing free-for-all event in the big city. All week balloons have been hurled from rooftops, side streets, car windows, behind-our-backs, etc.. targeting unsuspecting victims (usually women). These balloons are usually not balloons at all, but small clear plastic bags (like we get goldfish in) that hurt like hell! It's pretty much impossible to walk down the street (especially as white folks) without being targeted dozens of times.

TODAY, the actual holiday, most of the balloons contain bright pigments, and EVERYBODY is participating in this city-wide pelting contest. I'm gearing up to go find some balloons to buy down the street so we can join in the fun from our hotel's roof .. but I know that I'll be drenched and colorful by the time I return from the store (which is just across the street). Should be fun.

Last night after Ash was feeling a little better we checked out Swayambhu (the monkey temple) with Austin and Beth and then celebrated British Alex's birthday at a super-yummy steakhouse. We'll head out on a bus tomorrow morning towards Dunche, where we'll start our trek the following day. We're now planning on being back in Kathmandu the 22nd or 23rd.

Visitors!

We've been back in KTM for over a week now, and have kept ourselves massively busy. So busy that I have managed to neglect my computer almost entirely, and have been a completely lame blog-updater.

In short:

The volunteer house moved up the street in Dhapasi (Kathmandu's equivalent to Lake Oswego)! Papa's House brought a large group of girls to Kathmandu from Narti last week, and they are now living in the house formerly occupied by volunteers and the boys. We're now enjoying luxurious three story home located half-way between the old girls' house and the property with the new girls' and boys' houses.

We've spent most of our compy-time writing up a report on our project in Dumrikharka, and refining our proposal for future phases. I'll post all this when it's finished in late March.

I finally managed to go kayaking a few days ago! In November I found a friend in Bishnu Gurung, who recently opened a whitewater adventure company in Thamel (www.adventureaves.com). For my 'free' day on the 4th he hooked me up with another paddler, Bijan, to check out a fun class IV run on the Bhote Kosi. This run flows along the Peace Highway that China helped build between Kathmandu and Tibet, and provided us a few hours of splashy fun. Never mind the adventure getting to and from the river took just about 36 hours.

Austin and Beth arrived a few days ago! It's been super-fun to have visitors from home (let alone THESE visitors), and we've been busy figuring out logistics for our trek while doing a little bit of sightseeing around Kathmandu. We've been planning on a summit attempt of Naya Kanga, a 5846 m peak near the village of Langtang. Ashley and I spent a bunch of time in early February doing pre-trip logistics work for this climb, and thought we were all set. However, in the last few days we learned we'd been mis-informed about the climbing rules and regulations about this peak (and nearly all peaks in Nepal). To do the climb legally we'd need a sherpa-guide, which would change the whole dynamic of the trip, necessitate a different climbing style (we were planning on short-roping the technical sections of the climb -- with a guide we'd wind up following fixed lines), and therefore also necessitate a full team of porters to carry the additional gear we'd need. After thinking about this option for about half-a-second, we decided to ditch the summit attempt. We're still heading up the Langtang Valley with a tent, limited snow gear, and plans to climb a couple of the smaller peaks around Kyangyin, but there will be no steep-and-snowy summits for us--this time.

Rabbit sent a bag of Stumptown Coffee over with Austin and Beth. We are forever in her debt :)

There is a lot of exciting and semi-scary strife in southern Nepal right now, and it's threatening to spread northward. We don't anticipate we'll be affected too much for the rest of our time here, but are keeping a keen eye on the news.

We're heading out eaaarly tomorrow morning, and putting off packing until the power runs out. Austin and Ashley are singing Flight of the Conchords songs to Beth and American volunteer Alex, while British volunteer Emma is writing in her journal, British volunteer Alex is laughing and I am desperately finish this blabber-blog before the power disappears.

We'll be back in KTM from Langtang between March 21st and 23rd. Soon after our return we'll be moving our stuff to our new April digs: a fifth-story apartment in Thamel in a building owned and managed by Sanu Kaji's (of FoST) family. More volunteering, exploring and kayaking will fill our time through the end of April.