HAPY Farmers of Spaceship Earth

Things just weren't going right for us in Kathmandu. I got a stomach bug our first night. Yehuda hurt his foot. We both got respiratory stuff. We were stuck! We decided we couldn't go to India for our yoga retreat because of Yehuda's foot so we had to change our plans and reschedule. Where will we go next?

Our driver DK was amazing! He kept us entertained all day long and was great company. The first place he took us to was Budhanath Temple. It was a round temple with lots of different things to spin all around it. There were some shops in the area and we got a really good lesson on the different types of gurus and manifestations that are part of the culture. After that, we headed over to Pashupatinath which is an area in Nepal where you can view a cremation. They have two possibilities, one is a public burning and one is inside and is electric. Dk told is it wasn't worth it for us to spend money on an entrance fee so he took us to a road where we were able to see them decorating a body for the electric cremation. Our next stop for the day was Durbar Square in Bhaktapur. It was a very cute little area with some nice restaurants, shops and lots of interesting buildings. Many of the buildings were destroyed during the earthquake and you can see how hard they're working on restorat...

Time in Nepal is a very interesting concept. Napalese people seem to think time goes by quickly, or atleast things move quickly. Take us humans for example, when a Nepalese person says a hike will take an hour, they assume humans move quickly, thus they will get to their destination quickly. That was never the case for us on this trip. We heard about Sarangkot... we heard it was easy, it was only a 2-3 hour walk. But, somehow, Yehuda and I managed to turn it into a 4.5 hour walk. It took us forever! We walked from our hotel all the way up to the top. The view was nice but sadly it was a little foggy the day we chose to do it. We also happened to have gotten harassed by a dog on our path which totally bugged me out and made the experience a difficult one for me.

While in Kathmandu I was looking at a pair of earrings and I asked the shop owner how much they were. He replied that they were 150 rupees and I told him I'd be back for them. The next day when I went to the shop, there was a different person standing and I asked how much, he told me they were 600 rupees! I was so confused, I said, "how can they be 600 rupees today when they were 150 yesterday?" The shop attendant told me that I must have been mistaken and not pointed out the specific earrings I had wanted to the guy yesterday. These were indeed 600. (I knew that the man from the day before had pointed to all the earrings on one side and said these are all 150 and on the other side they were all 200). Either way, I decided not to fight and left the store. I went back again the next day and it was the original man. I asked him how much they were and he said 150.... ahhhh! I told him about the person from the day before and he called him over and told me it was his little ...

After recuperating and enjoying a few days back at our hotel, we decided to take a boat across Lake Phewa and hike up to the White Peace Pagoda. The lake, although very dirty and brown at the edges, was quite pleasant. Our boat ride across was very peaceful and our "boat driver" although the more accurate term for him would've been "boat rower" got us there in no time. The hike up was really nice, it was very quiet and was a good break for us from the busy city. At the Peace Pagoda you are not allowed to talk and you have to walk around the circle in a clockwise manner. We walked around, made a few friends (outside the gate since you can't talk inside the gate), and started our descent.

Tadapani had some splendid views as well. There were so many waterfalls on our path that day, so many sections of serene nature scenes, and we even bumped into a train of donkeys as well as some buffalo. The villages we walked through were quaint and isolated. We got to Ghandruk in the afternoon and were glad to start heading back to our hotel in Pokhara. However, our journey back wound up being very stressful, and after much haggling, our jeep ride was still expensive and absolutely awful. They squished so many people into the jeep. Ye huda started off sitting in the back (which he was too tall for) and sat hunched until he told the shorter people in the front that if we were paying the same amount we should switch seats in the middle - very valid. I kept getting nauseous from all the twists turns, and bumps. We were always at the edge of the cliff and it looked like there were a few times we might go over. We even had to back up on the mountain roads a few times in order to let some...

We set our alarm for four a.m. in order to get ourselves up to Poonhill in time for sunrise. It was extremely difficult waking up in our dark, freezing tea house but we layered up, grabbed our walking sticks, and headed for those stairs. Sunrise was much more crowded than sunset had been, and we made many friends on the mountain that day. I was so happy I made it to the top in time for sunrise. At some point I had started lagging behind and had told Juda to go ahead of me so he wouldn't miss it. He was waiting at the top for me with a big smile when I got there. After hiking back down and enjoying a nice homemade breakfast, we continued our trek. We got to a beautiful section called Duhreli Pass and it was the most magnificent part of our trip. We sat there for as much time as we could and just stared out at the mountains and clouds. Day three involved lots of slippery stone steps and because we were going down we proceeded with caution, so much caution that we only got to Tadap...