gee, it's great to be back home

following a hotel room with a herd of cochroaches, a thought-to-be-broken foot garnered on the roof of a nepali bus, 20 men throwing rocks at me from the train platform, growing exhausted by traveler small talk and 115 degree heat preventing me from leaving my hotel room after 9 am, it was time to get the hell out of dodge. if dodge means traveling life. there's something wonderful about not knowing where the day will lead, seeing things that are completely novel and being in your element by being out of your element. but when chris said i could come back to the land of peace love and music or something like it, i jumped at the chance. getting off the janshitabdi in dehra dun was the biggest sigh of relief in my life. the rainwet roads and headlights illuminating narrow bands of the forest winding up to mussoorie reminded me of the first drive up the mountain, cole and i stepping out of the jeep, wide-eyed and so much younger. i prepared myself for a place void of many beloveds, and, newly, chose not to mourn and (largely) abstained.

after a week and a half of "blobbing" (as preeti terms the perfect blend of relaxing) to the tune of action movies, pizza, an excess of quality beverages, too much facebooking and being lazy, unemployed, and void of 97% or responsibility, i am restored. i could feel guilty. but. naaaah.

it's the smells. monsoon, mold, chris's clove cigarettes. wet streets, the temple doubling as urinal in the bazaar. the smell of green. defining places, in words, seems to marginalize their meaning. and woodstock... man. it's heavy and light and self-defining and so much. on my second night in town i accompanied chris to the junior/senior banquet. when my ninth graders, who i swear have all grown like 6 inches in the last 3 months, saw me they all started clapping. i can't say that didn't warm my heart, since if i did say that, i'd be lying. meeting the new blood is the weirdest. having to explain myself, i become defensive of my experiences and prowess in this place. i know, i want to yell. you don't have to tell me twice, i lived here too! though some of the lovethatmakesaplace are absent, i am still the queen poker contender-and-not-champion, chris starr is still the only star in my galaxy and the homeyness has not lost it's flavor.

when i woke up on monday morning i realized the end is now unavoidable. i consistently temper goodbyes, to people and places, with an escape clause. the, "oh, i'll probably see you again before i go" and the like. but the outs are gone. i've lived here for over 2 years. i've hated it and loved it more than any other place and experience in my life. defining it in any additional simple terms would demean something i love, something important, something essential. sure it sounds dramatic. and an amazing thing is that, even though i am writing this in my blog, for the first time, i don't want to try to explain so you'll understand this moment. a monsoon night in the dark. the end of this era. i've done enough explaining and sharing. i think i'll take this for me. one for the road.

tibet-kathmandu-sandwich!

i couldn't help myself. or stop thinking about tibet.

p.s. quomolangma= everest.

this photo is of a man is doing a kora around the potala with prostration. he puts his hands together in the prayer position, claps them above his head and lays himself out on the ground all the way around the building. some people do this all the way around mt. kailash. that's dedication, yo.

"what to do? kathmandu" (binod, my trekking guide)

not even in chronological order. disgraceful. but i wanted to write about kathmandu, where everybody knows your name. each time i return (currently on my third revolution) i feel like i'm on cheers. probably one of the reasons that i am so recognizable is the "holy cow fiasco." but we will get to that when it comes.

when i first stepped into the streets of thamel, the tourist district in kathmandu, i approached catatonic shock. it was like bangkok divided by india. on drugs. rickshaw drivers grabbed my arms, men shoved travel agency advertisements in my face, children grabbed my leg asking if i wanted hashish. somehow, over time, it's turned into a sort of home. this is probably due to the sangria, coffee, the international herald tribune, familiar friendly faces, amazing thai, mexican, italian and japanese food and the traveler's culture that i love and love to hate.

there is so much to do and see, and so many pictures to upload, but while i have many photos, i do not have endless patience. so, one of my favorite places in the kathmandu valley is bhaktapur, a pedestrian city with old architecture (tons of newari-invented pagodas), which i visited on gai jatra, the cow festival. the hindu celebration is dedicated to those who've died in the last year and the scores of parades are punctuated with mobile shrines to the deceased. newaris, a nepali ethnic group, believe cows will guide the deceased in the afterlife and the celebration is a raucous, dancing, singing event. (it's especially good luck to be holding a cow's tail at the moment you die. you know, keep that in mind). since bhaktapur is the best place in nepal to celebrate, i obliged. after wandering the streets, chatting with people who greeted me with, "you look nepali!" (i seriously hear this ten to twenty times a day), and pretending to be a photo journalist, i was stoked. boys in ascending order of age marched, two by two, hitting sticks together in a rhythym with drummers and horn players following. groups of dancers followed, stopping frequently to perform varying dances. the excitement and happiness that only occurs when i feel a part of something, connected to someone, in another country. it's the romanticism. it's why i travel. and, as all romantic moments, reality quickly set in.

i stopped at a converted pagoda to have a famous bhaktapurian lassi (amazing yogurt drink that is pretty much like heaven) to find my wallet gonz-o. the shaky hot feeling set in as i emptied out my purse on the table. i bolted out, through the throngs of people, in search of a way back to kathmandu. i thought of the time during college that i panicked when i thought i lost my wallet and cancelled my video update card. this was a bit more pressing than that. now, i think obstacles are experienced for learning purposes, and i thought that as i ran in the afternoon heat. keep cool. as in other crises in traveling, i only made use of emotion to garner understanding or empathy. however, fabulously, i found goodwill everywhere. the people letting me create a credit system at restraunts, the internet cafe. especially the amazing ron humm. things were learned, of course. i intend to be more gracious with people in the future (as the westerners were actually much less kind and helpful than the nepalis. we are suspicious of everything, yes?). i am now experiencing what travel was like before the golden age of plastic. mainly, i have stopped ridiculing people who wear money belts. and... fannypacks.

the rooftop of the world (subtitled: yaks are my new spirit animal)

om mani pame hum ("hail to the jewel in the lotus") is the mantra to avolokiteshvara (chenrezig) the buddha of compassion is the most famous buddhist mantra. it's written on all prayer wheels and prayer flags-- releasing the prayer to the wind as they are spun or moved. old men and women mutter the words as they perform holy koras (the circumnavigation of a holy site). om... is also the national prayer of tibet as the buddha of compassion's reincarnation is the exhiled dalai lama. and what am i getting at? tibet is un-real-ly diffuclt to encapsulate. but in a way, it's the hidden jewel in something that grew out of ugliness (the lotus can grow out of the most polluted of waters). you get my drift so far?
tibet is one of the most incredible places i've ever seen. during my overland drive on the friendship highway, which runs from lhasa to the nepali border, i thought about how i would explain this "rooftop of the world" to people. for anyone unfamiliar, tibet was captured by chinese forces in 1959 and the dalai lama has been living in exile ever since. during the years of the cultural revolution, tibet did not escape mao's wrath and millions of people were killed due to his policies. tibet, once a subsistence economy, was forced to grow crops unfit for the mountainous climate. thousands starved. monks and landlords (the enemies of mao's brand of communism) were submitted to thamzings, "struggle sessions," in which many were tortured and died. others were imprisoned for supporting the dalai lama against the chinese will or for not submitting to chinese power. even today, when i was in lhasa, an ngo worker was "imprisoned" for two weeks for "questioning." the dalai lama's photo is still banned in the country. what was once a small buddhist kingdom under the rule of a now-nobel-peace-prize-winner has become a colony of china. lhasa has become a large chinese city and tibetans are at risk of becoming a minority in their own country. tibetans are probably the most peaceful, beautiful, compassionate people in the world. and looking into the eyes of anyone over the age of 40-or-so is knowing that they've seen things more terrible than anyone should ever witness. they are the gems in the lotus.

frustrating rewarding ugly beautiful compassionate hateful. dream-like hell-like happy sad. a contradiction. it seems like tibet is now a big sea of china and the monasteries and small villages are the only remaining things tibetan. chinese tourist groups are everywhere in a concrete jungle. phallic-like chinese monuments stand in front of the potala and other famous monuments. monasteries have fewer monks and nuns now (since the chinese killed many of them) and are run by the chinese government. the photo of the hands is from ganden, the monastery hit the hardest by the cultural revolution. they are still rebuilding, these hands are for a tantric statue of compassion and truth. but. still. beauty.

and for some reason, the people are still amazing. the jhokang, which is said to be the religious heart of tibet, is surrounded with people prostrating and performing koras. pilgrims welcomed me to walk with them, sometimes embracing my hand. at a nunnery, i had momos and tea with a grandfather and his grandaughter, making paper airplanes and using my lonely planet to communicate in minimal tibetan. a monk led us around ganden monastery and took photos of shrines (that aren't supposed to be photographed by tourists). yak butter lamps burned in monasteries. smiling, warm tibetan women laughed and grasped my hand with love flowing. a nun, tenzing, asked me to sit down next to her during prayers. after i sat, she showed me her mantras then she touched my necklace. we looked and looked at each other's necklaces, touching them lightly. when she deemed me safe, she dug deeply for another. a necklace with the image of the dalai lama. the only picture of the dalai lama i saw during my time in tibet. my eyes welled with tears and i said, "yes! good!" she them made slapping gestures on her cheeks and said, "no, china. bad," and tucked the locket back into her robes, patting it to ensure its safety, and then gesturing, "sshhh."

and more. drinking beer with the driver who led our overland trip and the owner of the guest house. amazing tibetan and chinese food (i've always argued that the only positive thing about colonization in all it's forms is food). an incredible expat community and caramel lattes (!). the tibetan plateau and mt. everest base camp. off-roading and actually using four wheel drive as i bounced around, reminiscent to bumps on valley fair's high roller. the friendship highway, like a ride at epcot center, complete with cliffs and waterfalls.

alright. that's the best i could do. i've run out of steam, which i continue to blame on the kathmandu heat. i would like to upload every picture of mountains, beautiful tibetan women, monasteries, monks and the like. but. what to do. an om for us all. (and, p.s. that last photo is everest).