Saturday, April 25, 2009

Sick of elephant photos?

Me neither.

Elephant silhouette 2-21-2009 10-47-47 AM

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

My elephant was hungry...

So he grabbed a snack midway through our walk.

Hungry elephant, Chitwan 2-21-2009 9-01-40 AM

I do find it unsettling that an elephant's trunk is powerful enough to casually snap a healthy tree as he passes by.

An elephant ride is not a soothing journey, involving as it does a ludicrous amount of swaying, bouncing and lurching. Four or more people cram themselves into a small carriage of approximately the same configuration and comfort as the underside of a wooden chair, and bumble about atop an animal thoroughly indifferent to their comfort. But you've got to do it at least once in a lifetime - and really, it's the only reasonable way to see a handful of the world's essential places.

One such is Chitwan National park, a surprisingly large swath of virgin savanna and jungle straddling the Nepal-India border. It's in the Terai, Nepal's vast, blisteringly hot and mildly anarchic southern plains. The Terai is one of the more ungovernable portions of one of the world's more ungovernable countries, and it's been the wellspring of much of Nepal's recent chaos; indeed, another economy-crippling blockade began there this morning. Even the route there forced we tourists to skirt a feeble but inconvenient banda; we had to abandon our bus when tractors blocked the road, hoof it across a road bridge, its surface painted with the carbon-smear remnants of burnt tires, to reach the tourist enclave of Sauraha, at the mouth of the park.

Once there, thankfully, there's no indication you're in the troubled Terai; in fact, I half-forgot I was in Nepal at all. With its plentiful elephants, loudly diverse birdlife, and gorgeously expansive grasslands, Chitwan seduced my subconscious into thinking I was back in Southern Africa, notwithstanding the heffalumps being a touch smaller and the people noticeably paler. Chitwan is famously crowded with rhinoceri, and hosts most of Nepal's remaining (and dwindling) tigers. I saw neither from my elephant on the next morning's early ride, which is apparently unusual (re: the rhinos, anyhow). I did see much hauntingly beautiful fog-shrouded savanna.

Chitwan Morning 3 2-21-2009 8-25-47 AM

And a few unexpectedly lazy deer, sitting serenely in the underbrush, with the confidence that evidently grows from the knowledge that Asia's tigers are nearly extinct

Doe and ivy 2-21-2009 8-44-29 AM


Nepalese Stag 2-21-2009 8-43-34 AM

The ivy-like vine surrounding the deer is (according to our elephant handler, or mahout) an invasive South American weed, furiously overrunning the forest. It has apparently consumed more than a tenth of the very large park, and is resistant to all reasonable methods of extermination short of napalm.

From a wildlife perspective, it was an underwhelming journey. It was, however, crowded with exotic birds, the occasional camera-shy warthog, and and beautiful scenery.I did see a few elephants (namely the ones carrying us):

Elephant riders galore 2-21-2009 9-03-11 AM


Better was to come later in the day. My uncooperative internet connection, I regret to say, is stubbornly refusing to upload the remainder of the day's photos, so it appears that finer photos will be yours tomorrow. More to come!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

In which I am shamed...

Because it would never have occurred to me to play ping pong with a temple step as the playing surface, a row of bricks as the net, and books taped to sticks as the paddles. Necessity is truly the mother of invention:

Ingenious ping-pong 2-18-2009 12-48-58 PM

This is from Pashupatinath temple, the holiest Hindu site in Nepal, and apparently something of a recreational hotspot as well.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

My new favorite Youtube!

For today, anyways: not only is it intolerably cute, but also it contains somewhere the germ of an incredibly interesting study in information ecology and non-reciprocal altruism. Fun!
The Roof of the World...

Or, at least, closer to it than I've ever been before.

Life trundles along apace in Kathmandu. Work is a harmless drudgery of proposal research and proposal writing, punctuated by flurries of deadline-motivated hyperactivity and the occasional spasm of frustration, all of which are entirely par for the course in the part of the world (i.e. the poor part). I'm tolerably content with my work; dream job it ain't, but it's worlds better than being stuck behind a desk wondering whether I'd ever get back out into the great wide world.

So, short of enlightening revelations about my job, I offer instead more photos from the high Himalayas!

A couple of hours North (and up!) from the waystation of Namche Bazaar is the minute Sherpa village of Khunde, a hive of nestled in a shallow valley in the shadow of Khumbila, a snowless peak mildly sacred to local Buddhists (among whom the Sherpas are entirely included) and thus forbidden to climbers. Khunde is a resilient community of surprisingly precise and sturdy stone houses, intermingled with scattered patches of unwatered gravel that the locals somehow coax into producing vegetables. From the village itself, there's little to see, aside from the local Stupa and Khumbila itself which, in a landscape positively crowded with its more towering sisters, isn't much to look at.

Khumbila Mountain, Buddhist Shrine 3-1-2009 10-28-12 AM 3-1-2009 10-28-12 AM

There's a hidden gem above Khunde, however, unknown even to our Sherpa Mingma and most of the villagers, and which we found solely through the assistance of a hand-drawn map provided by my trailblazing Canadian friend Craig. About 400 meters above Khunde, on a unnerving knife-edged ridge overlooking every village and valley in the region, are three memorials erected in the memory of Sir Edmund Hillary, first summitteer of Mt. Everest (along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay), and his wife and daughter, who sadly predeceased him in a plane crash. Hillary is "our God" in the words of Mingma, and is widely revered for spending much of his post-Everest life bringing schools, medical services, and other vital social improvements (many of which bear his name) to the unspeakably remote Solukhumbu region that hosts the Everest mountain range. After his death in 2007, local Buddhist monks in the Khumbu built these traditional stone memorials in a location whose startling inaccessibility and even more impressive view fit the legend of the man. Forest fire smoke wreathed the valleys below, but the view lost none of its power.

Memorials at Khunde 3-1-2009 1-22-07 PM

From the memorials, there's an astonishing view of the Everest range, perhaps the best you'll find without making the two week trek to Base Camp and Kalapattar.

Everest from Khunde Ridge 3-1-2009 1-05-07 PM

The distant black pyramid at the photo's center is Everest, which must be seen to be believed, and which is sacred to all the peoples of the region and has acquired more names than I can recount. For the record, here's the closest view I had of Sagarmatha, Chomolungma Goddess Mother of the World:

Everest 3-1-2009 1-13-27 PM

By Mingma's estimate, we reached 4500 metres, a kilometre up from Namche and a hair over halfway to Everest's peak. Not surprisingly, that's the highest I've ever travelled. Ye gods, what a walk it was.

More photos and tales will come, in characteristically discontinuous and scattershot fashion. With Nepali power and internet connections, this is a slow process, but I've much to show of the rest of the trek, an elephant ride, and last month's rather different sojourn to Hong Kong.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Guilty as charged...

Behnaz, who has been communicating telepathically with my blog (again) over my explicit objections, tells me that it misses me (and despises purple). I too, despise purple, and in recognition of this commonality (and the very gradually improving electrical situation in Kathmandu) have found the opportunity (though barely the bandwidth) for some photoblogging of a portion of the 2000+ photos I've taken in the last few months. I even managed to upload 4 photos from my recent trip into the Himalayas, a feat that only required 4 hours (the uploading, not the trip). You will be sick of mountain photos by the time I'm truly done, and you'd best make your peace with that now.


Birds over Kongde, Nepal Himalaya 3-1-2009 9-05-13 AM

These birds, whose names I do not know, chased thermals in the valley between Namche Bazaar, a key trekkers waystation en route to the Himalayan peaks, and Kongde, an astonishing 6,187 metre peak that looms over much of the lower Himalayas. Shorter by nearly 3 kilometres than Everest, Kongde Ri is nonetheless indescribably beautiful in person - the impact of seeing such a mountain for the first time is something that I, rarely at a loss for words, am still seeking to vocabulary to convey. You'll probably have to come see it for yourselves.

Kongde and Namche. 3-1-2009 7-58-25 AM
It's time for some war crimes trials

This is one of the most disturbing things I've ever read.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Happy New Year!

It's 2066 by the Nepali Hindu calendar! My bottom-floor neighbours rang in the New Year by getting furiously drunk, hurling bricks at each other, and apparently breaking a bottle over our guard's head. Bloody hell. He's all bandaged up now (no thanks to the bludgeoner) and I'm very cranky at the stupidity of it all.

No news as yet on my Foreign Service application - which is, I'm told, good news. I should have a more definitive answer by the end of the month.