A Very Special Christmas Message from Travelman in Nepal

I can feel the adventure in my ice cold hands at 6:09 A.M. in Pharping, Nepal twenty kilometers outside of Kathmandu. Adventure is not particularly fun or enjoyable sometimes. It can be a bit cold, smelly, disappointing, and hard to get a good night’s sleep... and don’t get me started on the wifi.

...I had to stop typing just now to warm up my hands.

In America and parts of SE Asia we have cold and hot water taps. In Nepal they have cold and ice cold taps. They don’t have heat either. Unless you want to sit next to a burning pile of trash to warm up, you deal with it. I look forward to my milk tea in the morning at the hospital cantina because I can wrap my hands around my mug.

I haven’t taken a shower in twelve days. I’ve been using the wash cloth I picked up in Hoi An to wipe myself down as quickly as possible. I washed my hair the other day and my scalp started to sting from the cold as I rinsed.

Also, the toilet emits this repulsive mildewing rank. Keeping the lid closed helps, but not much. This means I have to leave the windows open on forty degree nights or get nauseated from the toilet. I sleep in my pants, my heat retaining shirt, my jacket, and my rain jacket with the hood up.

The hospital has been boring. I’m observing like a student. On the second day I arranged to go to the school in the afternoons to teach English. That was fun. I taught the children Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. It ended yesterday.

I go back to Kathmandu tomorrow afternoon, stay a night in Matrika’s nice new hotel for free (I’d call it, included in the volunteer fee.), then I’ll probably get a room in that part of town (it’s the tourist area) and plan my final two weeks in Nepal. Pokhara and Chitwan, most likely, with possible trekking in Anapurna Convservation Area. The trekking will depend on if I want to buy the extra warm clothes

And guess what? Although it may sound like it, I’m not complaining. It is what it is. I’m dealing with it, learning about living with less options (although it’s a simulation, I can leave at my leisure), and enjoying this completely different world. Everyday I feel like a CIA agent in a movie, holed up in a little Nepalese town working on a case.

I walked up to a temple on a mountain yesterday. I could see the Himalayas in the far, far distance. It was quiet, prayer flags fluttered gently in the wind.

I rode the local bus to school the past few days. The driver plays his upbeat Nepalese music on the bus speakers, the ticket agent stands on the steps of the open doors, and we bounce along the novice-level mountain biking trail that serves as their main road.

I eat dal bhat and momo for dinner. I drink a milk tea with it that smells like Christmas. I walk outside and I hear the 10 and 11 year old boys practicing their bamboo flutes in the open, two walled, corner shop where a guy sells the self-made flutes and Nepalese tribal masks that hang on his walls. He's not there, but his brother is. He asks how I am. Its not a mere greeting, he wants to know. We talk about where I can go next in his country.

Then I walk past the stray dogs fighting for territory, the family constructing a building on their own, the piles of trash, the young teenage Tibetan monks crowded around a cellphone dealer’s front counter, and the guy frying Nepalese donuts in a vat from inside his stone hut under a three story building.

I know where my home stay is because the giant Buddha statue encased in plexi-glass sits on a pedestal across the street. That’s why they built it, so I’d know where my home stay is.

Sometimes I’m close to tears with the amazing richness of this experience. There is such contrast... Stray dogs, dust, piles of trash, and fires made from trash ...kindness everywhere, mountainscapes, well-behaved children, Nepalese donuts, and holy pilgrimage sites. It is truly yin and yang.

Merry Christmas and all my love to you and your family.

(This is an email I sent in reply to a best Friend back home who inquired how Im doing and of where I am on Christmas. Thought it was worth sharing here. The sunrise photo was taken outside the door to my room after completing the email.)

I’m starting to feel like the steemitworldmap code at the bottom is my sign-off like Kirk’s Captain’s Log.

!steemitworldmap 27.6124 lat 85.2636 long A Very Special Christmas Message from Travelman Pharping,Nepal, d3scr
Travelman out.