Soul Searching

Nepal seems to be the overall poorest country I’ve visited so far, and although the street urchins are absolutely filthy, the kind of filth that’s hard to imagine, they look pretty healthy.

[Read more →]

I think I’m missing a day somewhere? Somewhere with a *beni in it…

[Read more →]

Ps – don’t shoot me, but at this point things look a lot like the Alps, without the comfort and food. Maybe with a porter things will look better…

[Read more →]

* – It’s really cold, be prepared. It staying above freezing but since there’s no heat so you never get warm. There are no heaters where you sleep. Even if you find hot water, no matter what you think sitting in your warm room in the west, you’re not getting naked in a room that’s […]

[Read more →]

Bangkok – no where near as sleazy as I would have imagined. Malls, movies, and unpaved roads. It was actually really nice.
Katmandu – one version of hell, must be ring number three or four from Dante’s Inferno. The sheer pandemonium was kind of shocking. Cars going every way you can imagine, bicycles, and rickshaws on […]

[Read more →]

Trekking* – first really bad idea to go from Phuket, Thailand where it’s 90° F to Nepal, where it’s 60° F in the daytime and around 32° F at night, really bad. I arrive in Jomsum and make my way to Kagbeni – after harrowing 16 seat airplane ride. The plane was almost grounded due […]

[Read more →]

Ok, so despite my best efforts to dissuade all but the most serious of professional mountain climbers, you still want to visit Nepal. What do you need to make the trip as comfortable, safe, and fun as possible?
a guide – $7 a day, make sure that they agree to feed and bed themselves
a porter – […]

[Read more →]

I don’t know what the word in Nepali is for “shortcut” but it probably is something similar in meaning to “let’s send this guy over a couple of mountains and see if he lives.” Anyway, after the first disastrous day, in which a 2 ½ hour trek took me 6 ½ hours, because I decided […]

[Read more →]

Indonesia – the land of mangy dogs
Thailand – dozens of dogs with really short legs, there must be one very busy, short-legged male dog running around Thailand…
Nepal – dirty dogs but cute, almost all of them – sleeping…

[Read more →]

It seems there are strained relations between the native Nepalese and the Tibetans. Whenever I talked to a hindu Nepalese, and they would tell me the religious breakdown of the population, they would always say, the king is hindu, 48% of the general population is hindu, 48% is Buddhist and 4% other religions (muslim, Christian, […]

[Read more →]