Flashbulb Memories

     So it's a little after midnight on a Friday night in January and I just settled down to sleep, had a cup of tea, shut down my computer, and got into bed when I started thinking. It's a funny thing really, how it always seems to work, that whenever you settle down for bed your mind seems to find it quite entertaining to start up like a high speed chase, hunting down every last unfinished thought from the previous 24 hours. Well anyway, it started like that and memories proceeded to rush back to me. Memories of Nepal, and the crazy streets of Kathmandu, riding atop the bus at night, looking down the steep cliffs and smiling at how the moonlight lit up the terraced mountains, and knowing, knowing all along that this was it, the most beautiful thing I had seen so far. Over my time in Nepal, that constantly changed, the next thing quickly becoming the most beautiful thing I had ever seen :]

      It's sad really, how things change so quickly in life. I know that my time in Nepal changed me, but I sometimes have a hard time channeling that change here in normal American society. Upon arriving home to the states I went through a bit of reverse culture shock, and felt like I was annoying everyone around me by constantly wanting to talk about Nepal. After the initial readjustment period I felt myself falling back into my old ways. Not entirely though, and I didn't actually feel anything, I just noticed every once in a while when I thought about Nepal, and what I experienced there, then I would tell myself again and again that you are better than this now, you are a more enlightened person now. I don't mean to come off conceded when I say that either, its something you'll only really understand if you've been through it yourself I guess.

     Anyway, so somewhere in all of this thinking tonight I got out my phone and went to youtube and proceeded to find a suggested video called "Rickshaw Run - India Visual Vibes." It looked intriguing with its image of brightly colored rickshaws, and as I watched even more memories started to flood back. Faces of the children I loved and the people that became oh so familiar that I would look for them as I passed them in the streets every morning on my way to school. I miss all of these people with a complete aching of my being, even those I never had the honor of talking to. I miss the smell of the temple with all of its burning incense that I would walk through every morning and every afternoon. I miss the chorus of dogs that would sing me to sleep every night as they paraded down the dark streets in tough gangs. 

     As I watched the youtube video I also thought about seeing people exactly like the these that were recording this one. These people hiding behind their cameras, be it snapping away bits of memory, or recording every passing face, they gave me this sort of funny feeling. Like I wanted to both laugh at how silly they looked, scold them for looking ignorant, and take a picture of them taking a picture. For some reason that exact action legitimized my feelings. I wanted to capture them capturing the "poor, unfortunate natives" to show them how it feels. It was like I wanted to subtly and unconsciously make a statement towards them. How does it feel? I know I shouldn't feel above these people or angry at them in any way because they aren't really doing anything wrong, or aren't doing anything they would understand as being wrong, but after being there a while, and I mean really being there, your eyes begin to open. You start to look at people you used to see as "just like you (aka Western like you)," as being oblivious to what they were snapping pictures of. 

     One such occasion I remember quite clearly, and quite comically, is the perfect example of exactly this. I was traveling on the bus to the start of the Annapurna Circuit Trek in Besisahar, a 9 hour journey from Kathmandu where I lived. I was traveling alone and sitting beside a nice Spaniard, that was also alone. A few hours into the trip I was feeling terribly ill so I decided to take some Bonine, motion sickness medicine that I was unaware was NOT non drowsy. This induced severe sleepiness for the rest of the trip, that I later on realized was linked to my taking the medicine. We would take a pit stop every few hours then I would get back on the bus and immediately pass out, and I mean immediately into a coma-like state, then I wouldn't wake back up again until the next stop. This was all so disorienting, as you can probably assume, me checking my watch and realizing I had just been asleep for the past 3 hours without noticing. 

     Anyway, on one of these stops I was shaken awake by the sudden slamming of our breaks. I oriented myself, peeking out the dirty window onto a small hill parallel to our bus. Another side note you should know is that there are lots of asian tour groups in Nepal, and I mean like Japanese, Chinese, Korean kinda asian. This hill beside our bus held probably the best tour group of that kind I had yet seen in Nepal. There they stood, resembling a fumbling flock of excited penguins, perfectly fitting the stereotype in their little sweatpants with rubber bands on the bottoms and windbreakers, topped off with oversized visors and sunglasses. Each pair of tiny hands clutched large-lensed cameras, the newest of their kind, snapping away thousands of pictures a second of literally everything in their immediate perimeter. One such man wandered a little ways from the pack and proceeded to gawk at our bus for a second. I don't know what was quite so shocking about it, because I am pretty sure I had just seen them all stumble out of a nearly identical one but he decided it was the perfect photo subject. He then took out a camera with literally the biggest lense I had ever seen and took about half a million pictures of our bus, and each and every one of its inhabitants through the windows. Watching him do this was like watching a comedy show. I don't know if it was my extreme exhaustion, or extreme boredom, or a combination of the two but I couldn't stop laughing. It was just too perfect, not only did he have the unnecessarily large camera, but two more of assorted sizes hanging around his neck. As he leaned in closer to our window I got the sudden urge to take out my camera and lean out and take a picture of him. I really wish I had though, just for the pure irony of how stereotypical he was, combined with the confused reaction it probably would've induced upon him.

Here are a few visuals for the said stereotype I am trying to convey above.

                                      

p.s. This is not meant to sound racist in any way! It is all said in the name of comedy.
p.s.s. I am of asian blood.     

Well, that is all for tonight folks, I should really get to bed if I even want to think about waking up for zumba tomorrow morning :P

Namaste and love you all <3

13th Day of Walking, 14th Day of Trek

     Happy Birthday Jake! I hope you are having a wonderful day :]

            Today made me second-guess myself for the second time since I’ve been on this crazy adventure. The first time was at about 4,500km at High Camp, and I was laying awake, cold, and in pain in my sleeping bag and I told myself “Addy, you’ve done wonderfully, you are so brave, but life isn’t always fair, and as much as you want to, you can’t control everything that will happen to you. It is time to put down the cards and head home.” Chandra saw otherwise that morning and didn’t let me give up and turn around, as he did today, well with a little help from impossibility. I want all of you that are reading this to know that I am no superman. I break just as easily as any other. Up at High Camp I cried for the second time since being here. I was terribly exhausted, homesick, felt terrible, and on top of that I felt so weak, and there was nothing I could do about it. Over the past year I’ve developed that loathing for weakness. It’s not that I don’t think one should express emotion openly, I personally just hate letting myself recognize negativity and let it get to me.

            Anyway, back to today. I have been slowly losing steam since Jomsom and today was the epitome of just that. From this very morning when we started out I just wanted to get it over and done with, which is definitely the wrong attitude to take on a seven to eight hour hike with. We began with a climb, our first of a day full, up many, many steep steps. Once at the top three young boys trying to sell off oranges they held in woven bags bombarded us. We ended up breaking and buying some of their green, sour citrus, and continued on our way. Ever since High Camp I have been traveling on the same schedule as this girl from Amsterdam, and today we walked together for a while, and are actually staying at the same guesthouse tonight. She is a singer at home, as well as an actress in the theater. When we were walking we would fall into separate paces though and temporarily split up, only to run into each other again later.

            So almost all of today, enough to say about all was climbing up slate stone steps. Each section varied in size, some making you feel like you had to do a split to reach the next step, some so close together you could hop two at once. Steps are literally the worst though. Whoever though that building steps was the better option over just shuffling up the mountain was terribly terribly wrong. I would even go as far as to say a sadist. So you can see my opinion on today. By ten in the morning I was done, mentally and physically dead. I had decided that I was not going to climb anymore; I was finished. Around 11:30am we stopped at an Israeli guesthouse and I asked Chandra if there were any jeeps that could take us to Gorepani. He laughed at me and said “no, only (yeah okay) three hours left, easy easy, aslowly aslowly.”

            I felt a little better after my meal, but that was short lived once we started climbing again. I compulsively ate half a roll of chocolate dipped digestive biscuits while walking today, so that was bad. I listened to music while climbing too, which helped a little. The last ten-minute climb up the stairs into Gorepani, Chandra was tired too. He kept saying “up up, then Gorepani, then down down all the way! No more up after this, all done!” That helped drive me a little more, along with the promise of a hot shower at the top, which I was in great need of, being a sweaty, hot mess after all of the climbing. The guesthouse we are staying at tonight is nice and clean so that makes the harsh day a little better.

            Yes, and I haven’t forgotten, today is your 20^th birthday Jake. It is just starting for you and I hope it ends up being 1,000xs better than mine, but I wish I could be there with you. I have no cell reception up on top of this mountain, but I know I will for sure tomorrow after we start descending, but I really want to talk to you earlier! I’m going to see if they have an international phone here that I can use. I’m going to have to make it up to you, missing your day, a night of dancing sound good to you?

            I’m writing in my room, which makes for bettering thinking, quieter atmosphere, so I think today’s entry might actually be okay :P Oh, on another random note, my sunburn on my face is starting to peel and it has now been three months since I’ve shaved my legs, and two weeks since I’ve shaved my armpits. No shame in any of that though, once you’ve been living out in the real world for a while, you stop noticing normal societal expectancies. I know, I know, I’m a beautiful feminine sight right now. Luckily I haven’t had to see any of my body hair thanks to the cold, though the peeling is a bit annoying.

            Tomorrow we wake up very early and hike to Poon Hill (a 45 minute hike), to watch the sunrise over the mountain range. I kind of have the feeling it’s going to be the same idea as childbirth. Once you see how beautiful it is it will make all of the pain and time building up to it worth it. Yes I did just relate my trek to the giving of life; hey there are more similarities than you’d think! Okay, well I should probably head down and order dinner now, I hope this was adequate :]

Love you all and see you soon!

Ø  I have so many ideas for paintings and poems!

Ø  The halls here are padded, they are like really thick foam or something under the carpet so you literally feel like you are walking on a cloud haha :P

Ø  I thought about wearing real clothes today, it’s going to be weird, but so nice! I’ll never want to wash my clothes haha, it will feel so unnecessary!

Ø  I am glad the walking is almost over, I am getting homesick for Kathmandu :P

12th Day of Walking, 13th Day of Trek

        Today we made the trek from Kalopani (black water) to Tatopani (hot water). It started out with scaling down a few dusty cliffs, then proceeded on through some small farming villages, still descending to lower elevations. It got hotter as we walked, but luckily I prepared for it, wearing less clothing, which was still warm with the sun on us. We walked for quite a while today and stopped by a beautiful waterfall for lunch a few hours in. I ordered veg egg macaroni, but ended up getting Asian noodles :P haha. Just as we were leaving more of our people we have been traveling with stopped at the same restaurant for lunch. That’s when I realized how fast we really are, haha.

We also ran into Chandra’s porter friend again at lunch. The trekkers he was carrying for took a plane back to Pokhara in Jomsom, so now he is walking here to Tatopani to catch a bus back home to Pokhara also. It is so funny how Chandra and him are like best friends. They held onto each others arms as they walked today. I think Chandra was just supporting him, but it was still adorable. We finally got into Tatopani with my knees throbbing and my whole being so exhausted. The guesthouse here isn’t very nice at all. The sheets on the beds are obviously dirty, and there is mold all over the walls, a lot of it attempting to be masked with a second coat of patchy green paint.

A little after getting here we walked down to the hot springs to check the out and phew! Are they hot! They are literally boiling and no one was able to fully submerge himself because of it, just sitting on the edges with their feet dangling in. I wasn’t dressed in swim attire, so I just sat on a nearby wall with Chandra, but even from there I could feel the radiating heat. I met this cool South African guy and talked to him for a while. He did the whole circuit thus far in just nine days! He seemed to be running from something, or just life in general, and was among that group of people in Nepal and India all here to escape. I have to say though, he has some sick tattoos, though many of them were quite faded :P

Tomorrow Chandra gave me the option of either walking five to six hours to Sikha, or seven to eight hours to Gorepani. He said that we won’t be next to the river anymore, and it will be a climb up into the jungle. With this in mind I think I am going to go for the five to six hour walk, though I am getting a little more worried about my timetable here. I can’t worry though, because I may only do this once, I’m just getting quite tired and sore. My legs and feet get sorer everyday and I am losing my drive to keep pushing on and have a good time with it.

Ø  I am trying not to think about pain and tiredness though.

Ø  I have been so hungry all day today it’s been bad. I’ve been a bottomless pit and craved sweets. I got Dal Bhat for dinner, so hopefully that will solve it!

11th Day of Walking, 12th Day of Trek

Today was a very long day! I woke up then packed up all of my clothes that were draped all over my room drying, giving the appearance of a cloth rainforest. Today we walked down the dry dirt road leading out of Jomsom for quite a while. It led along a once-great river, now nearly completely dried up, creating a sort of seasonal canyon. Only a few hours in we stopped at a little restaurant and guesthouse next to an apple orchard. I had a good hot cup of milk tea and slice of apple crumble, and then we were off again. We weaved our way through little apple farms, now bare from the coming winter. As we walked the temperature rose, forcing me to shed my layers and wrap my shawl around my head as a makeshift turban and protection from the hot sun. My legs ached with the many days of walking, my music only temporarily distracting me from the pain.

It was quite a nice walk today. There was a beautiful view of the mountains and the warmth was a blessing. We stopped for lunch at a lodge about four hours in, and I ordered a very dissatisfying curry, which pretty much was just watered-down veggies, no spices what so ever. Everything stared to shut down and I felt extremely tired by the end of walking, just as we wandered into the small town of Kalopani. The hostel is fairly nice and I got to have a scorching-hot shower, which felt great. I put menthol on my legs, and now the soreness is gone, but I smell incredibly minty haha. We are all huddled around the large dining room table relaxing now. The dining rooms at guesthouses all have this one big table with a heavy blanket all around the edge and they put a metal bucket of hot coals under the center of the table and everyone sits around the edges under the blanket and get warmed :]

I’m sorry my entries have been incredibly dry these past few days, I’ve been feeling quite tired and uninspired :P Hopefully they will improve!

Ø  I have taken on the restless spirit of someone on the move.

Ø  I only have about ten days left in this country! It’s such a crazy thought, it saddens me, but also excites me :]

Ø  I’m getting so used to being on the move, it’s going to be strange going back to Kathmandu.

Ø  Jake’s birthday is in two days and I have no cell reception :[ I hope I do on the 19^th!

Ø  Seven hours of walking completed today!

9th Day of Walking, 10th Day of Trek

Crossing the Thorong La Pass

            You always hope for the best when traveling alone, and oftentimes you are blessed with just that, but good things come hand in hand with bad things and you must accept that. My prediction was correct. I had AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), and it only got worse. When I made the walk back to my room for the night I was starting to feel terribly bloated. I ended up being kept awake all night, first with a terrible stomachache, then at risk of TMI, I was blasted with terrible diarrhea. Diarrhea sucks by itself, but the situation only made it way worse.

About five times during the night I had to get up to go to the toilet, the process being first feeling the sudden alert of being jerked awake, then unzipping myself from my warm sleeping bag, wriggling out from under my many blankets, blindly groping for my boots and jacket somewhere in the dark, feeling for my toilet paper and flashlight, then diving out into the freezing night. I would then proceed to scurry down the slick frozen path down to the toilet shack. This toilet was possibly the grossest I have ever experienced. It was literally just a few planks thrown carelessly over a hole, but the pervious occupant has evidently also been similarly sick, but missed the hole, covering all of the boards in a nice layer of well, forgive me for being profane, but shit. I continued to repeat this nightmare of discomfort until my alarm beeped 5:30am.

I was exhausted and in pain and the last thing on my mind was walking the ten-hour pass. I packed up my stuff anyway, just in time for Chandra to come knocking at my door to help me carry it up to the dining room, a slick climb up the cliff. I told him that I thought I was sick and he told me that I would feel better after some tea, the Nepali cure-all. I then found myself shaking at the dining room table, surrounded by tired trekkers leaving to walk the trek bright and early. Chandra, like all guides, has progressively been becoming more and more protective of me, and this morning his nursing kicked into full gear. He brought me a large steaming cup of ginger tea, a stomach settler, then hunted down some medicine from a nearby guide, then brought me a bowl of hot rice pudding when I wouldn’t touch my egg and chapatti wrap. He sat there nervously beside me, telling me that I just needed to push through for a few hours then I would be all better. “We walk aslowly,” he kept repeating.

Eventually I knew he was right, I couldn’t stay in this freezing mountaintop hostel another night, I had to make it over the pass. Chandra had me then buy a metal water bottle that he washed for me then filled with hot water to take over with us. Then we set off with about seven other people that were also feeling sick. I am not over exaggerating when I say that walking those three hours it took to get over the pass was probably the most physically painful thing I’ve ever forced myself to do. I was terribly dizzy, my stomach felt like it was going through the spin-cycle of a washing machine, and on top of that I couldn’t breath. It literally felt like I was trying to breath through a straw, and because of this I could only take a few steps then I would have to stop because I was so winded. Chandra yet again pulled through, force-feeding me his water and tea, not letting me turn it down.

Finally we struggled over the last small hill and there it was. In the magnificent form of a tangle of prayer flags and a smoking teahouse I saw my Eden. After a big cup of black tea I already began to feel better. The descent was steep and rocky, immediately changing the climate and environment once again. I began to be able to breath again and just had a headache which I resolved with a few pills of ibuprofen. We ended up still beating a lot of people that had set off at four to six in the morning, which was quite funny considering I had gone through hell and back to get there.

We stopped at Muktinath for the night where I got a nice hot shower, for the first time in about four days, and a delicious meal at our nice guesthouse. I also got to talk to my family and Jake, now being in Ncell range, which was also amazing. I haven’t been this warm in a week, and am so proud of myself for making it over :]