Nepal Part Dos - The Namaste Chapter

It has been a month since we traversed to Nepal and I thought it would be time for a little reflection.  When we talk with people that have been to Nepal, the common phrase is usually "life changing".  Naturally, it is hard to dampen expectations with words like that.  Fortunately, I am a bit cynical at times and usually take stuff like that with a grain of salt. (Interestingly, my being cynical is really not fortunate for anyone, especially Becky).

So.  Life Changing.  Big Stuff.  Nepal.  Using Periods And. Capital Letters. For Every Word. For. Dramatic Effect.

OK, I will say it.  Nepal generally lives up to the hype.  It is in your face, dirty, poverty stricken, polluted, breathtaking, heartwarming, humbling, heartbreaking, amazing, frustrating and myriad other adjectives. (I've been seeing the word myriad a lot lately so I thought I would throw it in there. I hope you like).

I took some time to edit our pictures from the trip and I think that they can show some of what we were able to experience in this crazy country.  One or two of the pictures are repeats from Becky's blog, but I cleaned em up so they are worth another look.  I will also be adding some (pithy) commentary along the way.



Section I - Breathtaking
It is hard to capture what you see live, but considering I was carrying like $1,500 of camera equipment, these better be pretty close!  These are from Poon Hill. Yes, I thought the name was funny.  But I also laughed in a school wide professional development session when someone described our school as well endowed.  Back to the pictures.

Can I suggest here that you click on these pictures to enlarge them.  It will make your experience much more enjoyable.

Yes, the last two are the same, but so pretty and just different enough.

This is Dhaulagiri. 8,167 meters - 26,795ft. Wow. 7th highest mountain in the world.  Something like 40% of the people who try to summit this mountain die. 

Section II - Animals

Yak - enough said.

Yak video - I will let the video commentary speak for itself.

Ass. 

Or a mule. Somebody enlighten me please.

Greatest inspirational poster ever? 

Answer - Yes.

Once again, click to enlarge and enjoy this in all its glory. Found in a rest point on the last day of our trek.

These goats were awesome!  They tasted fantastic!

I was kidding about the goats.  They needed salt.

Seriously, all up and down the trail were these teams of asses? mules? hauling stuff up and down.  These are the roads and thus, these are the vehicles. Reliable brakes on this model. (Looking at you Toyota).

Section III - Life

This was pretty early in the morning and this woman was brushing her hair that had to go down to her rear. Just across the way our guide, Rahm, pointed out that a couple of older gentlemen were drunk.  Once again, this was early morning.  Sorry, no picture. Just think of your grandparents (lets say on your mothers side, because I think we all know they are the drunks) on New Years Eve, if you grandparents were both dudes sitting Indian style (Nepal style?) in the dirt in the mountains of Nepal.  Also your grandparents are both about 5ft tall and Asian. If you are reading this and you are Asian, that last part is probably not much of a stretch.

I like this picture because you have this innocence.  Children playing, a cute boy and girl looking up at another cute boy. If you let yourself, you can even see your own childhood in this picture...And then you look closer and you see that the boy is up above because the high ground is best to attack from.  This dude is wielding a knife and a stone.

Sickle - Check.  Hammer - Ah man!

Love this shot. Becky on the trail up ahead.

Section IV - Animals + Life = Love

Maybe the most disturbing part of the trip.  Becky mentioned this in her blog and here is the visual to go along with it.  This girl was litterally cleaning this animal's (buffalo?) poop with her bare hands.  Makes you think twice about giving the heavy sigh when your wife asks you to wash the dishes.  Looking at you Dad.  Haha. Jokes.

I thought this was really awesome.  This was taken from way up above down into a valley on our last day of the trek.

Section V - Flora

This thing rocked my world.  Rahm, the guide, said, "Tomato tree!"  I freaked out.  I think I called him a liar and then I got out the camera.  After some research, it is a tomatillo tree, also called tomato tree.  Sorry Rahm.

Lucky for us, it was berry season.  Sweet and tart! Groups of kids would hang out on the road between where you start the trek and the main city in the region, Pocara selling rolled up leaves full of these berries.  We pulled over a couple of times to buy some.  Sadly, no picture of this.

Some local medicinal herb. A closer inspection is needed.

Man, where have I seen this before?

Another patch of this stuff. Just a little guy.  Maybe Rahm can tell us what it is.

"Marijuana."  Thanks Rahm.

Cannabis, as my freinds from Canaba like to call it, grows like crazy in Nepal. Don't worry Kyle family, still pot free since '83. I was one year old in '83. Haven't touched the stuff since.

I could have put a picture of a cinnamon tree here, which I thought was really cool.  Instead, I decided to just put in a couple of extra weed pictures.  I know what people want.

Hey unemployed Americans. I hear this farm is hiring. Too soon for and economy joke?

Legit terracing.

Last section - Extra

I think those vehicles I refered to earlier (the asses) need some emissions testing.  There was no shortage of poop on the trail. Yak poop, buffalo poop, cow poop, dog poop, goat poop, and of course, chicken...er...poop.

We will leave you with this. I may have massaged this photo a bit. I still think it is kinda cool.

Life Changing.  That was the phrase at the beginning of this blog, and trip for that matter. I hope that every trip and experience is life changing in some way or another.  Nepal was no different. I would like to think that Becky and I approach trips like this with a sense of graciousness and humility. We are fortunate to get experiences like these, so yeah, I suppose Nepal was life changing.

Whew!  Glad that is done.  This took me like three days to get through.  And...get excited...there shall be a Nepal Part Sam (thats three in Thai) - Kathmandu.  Get excited.

Until then.

Love,

iBeck

Dunk This

Becky is the student council advisor this year and she has had a good time doing it. Earlier this year, the student council had a dunking booth fundraiser. So when Becky was the first to get in the chair, I made sure I was first in line with my baht (money) ready. I will say that I nailed it on the first throw...unfortunatly, the button was janky and didn't budge. Took me a few more HARD throws, but I finally got her! She was happy.  I didn't eat for a week after that, you know, because she is basically the only reason that I have food. Seriously, I think I ate popcorn all week. See the important lessons I am learning through marriage!

Love Us.

Yummy Thai Fruit

You know you are full on Thai when you go to the store/market with a list (thank you Becky) that has "any fruit you want for the week" as one of the items and you come back with this. Gotta love rambutans and mangoes! Each month brings another delicious fruit that is in season.

Nepal

Hey Friends and Family,
I know you're all checking the blog EVERY day for pictures of Nepal........or you're bored at work right now and looking for ANY sorry excuse to get distracted. Either way, welcome! I'm glad you're looking at the blog now. And rest assured there are pictures, but first, let me finish the story of our trip that Isaac started while ignoring me at the airport in Dhaka. :) Seriously, Isaac, I need more attention......just kidding, it's nice to get breathing room sometimes and your socks are smelly.

Anyway, after we finally arrived in Kathmandu, where our guide was supposed to meet us, we noticed that no one was there with those misspelled name signs. I was really looking forward to something like Issac and Rebookoo Curry. Asians love to misspell our names.....and other English words in general. Ok I'm sorry, I digress. So our guide wasn't waiting because we were 4 1/2 hours late! And I'm brilliant so I didn't get the phone number of our guide. We ended up hiring a NEW guide because if we wanted to do the trek we had planned we had no time to lose.

We had to run around Kathmandu and get new trekking permits so I had to walk around the city to get my picture taken since I don't have extras with me at all times. Isaac, on the other hand, always carries passport size photos around in his wallet so he can have them available in case people want a teeny tine autographed photo of him.

I learned on the journey to get a passport photo that it is not a good idea to wear short shorts in Kathmandu......or to be white. It makes you stand out/look skanky. So, Mom, put away the daisy dukes when you go to Nepal! Unless you want to get stared at/yelled at by creepy Nepalese men.

Once we got photos, passes, and a new guide we were forced to drive 5 hours to get to Pokhara, where the trek started. I slept the whole way, but Isaac is a giant and didn't fit too well in the Suzuki. :(. We did make one stop on the way at some random house that was actually a restaurant and Isaac and I got to sit on a rock while the driver and our guide ate with these shirtless old men and some goats. This one old guy took a fancy to us and decided to strike up a conversation in Nepalese. It lasting a surprisingly long time considering neither Isaac nor I said anything.

Finally, we ended up in Pokhara and I took a cold shower because there was no hot water. Awesome. The next day, the trek started and the real fun began!

The first 2 days of trekking were great! They were challenging and I definitely got a workout but it was pretty cool. We hiked for about 5 hours each day. On the night of day 2, our problems started. I don't know what we ate, but something didn't sit well. I didn't sleep at all that night and Isaac woke up at about 4 in the morning to throw up. It was ok, though, because we were supposed to wake up at 4:30 to hike to the top of Poon Hill for the most amazing view of the trip.





It was a bit of a struggle with our stomach issues but we made it! And we got some awesome pictures. Afterwards we hiked back down to base and took a 2 hour nap. We woke up and were supposed to walk 3 1/2 more hours to get to the next tea house but Isaac was REALLY suffering so it took us about 6 hours! It was painful. We made it to the next town and went to sleep right away at like 4 pm. We woke up for about 15 minutes to TRY to eat but it didn't really work.

The next day, we felt a bit better and kept hiking. That evening we took a trip to a hot spring which was Isaac's favorite part. It made him miss Korean Sauna. He said he wished he could get naked with the other men. Isaac loves getting his naked on.....with other men. :) The Sauna was really nice, especially because it meant I didn't have to take a cold shower.

We had a few more days of hiking and I learned a few things on the way.
1. I can no longer complain about having to weed the backyard when I was growing up because weeding in the middle of the mountains looks WAY worse.
2. I can also no longer complain about doing ANY kind of yard work as a child because I saw a child cleaning up cow poop WITH HER BARE HANDS. I don't know what they were going to use it for but I think they burn that crap (hahaha LITERALLY!) to cook and heat things up. Delicious. Seriously, this kid was probably 4. So, thanks dad, for not making me clean up poop with my bare hands!

The last 2 days of hiking were much better than when we had stomach issues and we ended our trip in Pokhara and then flew to Kathmandu to catch our flight back to Bangkok. In Bangkok we tried to get some money from Thai Airlines for our crappy travel/missing our guide because we ended up paying the OLD guide for the flights we missed AND for our original trekking permits. Of course the day we decide to wait in the complaint line is when Europe decides to cancel all of their flights so everyone and their mom was waiting in line because they couldn't fly to Europe. It was also cool because after asking 3 people if we could just mail in our information and being told "no", we found out that we needed to fill out a form and MAIL IT IN! We're still waiting to find out about whether or not Thai Airways will give us some money. Keep your fingers crossed! We're hoping for some flights to Australia.

Alright, by now you're either bored, or you need to get back to work. Seriously Dad, get to work! So, I'll end there and leave you with a bunch more pictures!


Love,
The Thai Curreys

Travel Woes

> Becky and I are sitting here in the 'international' airport in
> Dhakka, Bamgladesh. When we got to the airport this morning in
> Bangkok, the lady at the ticket counter told us to wait a minute.
> She let us think there was some computer error and that was why she
> didn't tag our bags. Turns out the plane that normally flys Bangkok
> to Kahtmandu was broke like a joke and the replacement plane was
> smaller which means the plane was overbooked. After 20 minutes or so
> a guy tells us that he is going to have to reroute us, whilst at the
> same time showing us an envelope stffed with money! Well, we both
> find this pretty comical but decide to go with it.
>
> So now here we are, sitting in a dumpy old airport waiting to catch
> our connection to Nepal. What was it worth to us for this three hour
> delay? How bout 300 bones! Nice.
>
> Of course we still have to figure out what to do once we get to
> Kahtmandu since we were suppsed to catch another puddle/mountain
> jumper once there... And who knows if the guy supposed to pick us up
> will still be there. But, as we say in Thailand, Mai pen rai - no
> worries.
>
> iBeck

Ps - I would have included a pic but my iPod touch has no camera.
Thanks for nothing Steve Jobs!

Blago

(yes the title of this Blog is named after Rob Blagojevich in honor of his new spot on celebrity apprentice. THANK GOODNESS HE'S BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT!)

Anyway let's get back to business in Thailand. I would like to apologize to all of my fans about totally slacking off in the blog writing department. Isaac has totally been carrying all of the burdon of blog writing and I am sorry. I told him that it's because he's so much more talented and prettier than I am but he only accepted that excuse 100 times. His ego really needed the boost. He feels much better about himself now so I guess I should just write on the blog.

I can't think of too many exciting things that are going on over here except we did have some awesome political turmoil a few weeks ago. I don't really think I should give too much info because I don't want to end up like Claire Danes in that movie: Brokedown Palace. Anyway the short version is that these people are dressing up in red and they don't like the government so they have parades and stuff. I got to see one of the parades on the way downtown on saturday. They were all happy and carrying flags and riding in the back of pickup trucks and on motorcycles. It reminded me of baseball parades except there are no grenades at baseball parades........at least I don't think..........

Anyway, don't worry. They only throw grenades at banks and I don't think I look like a bank, although Isaac may beg to differ.

In other news, Isaac and I spent a really nice day at the mall all day on saturday which was great for our relationship. haha that was a JOKE! Going to the mall together all day with your husband is NEVER a good idea. Nothing makes men crankier than having to spend more than 30 minutes in the mall without buying electronics or going to the movies or something. The good news is that I got a new outfit despite the fact that Thai stores don't carry clothes that are anywhere CLOSE to my size. I felt like I was shopping at children's stores. Actually, maybe I was in children's stores. I still haven't learned how to read Thai. dang.

Isaac and I ended up splitting up (he went to look at cameras, we didn't break up! Don't worry, Dad, we were able to salvage the marriage. You still have your favorite child, Isaac.) and we met up at this student exhibit at the mall of artwork by kids from our school. It was the perfect combination of sexual stuff and swears. Honestly, one of the paintings just had the F word written all over it. Another one was a naked female body being ground up in a meat grinder. It was pretty interesting/disturbing but I guess it was a memorable artistic experience. Nothing says art like the F word and nudity. All of the meat grinder art made us hungry so we went to Outback for steak. Mmm beefy.


Random story: On friday we had a few wierd encounters with our neighbors and Isaac took a video to share so let me take some time to explain. When we arrived home from work, we noticed that there were all these people in front of our neighbor's house and they had built this 2 story shrine thing with gold and money all over it. They also had these gigantic speakers and a band in the street and they were playing music and whatnot. We figure that they were finally welcoming us into the neighborhood. It took them long enough. Sheesh! We're still waiting for them to drop of the gold and money at our house.....

ALSO, when we got home we found some OTHER neighbors in our yard and they seemed to be telling us that there were 4 snakes in our front yard. We looked around and couldn't find them anywhere so hopefully they're in the house. Last time there was a snake in the house, I ran at Isaac with a knife. Really it was just a coincidence. I happened to be chopping up vegetables when I saw the snake and I didn't want to drop the knofe because, obviously, I didn't want the snake to use it against me! OBVIOUSLY. Isaac freaked out about the knife and totally overreacted. But he did use his snake charmer skills to get the snake out of the house........after moving every pience of furtniture and running around like a little girl. He's my hero! I love you baby! :) Seriously.

Ok I think those are all of the stories I have for now. Hopefully I won't wait 4 months before my next blog.

Thanks for reading!,
Becky

There goes the Mooban!

On Monday of this week, a tent was put up in the road in front of a house. We thought it was a little odd, but then again, A LOT of things we see daily are a little odd. We thought that someone just wanted a car port or something. Then yesterday (Friday), we when were coming home from school we figured out why they needed the tent...kinda. There was some kind of a ceremony with dancing, and music and flames. It was interesting to say the least. We tried to capture some of it in the video above without being rude.

In other news, Becky alerted me to people taking our Mangoes this morning again. I sprang into action and told those fools off! Not really, I told them that they need to give us half of what they pick. It works out well for us cause its not easy getting to the Mangoes. Everybody Wins!

Love,

iBeck