Live from Kathmandu

Kathmandu is a very cool place.  I have read about it for years and heard stories from the old Hippie trail days about it’s exotic feel and soft culture.    There is a lot of true to that you just have to throw in some music and cell phones to round it off.  Somehow I managed to stay in a hotel  that was about 2 kilometers from the Thamel, the center of the real city.  Always stay downtown in the thick of things.  Bad mistake.  It’s a life or dead situation crossing that many streets especially at night.  I do love the narrow streets and the amazing amount of things for sale.  I wonder if anything is left in Tibet or the countryside.   My feeling is that Nepal and India are night and day.  Maybe some of that goes back to working so hard to make an atomic bomb or working to corner the programmer market.  I don’t know.  I think the life would be more relaxed if a Nepali answered the phone when you called Bank of America.  Even if they said their name was Peggy.   Most of them just seem to have a kinder way about them.  Rickshaws and Temples also go together better than huge mounds of rotted garbage and open sewers.  So, make a stop in Calcutta and then roll through Darjeeling and spend a week in Kathmandu.  Namaste.

Truesila River, Nepal

I’m sitting here on the balcony of my bamboo hut that overlooks the might Truesila River in South Central Nepal.  It’s winter here so they tell me the water is quiet from what it will be later in the year.  The snows of the mountains will melt and make this river a monster.  From the looks of the water line on the rocks my hut could be in danger.  I’m having the last of my Old Monk and marveling at this beautiful place.   Already I have come to like Nepal much better than India.  The scenery is spectacular and the people are very warm and friendly.  But things are hard here.  I am forever moved by how impossibly hard people work here and how difficult life is.   People from my world have no idea what this life would be like.  I watched some locals a few minutes ago going by with heavy loads on their heads and holding a very young child.   I watched them walk up a steep hillside that I would have trouble getting up on the best of days, and then disappear in the distance.  Never slowing or resting.    As night fell I could make up two men carrying huge piles of brush that completely covered them as they walked.  They decended a steep face that a goat would trouble staying on and then climbed again in the darkness.  Our local guide said they were going to make fence posts for sale in the market.  The entire bundle would be worth about 30 cents.  

Those experiences come in hard contrast to me bitching about carrying 3 wine bottles, some cheese and a 24 pack of cokes to the truck a crappy parking spot a 40 yards from the Brookshires door.   The fact is they still smile and laugh and wave as you go by.  Maybe they have the secret to it all.  Complaining and procrastinating will not get you one step closer to the market.  That would mean that you have one less moment in time to do what you really love.....whatever that may be.... 

Rumtek Monastery Sikkim

There is a very famous monastery about an hour outside of Gangtok Sikkim.  It’s current holy superstar is now at the feet of the Dali Lama himself.  It’s most famous for it’s grand Stupa which is made of gold.  Now I’m not sure if you guys know what a stupa is but I sure didn’t.  To be honest I have now seem two of them in India and Nepal and still really don’t know.  The most famous one in Rumtek was in this separate building away from the monks and had to be unlocked, which took some effort.  It was a golden box like thing that was said to hold the heart of the previous most holy monk at the monastery.  Now that sounds a little extreme but that was what was said.  The monk who showed me around had just come off of praying for 48 hours straight not including a bathroom break.  He had no formal English training but spoke better than I did.  Keep in mind I’m from Texas.  The thing I found the most interesting was the fact that there are so many young people with such strong beliefs that I now think changing the world is possible.  It may not be completely the way we would like for it to be but at least parts of it are in the hands of some very kind, peaceful, and dedicated young people.  I am also loaded with blessed prayer flags so time to live on the edge again.

In another place, the world also lost a very interesting and dedicated man last Sunday.  I was not a friend but only a bystander in his life.  He had vision and energy beyond what anyone would have found in Ben Wheeler, Texas.   So tonight in Chitwan National Reserve in Nepal.  I will drink a toast to Mr. Brooks Gremmels and hope his path continues with fast cars, local music, and dream building.  You will be missed.