Om mani padme hum

Other than the fourth of July festivities, last week was pretty uneventful and a little boring...until taking off for Nepal. Nepal was awesome, and I really wish we had more than 2 and a half days to explore it! It is much more tourist-oriented, especially in Thamel, Kathmandu where we stayed, and that evokes a whole different grab-bag of feelings about being a foreigner than being in Dhaka where foreigners are few and far between. The nice thing about it was that people didn't stare, although we did get some remarks the first night about our salwaar kameez (or salwaar kurta in Nepali). Instead, we found it difficult not to stare at our numerous pale-skinned counterparts - I guess Bangladeshi culture is wearing off on us! (To clarify, "we" are Loida, Abbey, and I from Emory, and Katie and Sarah from UVA, all of whom work at ICDDR,B except me.)

Our short trip began with a two-hour delay of our flight from Dhaka on Biman Bangladesh airlines. Our tickets said we would leave at 2:45, but then we got to the airport and the schedule said 3:30. So, having tons of time on our hands we enjoyed the free snacks at "Spices" for Biman customers and eventually went to the gate and witnessed the strangest boarding call we had ever seen. We were sitting at the gate waiting, and then five minutes before our scheduled takeoff everyone in the room magically got up and boarded the plane. There was no announcement, no sign, everyone just got up and got in line. We sat on the runway forever in a smelly sauna of a plane waiting for some luggage issue and eventually took off. The return plane trip was equally eventful as we were felt up no less than 4 times in the Kathmandu airport (by security women) and had our bags thoroughly searched by a very unfriendly woman who confiscated Loida's spices because she "might throw them in someone's face". The actual flight was less eventful, and the Bangladeshi's seem not to care what or who is coming into their country as you can just walk out of the airport without going through so much as a metal detector.

While in Nepal, we spent the first full day in Kathmandu exploring the temples and spending copious rupees on entrance fees. It was really cool to see all the Buddhist prayer wheels, prayer flags, Tibetan (I think) monks praying, and receiving the blessing of a monk after taking that class in Tibetan Buddhism at Michigan, but the novelty wore off by the end of the day. We also saw some Hindu temples, but as I know nothing about Hinduism, it was kind of lost on me. I also felt weird about taking pictures of all these sacred sites and entering temples of gods I didn't even know existed. But the Nepalis do it too, and temples seem to be the place to hang out with everyone lounging around on them, although climbing on an elephant statue in Patan City to take a picture may have been a little out of the ordinary. At one of the temples there was an apartment building that allowed visitors to go up on the roof for free to get a good view of the temple, and the rest of the city. I'm sure it would have been even more amazing if it weren't the rainy season and you could see the mountains, but it was still a great view. The highlight of the day, though, was definitely the monkeys and their babies - so funny! One monkey had a juice box at one of the temples and looked like he would attack anyone who came within a 5 foot radius. And maybe he would have - my co-worker Sufia told me today that she did get attacked by a monkey at the Monkey Temple when she was there!

Monks praying

Master Buddhist artist at work

Elephant some of us later climbed on

Monkey with a juice box
Monkey with a view at the monkey templeA buddha and a photo of the Dalai Lama at the Monkey TemplePrayer wheels - om mani padme hum

The second full day we got a guide and driver (we also had the driver the previous day) from our guesthouse and went on a short tour of the Kathmandu Valley. Ironically I saw rice paddies on the outskirts of Kathmandu and I have yet to see one in Bangladesh. It was pouring when we left, and none of us were in the mood to walk around and see more temples in the rain (our "residents of Bangladesh" trick of the day before didn't get us the South Asian resident discount this time), so we skipped the first stop and went to a different Hindu temple. By that time the rain let up a bit so we walked through the temple and the guide told us a couple of stories behind the statues in the place, only one of which we really understood. Then we went for a short trek, maybe an hour and a half or so, along the side of the mountain. The views were spectacular, despite the clouds and lack of mountains, and we saw plenty of goat herding and mushroom hunting. A pack of dogs met up with us about halfway through and stuck with us all the way to the end, which was pretty cool. At the end of the hike, we met our driver and went to Nagarkot, a kind of resort spot in the mountains. It was another gorgeous view and we saw a snowy mountain peak in a break in the clouds. On a clear day, you could supposedly see Mt. Everest from the top of the hotel where we ate lunch. We made one more stop at a tower before heading back and passing out for a few hours before the World Cup final. I don't think any of us made it through the whole game - I was falling asleep in the bar where we watched the first half, but made it through regulation time before calling it a night. Viva Espana!

Rice paddies outside Kathmandu

Trekking

Goat herd on the trek

The road and one of the dogs that followed us - this was about the time they started accumulating

Some views from the trek

The last day we did some frenzied shopping to use up our rupees and get some decent gifts and things before returning to the land of practical items and gaudy jewelry. For a hippie such as myself, it was a shopping paradise, but I somehow still had $16 worth of rupees left at the end of it...

Well tomorrow evening it's off to Jessore and Khulna for some fieldwork. All I know is we're taking a train to Jessore, staying there two days, going by bus to a city in Khulna district that I can't pronounce for two more days, and then taking the train back to Dhaka next Wednesday. While it is sure to be a whirlwind trip, I hope there will be a little time for sightseeing before it's over. At the very least I will finally see some rice paddies in Bangladesh!