GOOD MORNING from Zebra River Lodge, Namibia

We are officially off onto our Namibian safari adventure. Paula and her husband's cousin picked us up at the airport in Windhoek and took us to his home. His wife raises gorgeous horses with the help of a fleet of grooms.


They treated us royally and sent us off eager to return to them at the end of our travels.

We drove through the desert on exciting dirt roads in a Toyota "van" the same size as we traveled in from Kathmandu to Pokara, Dick at the wheel. The terrain reminded us of the AZ NM desert and So. CA, except for the nests of the sociable weaver birds and the kudus and ostriches we stopped to marvel at. Zebras arrived at the lodge to our delight.

Today we go to Tok Tokkie for a two day hike, so the next post will be ???

Namaste from Zebra River Lodge Namibia,
Marian

At FRA, Soon off to WDH

Just a quick note now that I have a REAL GOOD WiFi connection to say that in 30 minutes Dick and I will be boarding our last flight = overnight 10 hours to Windhoek, Namibia. We are so excited I think we could fly there without the aircraft. In a few days we will be seeing these exquisite dunes with our own delighted and awestruck eyes.
Love and hugs to you all, Marian

NEPAL 032812 Elephant Bathing Action Pix

I just downloaded some pictures of me and Donna getting our elephant bath that were taken with her camera by our guide Gopal. He got some great shots. Have fun laughing with us. As you can see, ducking "so that Donna would get splashed" did not (ever) keep me dry :-).

Namaste, Marian

CHICO 081912 Two Cats in Suitcases

Well OK, this is actually another test post so that Marian, the cyberphobic blogger, can learn how the email alert process works.  So please just bear with her while she tries again.

For your amusement this time we have Pink and Black engaged in a little protest action here in Baldyland the the local, national, and international press has dubbed "OCCUPY SUITCASES." This is a little political protest with the goal to prevent their owners from filling the suitcases with clotes and toiletries, leaving town, and abandoning them as well as removing the body temperature furniture from the house yet again.

Pink occupies a piece of to-be-checked luggage

Black "sits in" to prevent the packing of a piece of cary-on luggage

CHICO 081912 Packing for Southern Africa

Hello from Chico

This Friday August 24, Dick and I will will leave to meet Roy and Charlotte Ekland in Windhoek, Namibia on Monday August 27.  We will travel with them in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls), and South Africa with our friends Paula and Titia Van Deventer as guides.  We are getting REALLY EXCITED.

I've been playing with my blog and wanted to test the "subscribe by email" feature, so this post is as test of that, as well as a little -- hopefully humorous -- note about our packing and a couple of "things" I will miss in Chico.

Namaste, Marian

Pink glances left as Dick comes into the bedroom where she has been helping me pack

Dick cuts duct tape to secure the bottles of Hershey's chocolate Syrup in Bertha -- our faithful yellow thrift shop Samsonite -- so that they will not pulverize the gift boxes of western shirts

Something in Chico I will miss -- gazing at and -- sometimes even eating -- these colorful macaroons at the Tin Roof Bakery and sending pictures of them to my beloved granddaughter Lisa Pham

"Something" I will miss in Chico -- or is it "someone?" -- Black our other cat whose favorite lace to be petted is on the keyboard of my computer.  maybe that's why the F1 and F2 keys have "surprising new" functions?

A latte for here -- at Tin Roof.  So much for renunciation of the objects of the material world.  Next lifetime?

NEPAL 080312: Nepal in My Heart, a Reflection

OK folks.

Here it is August 2, and I am still trying to finish an email for you that I started on June 4^th.  It’s about why our trip to Nepal was so meaningful for me.  At this point I have been home for 3.5 months.

Marian, dear, what is going on? Where is your final email for us about Nepal?

Well, some of those 100 or so days since we returned I used to get over jet lag and the trek cold, re-write the lost trek emails, take a class on Chekov’s SEAGULL, go on a 5-night meditation retreat, throw parties for Dick’s mom on Mother’s Day and her Birthday, attend grandson Patrick Pham’s high school graduation in Kent, WA, show Paula van Deventer, her daughter Titia and grandsons Herman and Dirk around the northern Sacramento valley, celebrate my 68^th birthday 8 times, and “host” friends for theater in Ashland.

But still, one must ask, “Why are you still thinking and writing about Nepal?

NEPAL 050212: A Simple Question About Our Trek – How long was it?

Hi Patient Email Readers

Well.

 Here I sit at my desk two and a half weeks after our return from Nepal, and I‘ve still not written anything to all of you about our actual trek – beyond the description of trekking vs. backpacking and its addendum about “pony caravans.”  Oh my.  

I sit and muse,

“Is it jet lag?”

“Is it getting over the trip cold?” 

. . . spring allergies in Chico?

. . . that end-of-April weekend in Ashland?

. . . a lack of good editorial help?” (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1:  The bewildered author at work with her editorial assistant.

NEPAL 042112 Cats, Coughs, and Chaos

Dear Everyone

Greetings from 25 Oak Drive, Chico, CA :-)

We have been home in Chico since noon on Thursday 041912.  

We began our trip home Tuesday April 17 with breakfast with Maisie and Sky at the hotel followed by efficient transport to the airport in KTM with Jawane in a luxurious Toyota Corolla taxi.  Placing ourselves into the competent hands of Thai airlines, we arrived at LAX Tuesday at 7:30 PM PDT for an overnight of happy cuddling and snoozing in a QUEEN SIZE BED for four hours before being whisked to SFO by United, then bussed to Napa into the welcoming hugs of Dean Donaldson, his son Matt, and Matt's husband Steve Kyriakis.  They took us to the Bouchon Bakery in Yountville for coffee and French macaroons before delivering us to the Donaldson's home in Calistoga. [left to right below are Dean, Dick, moi, Steve, and Matt]

NEPAL 0415&1612: Last Days in Kathmandu

Dear Friends

Our last two days in Kathmandu were, I guess predictably, filled with somewhat domestic activity.  

Sunday April 15 after moving to the Hotel Manaslu, we went shopping with Donna and Karma in Thamel, the tourist district in old town KTM.  I was looking for a women's cut trekking shirt, but was unsuccessful even with Donna's enthusiastic encouragement.  We must have gone into half a dozen "trekking gear" shops to find women's shirts in only the most hideous colors, and that I am, at size 14, "too big." Then it was "would you like to look at a men's small size, madam?"  No, actually :-)

Our other shopping task was a return trip to the New Tibet Bookstore, a treasure house of books about things Buddhist and everything you might want to know about Nepal.  Karma had suggested that I might enjoy BORN IN TIBET, the autobiography of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a member of the Kagyupa School of Buddhism in Tibet who was the teacher of one of my favorite western Buddhist teachers, the American nun, Pema Chodron.  Donna went in search of the name of a bird she had seen at our last trekking lodge, but the bird books were all wrapped in protective plastic.

NEPAL 041512 Dinner at Jawane’s

Dear Friends,

This evening our guide, Jawane Tamang, invited us all -- Karma, Donna, Maisie, Sky, Dick, and me -- to his home for dinner.  His home is a 15-minute walk from our hotel in the Lazimpat district of Kathmandu.  We were looking forward to meeting his wife and to see his son Bishal and daughter Benita again. Both speak English well and attend private schools, listen to Metallica, and are Facebook devotees.  

We walked out of the hotel compound and turned right, away from downtown, on busy Lazimpat Road, and then right again into their neighborhood.  The closer we got to the 4-story building where his family occupies the 3rd floor, the narrower and more potholed the dirt roads became.  It reminded me of the bumpy, dusty drive to our safari guide Chris Samuel's home in Arusha, Tanzania -- but there the roads were wider and the dirt was red and there were fewer shops = a more suburban environment.  

NEPAL 041512: Trekking is not backpacking – it’s better

Dear Friends,

Now  we are back in Kathmandu and the trek is over, I found myself thinking about the contrasts between backpacking and our "tea house" trek . . . 

My experience with hikes of many days duration has been from backpacking mainly California and Oregon.  These trips taught me to love the mountains, its broad vistas, snow and glaciers, lakes and streams, plant and animal life, but it did not prepare me for the things I came to appreciate on our short trek.  I'll explain.

First is being with the Nepali people -- meeting and greeting them on the trail with a "Namaste," staying lodges run by families, being cared for by our guide and porters and helpers, and living in and wandering about their long-established mountain villages.

This woman was the accountant and maybe a manager at the Grand View Lodge in Tadapani.  

NEPAL 0413 & 1412 Treks Days #8 & #9: Two Dawns with a Sacred Mountain

Hello Dear Ones

The first image we saw in Syauli Bazaar at dawn on Friday morning, and you can see above, was Machapuchare's handsome "fish tail" top as she appeared at dawn, before the sun burned off some of the clouds.  

The sacred mountain, Machapuchare, from Syauli Bazaar 041312

NEPAL 041212 Trek day #7 Ghandruk to Syauli Bazaar

Dear Friends.

            Today one of Life’s Great Questions was answered on the trail just a bit below Ghandruk.

The Annapurna Hotel’s fifth floor roof made an excellent perch for the dozen or so photographer-trekkers who emerged at dawn to record the sunrise over two of the five noble Annapurnas and the sacred, unclimbed Machapuchare. Although I made some photos with more sun on these massive mountains, this one captures more of the magic, if not the chill, of the peaks as they emerge from the darkness.

Dawn brightens the Himalayas East of Ghandruk

NEPAL 041012 Trek Day #5: Tadapani to Ghandruk

Dear Friends,

This morning we got up at first light, about 5:30 AM, and stepped just outside our rooms onto the deck of the Hotel Grand View to watch the sun light up Machapuchare and her neighbors Hinculi and Annapurna.  Here is my first shot of the day. 

Machapuchare at first light

NEPAL 04.09.12 Trek Day # 4 Ghorepani to Tadapani

Dear Friends

This day, which turned out to be our longest and most difficult, began with a knock on our door at 6:00 AM from Jawane, who urged us to come out in front of the Nice View Lodge to watch the sunrise light up the Himalayan peaks to the north.  We were already dressed, one of the benefits of an early bedtime. I grabbed my jacket, headlamp, and iPhone and hurried downstairs, through the dining room, and outside.  The sun had just begun to lighten the sky from behind Annapurna south.  Other huge peaks were being gradually revealed from west to east, with a pink light first illuminating the southeastern face of Dhaulagiri.   

The first morning light illuminates the formidable Dhaulagiri

NEPAL 041112 Trek day #6: A Layover in Ghandruk

Dear Friends

Our layover day began with a move next door to the “Himalayan View End” of the fourth floor corridor of the Annapurna Lodge.  You will be glad to know that I, in a fit of modesty and with a slight embarrassment over the lack of precision, did not add the elevation gain and loss of the many trips up and down to and from the 4^th floor to the elevation gain and loss statistics for our trek.

After breakfast, Dick, Maisie and I set out with Jawane and his right hand man Tsering to explore Ghundruk, a handsome village of 270 Gurung families.  Our first stop was the Gurung Traditional Museum which featured interesting collections of household, hunting, and farming equipment displayed on the first floor of a typical two-story home.  We browsed around and learned that the design of the equipment we had been seeing in use in the terraced fields along our trek had not changed for decades, maybe even centuries. As if to confirm this observation, later in the day we saw a man driving an ox down one of Ghandruk’s many stone paths and carrying a WOODEN plow over his shoulder.  The only metal on the plow was a thin strip on its “cutting-into-the-soil” edge. When we returned for lunch, we saw a line of four colorfully dressed women harvesting wheat with sickles on a terrace next to our lodge.  As they chatted and/or smoked cigarettes, they sliced off the grain-bearing heads of the wheat plants ONE-AT-A-TIME and dropped them into baskets.  An elderly couple using the same sort of small sickles followed the women along the mini wheat field and cut the wheat stalks off near the ground for bundling and removal, perhaps for bedding of animals, or maybe straw mattresses for people (I am happy to report that we did not personally experience this possible form of rural Nepali bedding.).

An overview of Ghandruk showing its typical handsome slate-roofed buildings, the village Gompa in the top center, farm terraces in the center, the Kushal Guest House with its satellite dish at the bottom, and a cell phone tower on the hilltop in the upper left.

NEPAL 040812 Trek Day # 3 Banthanti to Ghorepani

Dear Friends,

            After filtering water, eating breakfast, completing our personal ablutions, we handed our daypacks and Dick’s 10-pound tripod to our team of helpers and were off at 7:30 AM.  Our destination was the Nice View [Now there’s a real understatement!] Lodge, at the end of a 2000 ft. ascent to upper Ghorepani.  The oak and rhododendron forest was cool, and the streams we walked along invited Donna to try her rock balancing skills, so she added a few artful stacks to the dozens left by other trekkers with steady hands.

Dorje watches from the trail as Donna balances rocks.  He fashionably wears my bright red daypack on his chest.

NEPAL 040812 Question: When is a hike a trek?

Answer: When you take that hike in the Himalayas. 

“Trekking is simply another name for hiking. The term, which is from Afrikaans and originally meant a journey by ox cart across South Africa, was first applied to hiking in Nepal in the early 1960's [other sources say 1964] by retired Ghurka [Regiment] [Lieutenant] Col. Jimmy Roberts. Roberts was the first person to take paying clients on guided hikes in Nepal and patterned his treks after early Nepal [Himalayan] mountaineering expeditions. His trips had basically everything the big expeditions had -- guides, Sherpa porters, cooks, and kitchen boys. Clients didn't scale the peaks; but they came close and that was what they wanted. Today, camping treks are still done the way Col. Roberts pioneered them.”*

AND,  if you go hiking along the Milford Track in New Zealand, you are “tramping.”   If you hike in Australia, you are “bushwalking,” in Scotland you are “hill walking,” but if you had accompanied Bill Bryson along the Appalachian Trail, you were just taking A WALK IN THE WOODS.

*World Vision Travels & Tours (P) Ltd., Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal.”

http://www.worldvisiontours.com/trekking_in_nepal.php

NEPAL 040712 Trek Day # 2 Hille to Banthanti

Hello Dear Friends

Today we headed up the famous "unrelenting" Ulleri steps, pictured above passing next to the Super View Guest House in the prosperous village of Ulleri on our way to Banthanti.

In bright sunshine under clear, cool skies we left Hille (elev. 5000 ft.) at 7:30 AM to climb the “unrelenting staircase” to Ulleri for lunch and continue to Banthanti (7,400 ft.) for overnight at the Heaven View Guest House, where, as you will see, we were truly given the “‘Heartly’ Welcome” announced by the sign gracing the friendly red front of the lodge. 

NEPAL 040612 Trek Day #1: Naya Pul to Hille

Hello Everyone

We bundled into our van at the hotel in Pokara at 8:00 AM and drove to Naya Pul where the trail starts.  Karma and Donna were remembering that on their trek in this same area, the WALK started near Pokara and there was no road to Naya Pul.  As we were to learn, roads are a mixed blessing to the communities along the trekking routes in the Annapurna area – making access easier in emergencies, but reducing the work opportunities for porters and the number of visitors to trail-side lodges.

Here is the "wilderness trail head" at the Hotel Buddha at the bus stop in Naya Pul where our van left us = 6 Trekkers, 3 porters, 2 helpers, and Jawane, our guide and "Chief Operations Officer." 

Hotel Buddha, Naya Pul, Nepal

NEPAL 040512 Kathmandu to Pokara

Dear Everyone

Today we made a most interesting drive from Kathmandu to Pokara, the epicenter of trekking in the Annapurna Himalaya.  We left our hotel in Boudha at 8:00 AM with our guide Jawane, his 15-year-old son, our four porters, and the driver and his brother.  Our vehicle was a Toyota van that holds 12 passengers and lots of luggage.  We arrived at our hotel in Pokara at 2:45 in the afternoon with two stops, one that included having milk tea, McVittie's Digestive Biscuits (yet another vestige of the British Empire in this part of the world), and Peanut M&M's, and the other to deal with the liquid vestiges of the metabolism of the tea from the first stop.

My first picture for you for today shows some of the traffic in Boudha that we encountered near the stupa as we were leaving our neighborhood. The stupa was teeming with people there for a special celebration.  Never a dull moment in KTM!

Traffic in Boudha

The light tan smudges on the lower right side of the picture are my fingers covering part of the lens on my iPhone as I held it out the window of the van in a death grip.  I love the smile on the guy driving the scooter, so I'm particularly sad about the smudges, but I didn't drop my precious phone cum camera.

NEPAL 040412 Gifts for the Rinpoche and Dancers at Pashupatinath

Dear All

This was our last day in "KTM" before our trek.  Yesterday evening we had dinner with Karma's daughter Maisie, his son-in-law Sky, and first wife Arlene at our favorite restaurant, Flavors which is next to the stupa here in Boudha.  It was a warm occasion repeated tonight at the Kathmandu Guest House in the heart of Tamel, the tourist district in the old part of downtown Kathmandu.  We are glad to have stayed in Boudha at the Rinpoche's quiet guesthouse away from the intense shopping and busy huckstering of Thamel.

Today was our last day of teaching.  After the last talk there was a ceremony to thank the teachers, translators, and assistants.  Then the students had a chance to offer a donation to the Rinpoche and his translator.  Donations – such as  made on our behalf by our Friendly Helper Monk before we went to Chitwan -- are placed in envelopes and then wrapped in a kadha and presented. Below is a somewhat blurry image of Donna wrapping her donation.  When a donation is made, while the donor is bowing before him, the Rinpoche drapes an acknowledging kadha over their shoulders.  Quite an elegant ceremony.

After lunch in the manicured gardens of Sechen Monastery and a little shopping, we went back to our room and sorted out what we would leave at our hotel in Pokara and what the porter would carry for us on the trek.

NEPAL 040312 Monks Can Dance and "Rainy Day Schedule"

Monks Can Dance

This is an account by Donna Barnett of the lama dancing at the Sechen Monastery :-) 

"I often think of monks practicing meditation most of the day.  Nothing is what is seems in Nepal and that proved true for my perception of monks.  We attended a series of ritualized dances performed by the monks of Sechen monastery. Each dance was unique in costumes but similar in style.  At one end of the courtyard was a raised platform where the musicians sat playing very strange looking instruments -- Long brass horns, drums and cymbals.  All of which when played together created a loud rhythmic beat.  A chanter with a deep resonate voice blended with the cacophony of sounds.  Fifteen monks walked down 10 steps on the opposite side of the musicians.  They were helped by 2 monks who were needed to hold up the heavy, colorful, and most elaborate costumes I've ever seen.  

NEPAL 040212 Pashupatinath, the Varanasi of Nepal

Dear Everyone

This afternoon we made a trip into one of the most sacred places in the Hindu world, Pashupatinath, a complex of temples, shrines, cremation ghats, and a "Hospice House" on the Bagmati River.  Non-Hindus cannot visit the temples, but we could peek into the many Shiva shrines and watch from across the river the families caring for the dying and the rituals for the dead.  Not my usual Monday afternoon.

Mourners gather to wait together near the small shrines below the Hospice House and on the steps along the sacred Bagmati River in Pashupatinath

 The first picture in "Read More," shows more about what's happening on the right of this image

NEPAL 040112 Shopping in Patan: A Prayer Wheel for Claire

Dear Friends, 

My writing group teacher, Claire Braz-Valentine, asked that, in lieu of tuition while I was absent raveling in Nepal, that I find a prayer wheel for her.  This is an account of that shopping trip.

My introduction to prayer wheels was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California.  There the wooden prayer wheel is at the gate to the retreat area.  It’s a cylinder about two feet high and a bit over one foot in diameter with eight handles at the bottom of the wheel, one for each of the steps in the noble eightfold path.  Prayers left at the nearby Spirit Rock gratitude hut are placed inside the wheel and the prayers are sent out into the universe each time the wheel is spun by grabbing the handle next to your "favorite" step :-) and giving the wheel a friendly whirl.

On our first evening in Nepal this March, I first saw another sort of prayer wheel as Dick and I joined dozens of Tibetan Buddhist devotees walking clockwise around the Great Stupa at Bodhnath.  Many of the worshipers were spinning prayer wheels.  Some held their small prayer wheels mounted on handles in one hand and spun them clockwise as they walked.  Others reached into the niches adorned with the red curtains -- seen below -- to spin the prayer wheels there as they walked past.Nearby prayer wheels in a room attached to the Bodhnath stupa were twelve feet high and eight feet in diameter – big enough to hold the whole world’s prayers for peace and terrifically hard to spin alone (not that one is often alone in this sacred place!).

The Great Stupa at Bodhnath showing its rectangular prayer wheel niches sheltered by red curtains and devotees circumnavigating the stupa at street level, perhaps spinning  the prayer wheels as they walked.

NEPAL 040112 A Rinpoche Teaches and a Puja in Patan

Dear Friends

Well I didn't think anything could be more amazing than yesterday, but little did I know that today I would learn that I was heading for Buddhist Hell and that performing a Hindu puja (offering and prayer observance) to an elephant-headed God could move me very deeply.

Our day began at breakfast in the Hotel Ngudrup in the company of an international cohort of guests who are here to assist with [translating Tibetan into English, for example] or attend the teachings by Drupon Rinpoche.  The teachings are given at a school for children from the Himalayas who would not otherwise have an education and is funded by donations made to Trungpa Rinpoche for his charitable works.  This means that to go to the teachings we can walk through the playground of the school with is between the dormitory and the classroom building.  I stopped in a corner to take a picture and was engaged in conversation by a charming 7-year old boy who told me in his clear, pan-pipe bright young voice that I was very beautiful.  Not a bad start to the day.

Students, monks, and nuns listen to the teaching of Drupon Rinpoche at Thrangu Rinphche's school, Shree Mangal Dvip,  in Boudha