Bangkok, Thailand - Chao Phraya River

I took an evening dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River from the Yok Yor Marina with a Thai friend. We had three dishes, green curry, a fish cooked in a tangy, lemon sauce and spare ribs in honey. All of the food was delicious! They start serving dinner while the boat is at the dock and then start the cruise on the river about 9 p.m. Sights along the way include other dinner boats, which are lit up like Christmas trees, 5-star hotels, traditonal stupas and the Royal Palace (all lit up by floodlights) and the quite nice night skyline of Bangkok. Not bad for $25 for the both of us!

Kanchanaburi, Thailand - the Tiger Temple

So called because a monk offered to take in a orphaned tiger and ended up raising several orphaned tigers to adulthood at the temple. It is now open to the public for a $7 entrance fee. The tigers are brought out in the afternoon so that visitors can touch and have pictures taken with them to raise money for a new tiger project. They plan to upgrade and expand the park and they also hope to train newly born tiger cubs with the skills needed to survive in the wild and reintroduce them into the wild again. The Tiger Temple is about 2 1/2 hours from Bangkok.

When I went there the tigers were out in the canyon area and I got to sit next to, pet and have my picture taken with 5-different tigers. A very neat but strange experience. Tigers are VERY BIG! One of them was unchained, the others were on 15-20 foot chains. I was so close (touching them) that the tiger would have had no trouble chomping on me even with the chain. Every so often a tiger gets kind of feisty and the keepers and the head monk have to calm him down. I saw this happen a couple of times. For about $25 you can have pictures taken holding the tigers head in your arms. I noticed they only used one specific tiger for the head holding photo shots.

The temple area (looks more like a game park) has also attracted other aninmals that the monks take care of as well; wild horses, goats, boars, deer and a sun bear among others. They're all strolling around free in the park, except for the bear, which was on a long leash held by a monk.

It was definitely worth the trip out there!

Bangkok, Thailand - recovery...

Monday I applied for a new U.S. passport (fortunately I do have a photo of my passport stored on my web site so that made things a long easier at the U.S. Embassey). I visited the Air India and Kuwait Airlines offices to try to get the stolen tickets reissued. I also dropped by the Indian embassey to see about a replacement visa for the 6-month, multiple entry India visa I had stamped in my stolen passport. Basically they told me I would have to get a new India visa and it would take 5-days, which I don't have. That's five days after I get the new U.S. passport! I'm going to try to change my ticket so I don't have a long layover in Mumbai, otherwise I will be spending about 30-hours in the transit area at the airport in Mumbai.

I spent today getting a new cell phone, a new camera (a Konica Minolta Z5 the predessor to the Z6 which I used for the rest of the trip, I couldn't find a Z6), a 2-GB memory card for the camera, rechargeable batteries for the camera and a 2-GB memory stick for storing photos offloaded from my camera. Hopefully I'll have enough memory for the trip through Egypt and Africa. In Bangkok there's a plaza that has 6-floors of stores for electronic stuff. That's where I purchased all the items. The prices seemed quite good.

The hotel I'm staying at (where the stuff was stolen from) agreed to discount the price of my room 15% for my remaining 6-day stay. Not a great concession, but something at least.

I hope to take a trip out of Bangkok tomorrow and get away from the city a bit.

Bangkok, Thailand

I had my computer, passport, extra credit cards, and ATM card, 2 airline tickets, some cash in Indian Rupees and two cameras stolen from my room this evening in the time it took to have used towels exchanged for new ones. I found my empty backpack in the room of the people that stole the stuff.

I've cancelled the extra cards, I still have an ATM card and a credit card that were in my wallet. I'll be working on getting a new passport and hopefully getting new tickets issued for the ones stolen.

I'm doing OK, considering it all, but I lost all the pictures I took in India, and everything on my PC. Not the best evening...

Bangkok, Thailand

I've been here a week recovering from a cold, working on selecting photos for Nepal, getting prints made for Dil Kumar, my Sherpa Kekam and my hotel friend Sunil. I also made a dentist visit and had three cavities filled for about $40. I'm finishing up details for traveling to Egypt and Africa. I've extended my health insurance to cover my travel back in the USA as well as for the end of this trip. I'm enjoying the ease and inexpensiveness of being in Thailand again.

Delhi, India - Brief update

Yes, I am still alive! I took an 8-day Everest Trek in Nepal, myself and a Sherpa guide, flying into Lukla at 10,000 feet and reaching Kala Pattar at over 18,000 feet for some astounding views of Mt. Everest and surrounding, awesome peaks! No altitude sickness problems, but the hygiene in the mountain areas isn't so keen. I'm in Delhi, India now, flying to Bangkok in a few hours to recover from a serious cold I caught the last two days of the trek and to work on logging all of the awesome experiences that occured in Nepal, meeting my former sponsored child, Dil Kumar, spending 8-days with my Sherpa guide, Kekam, who has climbed Everest and other even more difficult peaks, and finding the warmth of Nepalis working at the hotel I stayed at Sunil and Ganesh in helping me to find and communicate with Dil Kumar.

Kathmandu, Nepal - Delhi, India

After a rough night, I felt quite a bit better. I had gotten quite a lot of sleep, though intermittant, and the luxury of a hot shower. I felt like I at least had the option of making the flight to Delhi as booked.

I tried investigating what would be involved in changing the three tickets I had purchased for the journey from Kathmandu to Cochin, but couldn't get the information I required as quickly as I needed it. Dil Kumar had requested that I call him if I was leaving so he could drive to the hotel to say goodbye. I decided to take the flights as booked. Sunil called Dil Kumar and Dil started the trip from his village to Kathmandu on his motorcycle.

My sherpa guide, Kekam, came by to see me off. I showed him pictures I had taken during the 9-day Everest trek. He requested copies of some of them. Looking at a photo of Ama Dablam, he showed me where four climbers had died in an avalanche during the 2nd to last day of our trek. He had been on climbs of Ama Dablam three times and summited it once. During the successful climb he was the sole sherpa to set up all the stakes, ice screws and ropes for the final stage of the ascent. I cannot even imagine trying to climb that peak!

He also related that his father had been a monk.

He gave me a peach colored scarf as a symbol of good luck on my journey. He asked what kind of tea I liked and then went off to purchase some. He returned just as Dil arrived. I introduced Kekam to Dil. Kekam was able to act as an interpretor when I went back to my room to show Dil photos from my last days visit with his family and photos from the trek. Part way through Kekam had to depart. He gave me ginger tea in a beautiful cloth pouch as parting present.

Before leaving, Dil gave me a yellow scarf and a beautiful, hand carved wood frame for photos. Sunil also had a yellow scarf for me, so in all I had three "farewell" scarfs that I proudly wore from departing the hotel until after I boarded the aircraft several hours later.

At the airport Dil and I had a tearful goodbye. I was glad Sunil was there to be with him on the return journey to Kathmandu.

The plane was a couple hours late and there were some very recent security threats specific to India. They confiscated 3-spare AAA rechargeable batteries from me at the main security checkpoint and then later confiscated sun cream at the security checkpoint they had right at the stairway to the plane.

As we took off and the plane started leaving Nepal I was overcome with emotion. Two incredible things had happened here. I had re-united with my sponsored child from 20-years ago and I had climbed to a place and an elevation that I never thought I would be able to. The most beautiful place on earth to me.

Lukla to Kathmandu, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 9 (2840-meters/9,318-feet)

I managed to get a nice sunrise shot of one of the mountains from the window in my room. I navigated down to breakfast and came somewhat back to life. I talked with a girl and her boyfriend from Canada. He's a helicopter pilot. They were really nice and helped to bring me back to reality.

The planes into Lukla were late due to the weather in Kathmandu. We had a 9:30 a.m. flight that didn't end up leaving until noon. I was getting worried, as the clouds and winds pcik up in the afternoon and places usually don't fly in much after lunch time.

I got to take some pictures and videos of the planes and helicopters when they finally started arriving. Once they started there were pretty frequent arrivals. Every landing was impressive.

We finally got out chance. I took lots of pictures of the amazing mountains and countryside as we flew back to Kathmandu. I am amazed byt the sheer volume of the mountains that has been terraced by the Nepali and Sherpa people - miles and miles of terracing!

We had an uneventful landing in Kathmandu, gathered our luggage and returned to my hotel.

Namche Bazaar to Lukla, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 8

The hike from Namche Bazaar to Lukla was excruciating. A couple times, at stops for tea, I curled up and caught a few minutes of sleep. I was in the thick of a cold, hacking and coughing, and I think I just was exhausted from the whole trek. I dragged into Lukla 9 1/2 hours after leaving Namche Bazaar. Thank God for my sherpa Kekam taking care of things, because I was almost comatose. I think I ate a few spoonfuls of rice for dinner, but somehow managed to completely consume a warm apple struddle that seemed the most delicious thing in the world to me at the time.

Pheriche to Namche Bazaar, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 7 (3440-meters/11,287-feet)

We stayed at the Khumbu Lodge in Pheriche. This is the nicest place we've stayed so far. I agreed to pay half the cost, since I requested to stay here. It had a hot shower, the first since I started hiking, and I made good use of it. What a luxury. Unfortunately I caught a bug/cold or something and was hacking my brains out most of the time I was at this beautiful lodge. Famous people who have visited this area, like Jimmy Carter and Robert Redford, had stayed here.

Gorak Shep t0 Kala Pattar to Pheriche, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 6 (4243-meters/13,921-feet)

I had to wake Kekam up at 5:00 a.m. Apparently his alarm didn't go off. We wanted to make it to the top of Kala Pattar by sunrise. I had three cups of hot lemon and a snickers bar before the climb. I felt fine. No headaches, no nausea. The ascent is quite easy with the exception of the altitude you are climbing at. Kala Pattar is a very long, sloping hill. We saw the glow of headlamps further up the mountain. Though they started before us, we ended up passing them. I don't quite know how, as I was moving at a snail's pace. But I'm a very steady snail! We made it to the summit by sunrise.

It was a very clear day and there were some awesome views of Everest, Lotse, Nupse, Pomari and the other peaks. I built a small rock stupa in memory of finally making it to Kala Pattar, and hoping that my trekking partner from my first attempt, Ted, would make it here as well some day to add to it.

Kala Pattar - (5545-Meters/18,193-feet)

I am very thankful that God has blessed me with being able to make this trip. I think this region is the most awesome place on earth and I feel privileged to be able to visit here again.

Tukla to Gorak Shep, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 5 (5140-meters/16,864-feet)

I remember waking up, going to use the toilet and having to break a 1/4" of ice off the water barrel used to "flush" the toilet. It as very cold this morning! Not sure when we started, but we were at Lobuche for lunch. Just before starting off for Gorak Shep, I ran into Doug and his Mom.

A few short spans on the trek to Gorak Shep were pretty steep, but most of it was pretty easy walking. We arrived in the afternoon. Gorak Shep is in an awesome location! After getting settled in the lodge, I walked around and took some photos of the surrounding peaks. I took a short hike part way up Kala Pattar as well for photos.

Back at the lodge most of the people were huddled around the wood stove. There were a few Japenese trekkers, including one gentleman who was 75. That's pretty ambitious trek at 75! I met a girl from New York and shared conversation about traveling. We turned in early for sleep, as usual.

Debuche to Tukla, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 4 (4300-meters/14,108-feet)

Woke up at 6 a.m., only had to pee once during the night! (It's all that hot lemon...) We left about 8:00 a.m. and got to Pheriche about noon. We had lunch at Pheriche. We decided to head onto Tukla. There are quite a lot of people staying at the small lodge at Tukla. There were a few people that were quite ill. Some may have been from food poisoning, others from altitude.

I had vegetable momos and boiled potatoes for dinner. I'm trying to keep to as safe a diet route as I can find. One of the guys here thought he might have gotten sick from the tuna pizza he had the night before.

I met Doug and his Mom who are from the Blue Mountains of Australia and talked to Doug for quite a while. We had travelled to some of the same places in Indonesia. We stayed up talking until the wee hours, almost 8:30 p.m.! That's very late for trekking time!

Namche Bazaar to Debuche, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 3 (3820-meters/11,287-feet)

Wake up at 6 a.m. Dogs were barking most of the night. I used ear plugs and my MP3 player to try to block the barking. It was much colder last night. There's a sandbagged military post just below my room with about 6-8 solders manning it. Kekam said they were there to potect the nearby back.

I had left my main memory card for my camera in my computer back in Kathmandu. I looked into buying another card in Namche. It would have wiped out most of my cash and I knew I would need quite a lot more cash than I had expected. I decided to sacrifice the card I had for music in my MP3 player instead. I had the MP3 files backed up on my PC anyway, so I can get them back.

I used the Internet in Namche Bazaar for 30-minutes and it came to 450-Rs, about $6.50 USD, very expensive! I also had to pay 60-Rs to get my camera batteries charged.

We started out about 7:30 a.m. MY right knee is very slightly sore, but nothing serious, other than that, I feel fine. am a very slow trekker and I must drive Kekam nuts, but fortunately he does have friends to talk to along the way and seems to have developed a lot of patience.

I met Steve from New Zealand today. He snowboards, surfs, skateboards - all ourdoor stuff. It was fun hiking with him. His guide is very inexperienced. My guide has taken him in toe and tried to have us do some of the trek legs on the same schedule. I'm coping with my fear of heights, learning to focus on my immediate surroundings, the trail, my legs, my feet and not look at the sheer precipipaces that lurk slightly of the side of the trail.

Steve and I walked further along the trail after dropping our gear off at the lodge. I think I got some good shots of the mountains against the setting sun.

Munju to Namche Bazaar, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 2 (3440-meters/11,287-feet)

I woke up about 4 a.m. after having gotten to sleep at 7:30 p.m. I was warm and snug in my sleep sack inside of the sleeping bag that Kekam had lent me at the beginning of the trip. Breakfast was a thick (good!) Tibetan bread with scrambled eggs. I had a couple of cups of hot lemon to drink. I washed and shaved in a small outside sink that supplied some warm water. I think they ran the water coils through the cook stove.

We started trekking to Namche Bazaar about 7:30 a.m. Again Kekam is talking with his friends, I'm hiking ahead a bit. It generally doesn't take him any time at all to catch up to me. We crossed a suspension bridge with wooden flooring, over half of one of the floor boards was missing at one point on the bridge.

One of the peaks, previouisly showing exposed rock, was now covered in fresh snow. Quite beautiful! On the way up to Namche I encounted my first views of Everest and the peaks surrounding it. Quite awesome!

I heard a pitiful sound, it sounded like a mewing cat, but discovered it was a small deer. He appeared to be in the woods alone. I think had gotten a bit separated from it's mother. I think they found each other shortly afterwards and bounded off into forest.

We arrived at Namche Bazaar, a large village built in a half-bowl cut into a hill, around noon. I had a lunch of vegetable momos and boiled potatoes along with a medium pot of hot lemon.

After lunch, We headed up the hill from Namche to see the museum. Outside the museum were two, large miliatry helicoptors that had crashed over a year ago. They were due to be removed the next day. The first museum was of Tibetan culture and artifacts. It had some very interesting items. The second is the museum of the history of Everest and nearby mountain climbs. Kekam showed me the wall of photographs of Sherpa that had summited Everest and noted that probably half of them were now dead from climbs they had done since Everest. Climbing in the Himalayas is a very dangerous job.

Kekam has summited Everest and other very hard peaks, including Ama Dablam. He was the climbing Sherpa on an expedition to Ama Dablam where he was the sole person to setup the stakes, ice screws and ropes for the final pitch to the summit. I admire his courage.

After climbing Everest he contracted cancer, was operated on and received radiation therapy. Amazingly he recovered very well and, to the surprise of his fellow Sherpas, is back guiding and climbing again. He has a wife, an 8 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. His wife and son live in Kathmandu. He's originally from the Makalu region.

Lukla to Munju, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 1 (2835-meters/9,302-feet)

Kekam arrived at 5:3o a.m. and we headed to Kathmandu airport. We caught the Sita Air flight which left at 6:30 a.m. We were the first plane into Lukla. From my seat, just behind the cockpit, I got a bird's eye view of the landing and a new meaning for the word "committed". The runway is 450-meters (1265-feet) in length (very short), and slopes up in such a way that the top of the runway is 60-meters (170-feet) higher than the bottom. At the end of the runway is a mountain. The landing strip is on the edge of a cliff. The pilot dropped the wheels on the runway a few feet from the beginning of the strip, reveresed the engines and made a hurried decelleration as we approached the top of the runway. Step one of the Everest trek accomplished, a successfully landing at Lukla.

We ate breakfast and started out trek for the day. We immediately started cathcing glimpses of the awesome peaks that define this region. Mentally I unconsciously began my mantra for this region, "I am continuously filled with feelings wonder, excitement and gratitude for all around me!"

Kekam met many of his friends along the way and stopped to chat, giving me some time to try to get a bit ahead so I wouldn't slow him down more than necessary. The reality is that the Everest trek is not a race. In fact, you're body needs time to acclimatize, so most treks stop in Nanmche Bazaar and Pheriche for a rest day. My short schedule didn't allow this, but on the other side, I was trekking very, very slowly, and keeping constantly aware of my health for signs of headache or nausea.

Kekam had a new cell phone and 6-MP3s of Tibetan and Nepali music he loaded onto it. I became quite familiar with these tunes. BY the way, thankfully, the cell phone did not work in the Everest region. I think there is finally one place left on earth without cell towers!

We are traveling pretty light. Kekam is carrying some of my clothes, but not much and didn't bring a along much for himself. His day pack is barely larger than mine. He had come to my hotel room the night before to select what to bring. He is definitely a minimalist packer!

We've started crossing suspension bridges for people and yaks. These consist of two thick cables supporting a metal, see through grate flooring. In between the cables and the floor is some chain link fencing as a safety net. It took me a while to figure out that you don't want to look at the grate flooring to see where you're feet are going to go, because you also see the river a 1,000 feet lower and your eyes just can't keep both in focus. I started looking near the end of the bridge towards where I was going and things went much better. Call me chicken, but I don't like crosssing suspension bridges (2-person wide) with a 1000-pound yak coming at me from the other direction. I avoided that all but once.

We stopped at the Mao check point, which has become more of a toll booth than an act of terror. It indicated that the suggested "donaton" was 100-Rs per day of trekking. Since we were trekking for 8-days I paid 800-Rs, about $12 USD. We got a receipt for our "donation" and proceeded on our way. As a Britisher had described the experience, "it's the first time I've been robbed and got a receipt for it!".

We continued on trekking and had considered staying at Phakding but decided to push on to Munju to make the following days trek to Namche Bazaar easier. We stayed at the Manju Kailash Hotel. We were the only ones staying at this Tibetan guest house. This is where I began drinking lots of "Hot Lemon". You could buy a "small pot" which was a thermos bottle with about liter of hot lemon, for about $2 USD. For Nepal this is quite expensive, but we had started into the remote regions where everything has to be carried up on someone's back or on a yak. I think the gallons of hot lemon I drank on the way up helped in me avoiding altitude sickness. I kept very well hydrated.

At the Kailish hotel I joined the Kekam and the guest house family in the kitchen around the only active source of warmth in the building, a wood cook stove, and we shared boiled potatoes as a snack before dinner. ABout 6 p.m. Kekam asked me to put in my order for dinner, I ate, and then off to bed. Not a lot of entertainment after dark in the village of Munju. I'm thankful I brought my MP3 player to try to lull me off to sleep! I have some Tibetan chants a Tibetan friend in China gave me that can put you to sleep standing up!

Kathmandu, Nepal - Finding my former sponsored child, Dil Kumar!!!

Today two of the hotel staff, Sunil and Ganesh, volunteered to help me find my former sponsored child in Nepal, Dil Kumar, who I first visited in Nepal when he was 12, but would now be 33-years of age. They hired a taxi for us to the bus station and then we took the local bus about 20-km outside of Kathmandu. They asked several locals and finally found someone who knew that Dil Kumar now owned a furniture factory and told us where it was. We found the factory and learned that Dil was not there at the moment, but they gave us his cell phone number. We tried it and got no answer and decided to have some lunch at a local eating place. We had some Nepali momos. These dumpling looking things packed with meat and spices were very delicious!

After lunch we dropped by the factory and they said he was in. Immediately on opening the office door I recognized him, as he did me, big smiles on both of our faces. Sunil and Ganesh helped in translating for us.

We exchanged memories of our last meeting twenty years earlier. I had taken him, his brother and another friend for his first trip outside of Kathmandu to Pokara. He was so nervous he got sick, throwing up on the side of the taxi, twenty minutes outside of his village. He recovered and we continued to Pokara. We went to a peaceful, calm lake and it took his brother and friend 30-minutes to convince Dil to get into a row boat to go out on the lake, but within a few minutes Dil was comfortable on the water and started having water fights with me and his friends. We also remembered playing cards. I taught them 21 and they taught me a Nepali card game.

On the way back from Pokara Dil remembered that I discovered that I had forgotten my wallet at a local eating place about 50-km back along the road. I asked the taxi driver to turn around and go back. The staff had the wallet waiting for us with my passport and the full amount of cash, equivalent to a year's wages in Nepali standards, inside.

After catching up a I bit, Dil took us back to the family house to meet his father, wife, daughter and son. He had gotten married 10-years ago. He mother had passed away a few years after my first visit with him.

His father and I recognized each other immediately as well. I will never forget that, a week after the trip to Pokara, his father showed up at the airport to bid me farewell and to tell me, with the help of a taxi driver acting as a translator, that the next time I came to Nepal, "You stay with me!". It was very touching and sincere.

I met his pretty wife and daughter for the first time and their infant son. His wife pulled a picture of me, from 20-years ago, out of one of their photo albums. We had some Nepali tea (tea with milk and sugar), some fried eggs and some apple slices. They showed me pictures of their wedding. I took some photos of his family and then had Sunil take a photo of us all together.

They invited me to stay overnight for an upcoming festival and I accepted. We worked out with Sunil and Ganesh that each of them would cover a shift so that we had a translator all of the time I stayed with them so we wouldn't miss any communications. I would come back with one of my hotel friends tomorrow afternoon and stay overnight.

Sunil, Ganesh and I returned to Kathmandu by local bus. I had prints made of the photos I took to bring with me for my visit with Dil and his family the next day.

Kathmandu, Nepal - Cash, booking a ticket, tales from trekkers

I spend most of the day trying to get cash out of an ATM and trying to get a booking for a critical flight I need between Cairo and Nairobi.

I went to four different ATM machines before I could find one that a) wouldn't keep my card (warned by others), b) wasn't out of order or c) wouldn't give me money but would accept my card. I also spent $7 on a phone call to my bank to make sure the card was not blocked, which it wasn't. I finally succeeded in getting out some cash!

I did not have success getting the ticket booked. Making plans as you go is great until you run into a few situations like this. I was told by a travel agent in Bangkok it would be cheaper to buy a ticket on Egypt Airlines from Cairo to Nairobi in India. In the midst of the chaos that is Delhi India, I didn't purchase the ticket when I first arrived, when it was still available, but waited. Two weeks later all the Egypt Airline tickets had been sold and the cheapest flight fares were going up on a daily basis. Right now I am trying to get a ticket on Kenya Airways but cannot buy it in Nepal.

In the evening I had vegetarian lasagna with garlic bread, which was very good. At the restaurant I spoke with an Austrian man at the next table who had just finished a 24-day trek in the Makalu region of Nepal. He had hired a guide and a porter and said that, unlike the most popular routes (Everest and Annapurna) which are quite crowded (40-flights a day), probably less than 100 people a year do the Makalu trek. It requires much more investment as it involves some technical climbing with ice axes and crampons.

He also spoke about the Mao insurgents who request (require?) a donation from those trekking through the regions they occupy. He said the Mao he saw didn't have guns. He didn't know what would happen if you refused to donate anything. Generally they would ask for 5,000 rupees ($70 USD) but you could usually negotiate to "donate" 3,500 rupees ($50 USD) or less and they seemed OK with it. They would give you a receipt to let other Maos know that you had "given a donation".

As of October 27th, 2006 everyone who goes trekking must hire a guide. In speaking with a trekker from Holland who booked a trek in the Everest region, he said he was required to hire the guide through a Kathmandu travel aganecy, pay for the guides flight to and back from the beginning of the Everest trek as well as paying for the guides services, food and lodging along the way. Previously trekkers had been able to fly to the beginning area at the start of the Everest trek, Lukla, and go by themselves, if they wished. At Lukla it was also possible to hire a porter and/or guide without being required to, or having to pay for, their flights from Kathmandu to Lukla. The rational for the new requirement is the danger from the Mao insurgents in the region.

Varanasi to Kathmandu, Nepal

Susan, Katherine and I shared a taxi to Varanasi airport. Susan graciously picked up my taxi fare. Amidst the chaos at the airport we finally found the check-in line. A slightly built Indian man cut in line in front of us and I had had enough of it. I picked him up by the shoulders and physically moved him behind us. He protested weakly, but knew he had cut in front of us and knew I was quite pissed.

Security at the airport was the tightest I have seen so far on the RTW trip. They hand searched every person and every bag as well as passing carry-ons through the x-ray machines. If you had a bottle of water, they had you drink some of it, to prove it wasn't an explosive, and then they confiscated it.

The Indian Airlines flight was 3-hours late. It took us only 40-minutes to get to Nepal. I had some beautiful views of the Himalayan mountains from the jet, including, I"m pretty sure, a view of Mt. Everest.

Kathmandu Airport was clean, spacious and pleasant compared to Varansi airport. We filled out forms for a Nepal Visa, supplied a photo, $30 USD and were efficiently issued a visa and passed through passport control.

A driver was waiting for me with a sign with my name on it (he had waited 3-hours for the flight as well). I must admit, the few times I have arranged this (and when the driver has actually shown up) I have felt like movie star as compared to the how I experience the rest of my traveling. The ride to the hotel was much less chaotic than in India. The drivers actually appear to follow a number of the traffic rules.

I'm staying at the sister hotel to the one in Varanasi and it is quite comfortable, I just can't remember the name or how to prounouce it - the Marsyangdi Mandala Guest House (I looked it up).

Varanasi, India - ghats at the Ganges

We took a 5:30 a.m. visit to the ghats, different areas of steps on the banks of the Ganges River, by row boat. On the ghats people are praying, tossing flowers, launching dishes with lit candles, bathing, swimming, washing clothes, drying clothes, selling things and fishing. It is a sea of activity and variety. The colors of the women's saris are dazzling. The complexity of life is expressed at the rivers edge as well as the end of life. At one of the ghats are funeral pyres where bodies wrapped in saris are burned after death. Incredibly, we also saw some of the blind species of freshwater dolphins that manage to survive in the waters of the Ganges.

Hundreds of row boats filled with tourists make the journey along the ghats. The ghats and the tourists are another view for me into the chaos of India. I can only guess that many Indians at the ghats are able to tune out the chaos and focus on their own particular activity, be it praying, washing clothes or smiling at tourists. I am not so fortunate. I keep trying to make some sense, order or meaning out of it and I can't. I am not in awe. I am lost in confusion. I feel like I have flunked the exam at the Ganges River.

Later we visit a Hindu temple and our guide explained some of the Hindu gods to us. The main one, that includes all the others, is OM. This is the name they used for the administrative password for my computer when they installed the English version of Windows on my PC. Now I know why. This is kind of like the "three in one God" of Christianity. The other three in Hinduism are: Vishnu, who is thought of as the preserver of the universe, while two other gods, Brahma and Shiva, are considered the creator and destroyer of the universe, respectively.