Greatest Show on Earth

…and it’s free!

We didn’t watch the sunset in Manila alone.  Hardly.  Everyone in the city must know the best show in town, playing every evening.  Maybe the permanent residents are a bit bored with it; even beauty, of course, can become passe.  But the sunset can’t say it doesn’t attract attention.

A group of happy watchers.

The audience grows, when you zoom out.

Actually, the audience is quite large indeed...

Ah, people of Manila, how are you now?

Nepali of the Day:

[Diinko Nepali]:

dherai:  a lot

manche:  people

hernu:  to watch

surya:  sun

aakash:  sky

pritthi:  earth

mandaal:  world, orbit, zone, area

sundaar:  beautiful

baadal laagyo:  it’s cloudy (literally, something like “to have clouds”)

kaasto chha?:  what is it like?

tapaii:  you

maa:  I

uniharu:  they

tapaailaai kaasto chha:  how are you?  (literally, something like “What is being felt by you?”)

khushi laagyo:  to be happy  (literally, something like “to experience happiness”)

Maalaai khushi laagyo:  I’m happy

Uniharulaai khushi laagyo:  They’re happy

dhukaa laagyo:  to be sad

dhukaa laagdaina:  to not be sad

basnu:  to sit

hiDnu:  to walk

Manila Sunset

As usual, there are all sorts of things I could be writing about, and probably should.  Dashain is ending–I didn’t cover it at all, this year.  I’m 99% certain that Alaska is now one year old, and I should put up a post celebrating her birthday week; we adopted her at the end of October last year, when she was 5 weeks old.  (And she’s so big now!  I WILL put up pics!)

But I’ve been reading the news, and got distracted by the tragic reports out of Manila.  We were just there, less than 2 months ago!

So here’s some pictures of a happier time in Manila, to alleviate the gloom.  The world-famous sunset over Manila Bay:

Pretty colors!

The pretty colors continue, with a ship at dusk in Manila Bay.

The grand finale of the sunset.

Nepali of the Day:

jahaaz:  ship

surya:  sun

baadal: cloud(s)

sanjha:  dusk

kehi ber:  what time of the day?

rang:  color

rato:  red

panhelo:  yellow

nilo:  blue

suntaala:  orange (the fruit)

suntaala rang:  orange (lit, “the color of an orange” … funny how we essentially do the same in English, same color, same noun, very different words…)

siddiyo:  finished

Many Pictures, One Blog

Pictures.  I have a lot of them.

Blog.  I have one of them.

I really should update it more often…

My defense is busy-ness.  I’ve now been back in Kathmandu for the past two weeks, after having been in Manila (and Thailand) for the previous two weeks, following on two weeks in Kathmandu, headed by a week in Amsterdam.  Basically, I’ve had a reliable internet connection, and awake eyes, and (laughable!) free time so little that I obviously haven’t managed to visit here for quite some time.

I plan to fix that, now that things have finally calmed down again.

I’ve been hunting through the photos stored on my computer, sorting out the best of the best.  I need to get more of them up here; I’m also seriously considering setting up a Flickr account or something similar.  (I MAY also go join Facebook, but I’ve been saying that for a year.  I do lean closer to signing over my soul to them, though, each time I say it).

Here, briefly, is a summary of the past two months, for those of you who are more visual than verbal:

Kathmandu

Netherlands

Kathmandu

Manila

Chiang Mai

Kathmandu

Did you know that people build neat things all over the world?  I wonder where they find the time…

Nepali of the Day:

phursat:  free time

byasta:  busy

lekhchu:  I write

lekhdina:  I don’t write

*verb root*na sakchu:  I can *verb*

*verb root*na sakdina:  I can’t *verb*

tasbiir kinchu:  I take photos

wadi-padi ghumchu:  I wander around

dherai:  many, very, a lot

kinaki:  because

kinabhane:  because [interchangeable with the above]

tara:  but

chha/chhaina/chhu/hunuhunchha [et. al.]:  forms of “to be” [yeah, you go sit and try explaining is/isn't/am/are et. al. to a non-English speaker!]

Ma wadi-padi ghumchu ra dherai tasbiir kinchu, tara ma lekhna sakdina kinaki ma dherai-dherai byasta chhu.  Phursat chhaina!

Wandering

Yes, I know, I’ve had another hiatus.  And yes, I have another cold, and tummy troubles.  (At this point, just assume I’m sick unless I tell you otherwise, k?)

But I don’t particularly care.  Because I’ve actually been gone wandering.  Guess where?

I saw this:

Lots of tall, narrow houses--and incredibly clean streets

And this:

Rows of brilliant flowers in the middle of the city. Tulips, perchance?

And this:

Yup, that's a bona fide 700-year-old castle.

…All of which, you’re rightfully thinking, is pretty different from Kathmandu.  Or is it…

Nepali of the Day:

havaee jahaz:  airplane

vimaanstahl:  airport

hiDnu:  to walk; also, to set out on a journey

ghumnu:  to wander

waddi-paddi ghumchu:  I wander about at random

sapha:  clean

bheDa:  large

baaTo:  road

saDak:  street

castle:  castle (What?  My students didn’t know it!  Or knight, or tilting, for some reason…)

One Year Anniversary!

No, not for the blog.  For my time in Kathmandu.

(Oh, yes, BTW, I know, “long time no see” and all that.  No, for once I haven’t been sick.  Just busy.)

As I’ve mentioned, I actually spent a few weeks back in the United States earlier this year.  But otherwise, in two days, I will have lived here for a year.  And since the flight around the world takes so long, it was actually almost precisely one year ago this minute that I boarded a plane to fly from DC to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok, and Bangkok to Kathmandu.

I’d never been to any of those countries before.  I was anxious and excited and nervous, bouncing up and down.  Yes, I’d seen Canada.  I’d lived in Mexico for six weeks.  I’d visited Spain, and even Morocco… but that was all.

I was fluent in Spanish, and had a glancing knowledge of a handful of other languages, from French through German to Arabic.  But as I sat bouncing on the plane, petting anxious cats from time to time, I was clutching my “Teach Yourself Nepali” book and wondering why on earth the language was proving so hard.  For several months, lacking any other Nepali resources, I’d been studying the writing system from books about Hindi, and naively hoping the smattering of Hindi vocabulary and grammar that I’d picked up would also help with Nepali.

I’d been interested in other cultures for years, and I’d read histories about Anglo-Saxon Britain; Medieval Italy; ancient Judea; post-Incan, newly Hispanic Peru; the Arab world in the 700s AD; the Cherokee nation; the Hittite Empire; the Assyrians… but somehow I’d never really learned much about south-eastern Asia, until the months leading up to the trip, when I tore through the memoirs of Babur and the Dalai Lama; widened my eyes at the Bhagavad-Gita and the Tibetan Book of the Dead; and gazed at pictures of Himalayan Salt Caravans and the bizarre, mysterious sites of this crazy place called Kathmandu.  The type of place that would have been stamped on the outside of a box Garfield had trapped Odie inside of and was about to set out for the mailman.  The place I was going.

I listened to comments like “Kathmandu?  Is that in Tibet?” and “Nepal?  That’s part of India, isn’t it?”  (By all the powers of goodness in this universe, do you have any idea how badly that notion ticks off the Nepalis?)  And I kept bouncing around, semi-patiently explaining that Nepal was its own country in between both places–a fact I’d also been shaky on when I first heard I might be going to Kathmandu.  Mostly I sang the old “Kathmandu, that’s where I’m going to” song and, more and more often, gaped at pictures of an alien land and somewhat wondered if I was literally getting as close to traveling to another inhabited world as I could conceivably get in my lifetime.

I gaped for a long time after I got here, too.  But lately I’ve realized that it’s become passe.  After a mere glance, (and maybe a brief, “That’s a pretty cow,”) I look away after noticing a cow or two or three grazing freely in the neighboring fields.  I accept it as perfectly normal for people to walk down the street with impossible loads (including full-size refrigerators!) strapped to their backs.  I’m unfazed when cars pass me on narrow roads, their tires crunching inches from my toes; I and the driver hardly glance at each other, and that’s enough to judge the distance so that each of us can just marginally get out of the other’s way.  I weave through Thamel with no heed for the hucksters calling, “Ma’am!  You look!  Good price!  Where you from?”  And they actually seem to swirl around me less.  I feel like there must be a difference in my eyes, in my stride, that mark me as different from the tourists who just stepped off the plane.  True, I don’t gape so much anymore.

Taxis are easier to.  I step up, name my destination, insist “ek sae”  (regardless of destination; I’ve learned that I never travel far enough to justify paying even that much, as far as Nepalis are concerned, and if the driver tries to charge any higher he’s egregiously ripping me off) step in, and off we go.  The drivers hardly try to argue with me anymore.  Instead they nod, and along the way we discuss the route in a blend of Nepali and English, and then I get to practice the same Nepali conversation for the umpteenth time by explaining where I’m from, where I live here, that I teach English, and what my classes are like.

Too, when my husband’s driving our car, and a motorcycle comes up around us when we’re stopped in traffic, and rams into the side of the car, I merely sigh in aggravation as my husband slams on the horn, and the motorcycle keeps going, and I roll down the window and reach out to pop out the side mirror yet again.  And then we return to our conversation.

I do still stare at the hills, though.  They’re awfully pretty.

So.  Back to my earlier comment about recently visiting the US.  Even more recently, I was looking through pictures from the trip, and it struck me as hysterical how I could accept both environments as perfectly normal, in their own ways…  the US just looks like the US, and Kathmandu looks like Kathmandu.  And they have their similarities.  But even in those, they’re wildly different.  Honestly, it’s no wonder I used to gape.

I’ll post some examples, in the coming days, if I can get myself to sit still at the computer and NOT edit novels or write lesson plans or read the entire wikipedia.  And every interesting news article posted in the last minute.  Hmm, looks like the Iranian election results are in…

Nepali of the Day:

ek:  one

sae:  hundred

din:  day

haptaa:  week

barshaa:  year

bhashaa:  language

naya:  new

purano:  old

-ko:  equivalent to ’s; marks the possessive

subakamana:  Congratulations!  Happy… Merry… (used in phrases like our “Merry Christmas!  Happy Birthday!)

Ek bharshaako subakamana!

The Himalayas

On the plane to Pokhara, for a few minutes I enjoyed just peering down at Kathmandu from the sky, and snapping pictures of it.  Here’s another shot of the valley, just for fun:

The Kathmandu Valley, a former lake, is now a sea of houses nestled between towering hills we would call mountains in the USA.

But all the time, as we headed north-west we continued rising.  And once we’d lifted above the hills, and came even with the clouds, I realized it wasn’t just clouds that I was staring at…

Um, wait, not all of those are clouds...

...and that gray's not just a shadow... and the white is... snow? so...

Oh, my…

Forget Kathmandu.  My Pretty Mountain Hill just doesn’t compare.  I’m moving to Pokhara!

Puppy Update:

Our living, breathing, barking Alaskan Himal continues to get better.  She feels heavier now when I try to carry her around with one hand, and she’s eagerly eating.  She can also now easily put her forepaws on the couch cushions, whereas just a few weeks ago she was hard-pressed to reach them with the tips of her claws, even when she stretched as far as she could.  She will never be as tall as her fellow himal-haru, but she’s getting bigger!

Nepali of the Day:

himal:  snow-covered mountain

pahaD:  hill

-haru:  like adding “s” to a noun in English, makes a noun plural

ekdam:  very

sundar:  beautiful

cha:  is

chan:  are

yo:  this

tyo:  that

yi:  these

ti:  those

bhanda:  “compared to;” word used in a comparison:  “A bhandaa B adjective is”, where in English A would come after “than” and B would get “more” or “-er” added, because the B part has more of whatever the adjective is.  For example:

Kathmandu bhandaa Pokhara sundar cha. = Pokhara is more beautiful than Kathmandu.

Yo pahaD bhandaa tyo himal sundar cha. =  That mountain is more beautiful than this hill.

Ti himalharu ekdam sundar chan!

Leaving Kathmandu

No, not permanently.  I promised news of the Pokhara trip, remember?

So, once upon a time, when I was making updates, I was only a week behind the times.  Now it’s half a month.  But it’s not exactly like I’ve forgotten…

I’d actually gone to the Kathmandu airport once between when we arrived and when we went to Pokhara.  It’s amazing how tiny it is!  It’s one of those airports where you get out and walk from the tarmac into the terminal–no fancy tubes to walk through here.

But the first time I passed through the airport, I was obscenely jet-lagged and carrying two kitties and amazed and overwhelmed and trying to take it all in.  The second time, I stood outside the International terminal and greeted another English teacher just arriving from the US.  The third time, for our trip to Pokhara, I was much more jaded to life in Nepal–but it was still interesting, to go through the domestic terminal (a separate little building roughly the size of a small-town railway station in 1800’s USA.)

For one thing, I got frisked for the first time in my life.  They have metal detectors, and send everyone through them first thing, but then immediately you get frisked even so.  And for the purpose, there are separate lines for men and women, and women immediately step into a little curtained area to the side where a female security officer searches them.  The woman found my money belt, frowned, realized what it was, and waved me on.

Then we paid the airport tax.  Yes, even when you’ve already bought your ticket, at the airport itself, in a small bank window for the purpose, everyone must pay the airport tax.  It’s very strange.  But there was no line at all, and the process was quick and painless.

Then we passed through gender-segregated doors into the waiting area at the “gates.”  Two are numbered.  Both share the same medium-sized doctor’s office-sized waiting room.  The day we were there, only two doors were open–the respective male and female doors beneath the neatly labeled sign for “gate two.”

You don’t, quite, just walk out to your plane when leaving Kathmandu.  Instead, each airline operates a few trolleys–and they’re no more, with space for about 15-20 people, no more.  They call out passengers by flight number and send you to the waiting trolley–and though I didn’t realize it at the time, they easily fit all the passengers for a flight on a single trolley.

In the waiting room, I’d gawked at the Himalayas, just faintly visible in the distance.  I’d only glimpsed himals twice before, ever since arriving 5 months ago.  In the trolley, too, I kept gawking, and nudged my husband to get him to gawk, too.  One of the Nepalis on the trolley realized what I was staring at, smiled, and said, “You want to see mountains?  On the plane, sit on the left.”

I took his advice.  Really, the plane was tiny enough that every single person had a window seat–except for the unfortunate woman who boarded last and got stuck beside my husband and me in the very back of the plane.  Sean had gambled on the flight not being full, and enjoying the extra space, but then the Nepali woman ended up between us, only occasionally chattering to a man just ahead of us who may have been her father.  But mostly, politely, she and I took turns shooting pictures out the window beside me.

Yes, this was our plane to Pokhara. And you can see most of its passengers in this picture.

I was glad I’d figured out what the man meant–stay on the left, when you head to your seat.  Sitting down, the window was actually to my right, but that was correct–we headed north, and the Himalayas rose just to the east, so close it looked like the plane could slightly turn at any moment and go weaving in and out of their peaks.

They’ll appear tomorrow.  First, what I saw just leaving Kathmandu itself:

A view of Kathmandu as we rose into the air.

Kathmandu!

Puppy Update:

The puppy is feeling much better.  At her latest vet visit, they finally agreed she maybe had worms–and they realized that she’d missed her second dose of worming medicine, which just made the diagnosis all the more likely.  But they also decided she might have a secondary infection, too, so they gave us antibiotics.

We couldn’t find the right worming medicine at the pharmacy, even though we’ve tried four different ones now.  We broke down and bought a similar-sounding worming medicine, but I don’t intend to give it to her until I have vet approval.  Meanwhile, she’s been on her antibiotics several days… and her diarrhea is already going away, and she’s eating much more readily and staying hydrated and putting some meat on her skinny ribs.  She’s now 8 weeks old, of age in the US to be adopted, and she’s more independent and braver and stronger.  And already half-house-trained.  Hooray!

Nepal News:

And a brief note, probably explicable only to Nepalis or people who follow Nepali news:  WHY did they have to change Ratna Park’s name?!  I only just learned it a month ago!

[The new Maoist-led government is busily renaming all institutions in the country named after former members of the former royal family.  The park's name got changed yesterday, from that of a previous king's step-mother "Ratna" to the national hero's (though much harder for foreigners to pronounce and spell) name, "Shankhadhar."  They're moving all the public statues of the former royals into museums, too.  But at least they aren't destroying the statues--they're preserving them for history.]

Flashback: Bangkok Airport

I’ve decided to stay on this theme for another day — that’s all it will take for me to post all my Thailand pictures.  We really didn’t take many; as I pointed out yesterday, we weren’t there long, and we were pretty exhausted and overwhelmed at the time.  I do have several pictures of the airport itself, taken right around the same time as the pictures posted earlier in “Flying Kitties.”

Mid-morning in a terminal of the Bangkok Airport

The exact plane that flew us from Bangkok to Kathmandu

Thai Airways is an awesome airline — they served us the best food I’ve ever had on an airplane, fresh and delicious.  We had soft dinner rolls and spicy curry; endless refills of tea and water and even wine, all of which were served with the meal as a matter of course.  And then, just before landing, the flight attendants make their way down the aisles with a basket of orchid blooms, each separate bloom (and some greenery) wired to a safety pin — they hand these out to all the women on the plane.  I’ve kept mine in a drawer — it’s still pretty even now, no matter how faded.  (Akin to my “mendi,” or henna, which today has finally started to decidedly fade from its Friday brilliance.)

Reading the news from Thailand now, I can’t connect violent street protests with the serenity and urban beauty I found there.  My attention is drawn to how many of the protesters are furious with the prime minister.  Nepal, of course, had no president, and only an interim prime minister, when we arrived.  The king of Nepal had only just left his palace a few days before we passed through Bangkok.  So I peered out the windows of the terminal and took these pictures:

Hmm, what does that poster say?

Okay, it's a little clearer now. Does anyone play Wheel of Fortune? I vote for a G. Or an L.

There was another sign which read “World’s Longest Surviving and Best-Loved Monarch.”  Quite a contrast to Nepal, where the people fought a civil war and then decided to force the monarchy out of power.  Then again, in Kathmandu itself, to my knowledge, there haven’t been violent street protests that have led to serious injuries and death.  Over the summer, when students protested the government, they blocked traffic and burned tires.  In fact, a few times, when we asked about the status of the latest protest, we received the cheery reply:  “Oh, it’s over now.  They ran out of tires.”

The world is strange.

Nepali of the day:

where is… :  kahaa chha?

-tira:  toward the

north:  uttar

south:  dakshin

east:  purbaa

west:  paaschim

purbaatira:  to the east

desh:  country