It's amazing how 8,000+ peaks dwarf BC mountains - Kamloops, Canada
Kamloops, Canada
The view outside my window is snow, and I'm only at 700m elevation. I wish I was where the snow level was 6,000m, and the peaks were even higher. But back we are, thrust into the holiday season, snow and ... dare I say it.... work!
On our last full day in Sauraha, we rented bicycles for the afternoon for a whooping 300 rupees ($3). We rode past mustard fields and passed wedding celebrations. Kevan hit dirt jumps on his "ride the future" one-speed. We rode to the elephant breeding centre where after having a beer with a local we discovered that the elephants were practicing for their annual international elephant polo competition. Sure enough, across the river were elephants and their handlers chasing soccer balls with the elephants giving them a whalloping kick down the field. Once, when a landmine went off, sending the elephant reeling backwards with lots of complaining, we were assured that it was in fact just an elephant stepping onto and subsequently destroying the ball.
After waiting behind a herd of goats to cross the footbridge to the animal sanctuary, we got up close to watch polo practice, then headed to the breeding centre where the animals were then brought in for dinner. Once we got to the end of the centre, there stood Ronaldo, the famous wild male elephant who comes to the breeding centre to make more soccer star Ronaldo babies. (The centre doesn't breed their own animals to avoid conflict between competing males, so instead, Ronaldo comes in from the jungle to his version of a night club for his pick of the herd.) Realizing how close I was, and that one should never stand between a male and the object of his affection, particularly a 15,000lb male, I moved out of Ronaldo's way and we headed back towards our hotel on our cruiser bicycles.
Since we had an upcoming toiletless-flight to Kathmandu and several days of flying to get back to Canada, during our time in Sauraha we implemented a food hygiene type of religion, with rituals including only eating at two restaurants, cutting fresh foods from our diet the last two days and an obsessive amount of hand-washing, in order to prevent a repeat of the notorious Old Bazaar Gut Destroyer.
And with Murphy's law, at 0200 on our last night in Sauraha, my guts exploded. And they did not stop until 0900, when Kevan arrived with some antibiotics. Saving you the details, I'll simply say that I downed three litres of water over the course of the night and early morning just to stay hydrated. Since Kevan was using the last of our azithromycin, he headed off to the local clinic in desperate hopes (for my sake, his and our future flight passengers' sake). Not only did he get the drugs, the doctor at the two-roomed clinic also led him to the back where he removed the tick Kevan had found on his side that morning. And in typical Nepali don't-take-advantage-of-the-white-guy fashion, the tick removal was free, and the azithromycin was $2.
Once we arrived back in Kathmandu, we were given a suite apartment at the Dream Nepal Hotel, which gave us ample room to dismantle and pack the bikes. Or rather, gave Kevan ample room to work on the bikes while I caught up on my sleep from the previous night. We met up with new friends for dinner, giving us a different perspective than the typical Thamel tourist district of bars and restaurants.
Friday morning we took full advantage of our time left before we were off to the airport. We had time to fit in one last site so we headed up to Swayambhunath, the "Monkey Temple", to visit one last Buddhist temple before flying back to Canada. We climbed up the eastern stairway with the macaques running and calling beside us. Looking out over the slightly hazy Kathmandu sky, we found ourselves starting to dig our heels into the stone surrounding the stupa, not wanting to leave.
This time heeding local advice (unlike my last flight from Toronto to Kamloops), we left for the airport when suggested, which turned out to be sage advice. From the counter delays at China Eastern to the passport official who abruptly decided at 2pm it was time to end the day (apparently the short work day also extended to airport staff) we had little downtime in the airport before our flight.
While China Eastern was the cheapest flight to Nepal, and Chinese airlines have poor rankings, we continue to have nothing but positive reviews for the airline as we were fed almost continuously on all our flights, our bags arrived within fifteen minutes of every arrival and not only could we travel without excess fees for our bikes but nobody blinked an eye at the oversize and sometimes overweight luggage. Our one delay occurred in Shanghai due to thick smog. In fact, the view out the airplane and airport windows was a brown mist. No buildings or city skyline could be made out. However, we were fortunate we hadn't booked a flight for the previous day as the pollution was so severe, it delayed hundreds of flights and cancelled several dozen.
Arriving in China was an assault to our sense. The floors, walls and buildings were sparkling clean, and there was a peculiarly absent sewer smell. Our personal space bubbles were invaded with each step, staring at us and our luggage recommenced and the friendly faces, conversations and safety of Nepal disappeared. Our overnight in Kunming was significantly improved from our our first visit there as we discovered a lounge with hotel-like rooms for sleeping, leaving us feeling rested for the remainder of our journey back to Canada!
Arriving back in one's own country always provides for contrasts and comparisons of the destination just traveled too. Nepal has by far the nicest, most respectful group of people that do not as a whole take advantage of foreigners and is one of the safest countries we've ever traveled too. On that note, it's the only country that Kevan, though usually laid back, ever let me wander down streets with large amounts of cash by myself or at night. We joked that the security guards at the restaurants or police on the street corner were there to help you in case you tripped, because for what other reason would you need their help.
While having their own unique animals to watch out for on bicycle, namely the large-horned yak, I admit that the health condition of the many stray dogs there, particularly in the bigger cities or the town of Bhaktapur, was what caught my attention. I had to turn away several times at the state of some of the dogs. In the mountain towns the dogs were in great shape, often beautiful Tibetan mastifs, but where the people, and then dogs became more populated, their health decreased. Not that the Nepali are mean towards the animals, they just didn't pay them much attention. Where here in Canada, we've followed several a stray dog to return them to their owner or the humane society, they aren't given a second glance in Nepal. But it gave me pause because while there were dozens and dozens of "homeless" dogs, I could count on my hand the number of homeless people I saw. And in Canada, I certainly don't give a second glance to the homeless person I pass by. I'm not judging either society for being "better", I can't judge one country for the treatment of it's animals when we treat people here with the same inattention.
The noise and sight chaos of Nepal I will also miss: The constant blare of car, bike or motorbike horns, dodging the source of those same horns while on the streets, the brightly decorated and painted buses and trucks passing within inches of each other on mountain roads, flapping and colourful prayerflags strewn from homes, trees, stupas and poles. Even the clothing was colourful, the jewellry many of the women wore, as were their products, such as colourful yak blankets and mittens. And finally, the smells were constantly changing too, from yak and cow dung, to excrement to various smells of incense from one home to a temple or offering, and then the surprise "Christmas" smell when travelling through some forests.
But the final contrast came as we finished our journey home, on the highway to Kamloops. Our mountains. Our mountains that really looked like pimples on the landscape compared to the 8,000+ peaks of the Himalaya we had been looking at up close, and mountain biking on the sides of these monsters. I never thought I'd say it, but our own mountains look like such babies now!
Of course, as is habit, we are starting to plan and come up with new travel plans, with bike trips as early as next summer (although less than five minutes from home and Kevan announced : "Bach' looks ridable right now!" I reminded him neither of us could stand the cold for more than 5 seconds.) The bike ride has been put off until next week when the weather is to warm to -1. But this trip, the mountain biking, the foreign culture, this is a trip we'll be talking about for a long time to come.
This bike trip would not have been what it was without our fellow mountain bikers, who provided lots of laughs, help, photography skills and fun during our week and a half adventure together. To Elaine, Brian, Ty, Karl, Louise, Maggie, Emmanual and Geoffrey, a huge thank you. To my personal sweep guide Sourage (sp) and of course Mandil, thank you for leading us down trails we never thought we'd see nor ride during this trip and giving us one hell of a vacation in Nepal. And a most special thank you to Ashley from Urban Tailz and of course Jen for taking care of our Gus. We would have loved to bring him as our groups' trail dog but since that was out of the question, leaving him with you was the best for him and he'll still be dreaming of all the doggy play dates, runs in the park, cuddles, trips to the nursing home for pets and many plays in the snow for a long time to come. He might not even mind when he notices us take the bikes out of the hockey bags....well....mind a lot less anyway :)
Kevan + Cheryl