davethegrinch.net

Dave says:

So the saying around here goes: ‘The Nepalis invented trekking’. It is inevitable that
one’s trip to Nepal will, at some point, involve trekking. It comes in many shapes and
sizes from a ’short’ five day excursion to a ‘Into Thin Air’ style Mt Everest challenge.
Depending on your fitness level, budget and willingness to risk your life, there is a
trek for you. Sarah having never trekked for longer than 2 1/2 consecutive days before,
thought hreself plenty adventurous enough by going with the “short” 5 day trek to
Poone Hill in the Annapurna range but before she knew it, she was hooked and we signed up for the “intermediate length” 12 day expedition through the Langtang region as well.

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Sarah says:

Despite it being somewhat of an afterthought, just a wouldn’t it be cool if we went to… we have ended up spending longer in Nepal than any other country - six weeks in total - and we’ve both given and received back so much more here than we expected or could have hoped for. We have lived with three families in three different areas of the country, we’ve learned some of the language, our affiliation with the volunteer agency helped us feel like we were apart of something bigger and like we had a connection, a family, in this very strange and foreign country. We have spent so much more time with locals here than anywhere else, we’ve traveled on the worst of their public transportation, we’ve been treated to local food with local families at their dinner tables, we’ve learned their card games, we’ve made friends. And we’ve hiked ourselves deep into the heart of their glorious Himalayan mountains - 16 days on foot, over 100 miles walked. And our eyes have seen beauty like we’ve never seen before. (more…)

Dave Says:
As the Asia portion of this trip draws to an end we realized we have spent a lot of column inches discussing the local peoples and not a lot of space ragging on the tourists. So to put matters straight we proudly and without fear of remorse or recrimination present a quick tour of the world’s tourist population: (more…)

Sarah says:

Dear Diary, here we are back in Kathmandu, watching a fantastic rain storm from yet another retro-hippie cafe that serves reasonably strong coffee and reasonably pleasing chocolate cake and where, apparently, it’s acceptable to openly smoke marijuana……when we should be on our volunteer placement. I think we are grieving that it didn’t work out and our endless self psychoanalysis isn’t getting us anywhere. If we were to pay ourselves $150 per hour for 5 couch sessions, perhaps our notes would look something like this:

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Dave Says:
The US government is an organism on irony. For a country that was founded by and owes all to immigrants, it is the country in which it is now the hardest to become one. Ellis Island is closed for legal immigrants unless you have something to the government in the form of taxes or competitive advantage and if there is little chance of you actualy taking something from them such as unemployment or medicaid. If your potential circumstances please Uncle Sam he may just open the gates a squeek and you may be able to squeeze through.

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Dave says:

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Clint Eastwood rode into Parbatipur on his way to chasing down some guy wearing a black stetson. I could imagine him squinting through his cigar smoke and tipping back his hat as he approached the edge of town. Parbatipur is where we’ll be volunteering and it looks as if it were lifted from a Hollywood western movie set and transplanted a few miles from Chitwan National Park. That’s not to say this is a theme town, on the contrary, it is a hardworking rural community whose principle source of income appears to be maize and, oddly enough, school exercise books.

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Dave and Sarah Say that there now follows a post written by us in Nepali. See below for translation:

Namaste!

Tapaai laai kasto chha? Hammi laai raamro chha. Hammi Nepal maa chhau. Hammi swyansewak hau tes kaaran hammi Nepali bhasaa sikdaichhau. Hammi hamro Nepali raamro aashaa chha. Hammi Kathmandu ko-laagi ek haptaa gaeko ra pachhi trekking Anapurna maa gaeko. Hammi laai thakai ra khushi laagyo tara David rangi changi laageko ra Sarah ko ghudaa ali-ali dukhayo. Anapurna himal sundar chha. Hammi dal-bhaat khaane ra hammi laai dudh chiyaa manparchha. Haat dhunus! Hawasta!

Literal translation as follows:

Greetings! You how are? We good are. We Nepal in are. We volunteers are therefore we Nepaali speak learning. We our Nepaali good hope is. We Kathmandu for one week were and later trekking Anapurna in went. We tired and happy feeling but David rangi-changi felt and Sarah’s knee little hurts. Anapurna mountains beautiful are. We daal-bhaat eat and we milk tea like. Go wash your hands! See you later.