Kathmandu

“Buddha was Born in Nepal” was emblazoned on the front window of a bus.  One of the first things I saw when I woke in Kathmandu, Nepal.  And thus begins this tale of suffering, death and rebirth.   

Twenty some years ago, some friends and I landed in Nepal.  Jet-lagged, we woke at dawn and took a walk to SwayambhunathTemple perched on a hill overlooking the city.  We climbed the 360 steps to the top in a morning mist.  There was group there with drums and other instruments singing.  We wandered around the various ancient temples, spun the prayer wheels and watched the city wake up below.  It was a magical experience.

Back in present day, after the quake, damage is significant, but sporadic and inconsistent. There are neighborhoods where damage is extensive and others that seem unscathed. Cracks still materialize with each aftershock and aftershocks also bring the odd falling brick.  I missed the big shocks, so I’m much less sensitive.  Those who lived through it are acutely tuned into any movement of the earth whether caused by seismic activity or a semi truck.

Dominoes.  Building on left is still vertical. 

Quake damage

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In the capital, looking at some buildings, it is surprising that more didn’t fall as they look rickety

to begin with. In older areas of town and a number of heritage sites are woefully damaged.  It will take years of work to get them back.  Thankfully, these places are under guard now, so hopefully no treasures will be lost.

Many are sleeping with extended families in a single ground floor room.  Some can’t bring themselves to sleep inside even though their homes have been rated as safe for habitation.

Life is worse in rural areas.  It is amazing to me, with the world shrunken so with digital communication, that places can be so cut off so easily.  Villages a mere 40 kilometers from the capital city are now a 6 hour bus ride plus a 3 hour hike to reach.  I don’t know if this has reached BBC or CNN, but one village has been entirely wiped out by a landslide triggered by an earthquake and later rains.  It seems a glacier was loosened by the shaking and lubricated by the rain and just rushed into the valley below burying a popular tourist area under 100 meters of rock and mud.  An associated air blast from the slip was so powerful that it denuded and flattened trees for acres in front of the slip.

Getting supplies in has required monumental efforts of aircrews and transporters. All made difficult by a lack of open roads and lack of helicopters.  Desperate people early on had been raiding trucks on occasion making distribution even harder.

Available open spaces are dotted with tents and people seem to be settling in for a while.

At the same time, there is an incredible amount of resilience at least in the city. Some 10 percent or more fled for the country in the days after the quake.  Slowly, the city is regaining her people back. More and more shops are open. People are talking and laughing more. There are lots of veggies for sale and I saw a truckload of flat screen TV’s being loaded into a store, so there must be a demand. At night, the city has been quiet, but in recent days bars and clubs have been discretely opening.  No garish lights, but if you listen hard you can hear the strains of old cover tunes.

Rather quickly people are cleaning up.  Without waiting for an insurance settlement, crumbled bricks have been chipped free of their mortar and stacked neatly on site for reuse later.  Sidewalks and city streets are all open.  Some buildings, though notably listing, are frighteningly being used for business even though the doors don’t open all the way.

Though bouncing back, these people need help.  Aid has started to flow in. One would think that after an eternal line of tragedies and disasters we’d know how to distribute aid safely, quickly and equitably, but it still starts slowly and at the top and trickles down.  One man, being pragmatic, painted a sign outside his shop.  “Stop Praying, Start Paying.  Support the Nepali People!”

Given that tourism is so important here, I worry how these people will survive after the giant news eye turns its focus elsewhere. It may be that the next best thing to sending money is saving up for a trip to this mountain country after the monsoons depart. It would provide some much needed capital.

All around though, people are creeping back to normal.  Legend says that a woman wanted to honor the Buddha and asked the king for land on which to build it. The king said she could have all the land that was covered by the skin of a water buffalo. The woman, being crafty, cut the skin into one long, very thin strip and encircled a piece of land 150 meters around. The king stuck to his bargain and thus the Boudinath, the world's largest stupa was built. In the evenings, the Nepalese gather to circumambulate.  Walking thrice around slowly, spinning the prayer wheels as they go, or just talking with each other as a way to wind down the day. It is remarkably crowded.

I spotted a girl there in a green shirt with flashy gold letters. She’s taking it in stride.  The words on her shirt read, “Everything Happens for a Reason.”    

My last morning I tried to recreate my experience of 20 years ago. I woke at dawn and headed back to the temple. There was some effort to barricade the place, but scores of the faithful were there already. I hiked up the steps and over fallen bricks and broken glass, and there, with the sun rising, it was exactly how it was twenty years ago.  There was singing and blessings and offerings.  Forget twenty years; it’s been like that for hundreds of years.

One man told me they rebuilt everything after the big earthquake in 1934 using all the stuff that fell down.  We’ll build again.   I heard another local saying. “We’re Nepali. There is always another story.”

A Drive in the Park

May Day is a national holiday in Indonesia and it fell on a Friday making for a 3 day weekend. The offspring's prior plans, though, precluded taking full advantage.

Mrs. S.A.M and I decided to take a road trip. Surprisingly, it was our first since we’d been here.  We didn’t think it was too ambitious.  A trip to the nearby “Rain City” of Bogor, so named because it is up in the hills and that is where monsoonal rains germinate.  

We had a busy day planned.  We’d leave early, breakfast at a tea plantation on a high mountain pass, see the premier zoo, visit a gamelan gong factory and dine somewhere on the way home.

Many people warned us of the crowds and the traffic, but we thought if we left early we’d avoid much of the problem.  We set a goal of a 6 am departure and were late by 20 minutes.  90 minutes later we were stopped at the side of the road about ½ from our goal.  It seems there is one main road up the mountain and the close it during times of heavy traffic and make the whole thing a one way road up the hill.  To avoid catastrophe, they stop all traffic and clear the road.  So we napped and waited for a good long while.

The locals, sensing a money making opportunity, hawk their wares up and down the lanes of 2 km worth of stopped traffic.  Fried tofu, chips, water, pizza, toys, tissues.  Buskers with ukeleles or even just kids clapping, sing for their breakfast.

Nearly 3 hours on we’re moving again.  Our driver says that the best way to do this trip is to do it on a weekday.  “There’s no traffic then!”

4 hours on we realize that our plans need changed.  If we go to the Tea Plantation we can’t get back to the zoo, because traffic on the road is moving the wrong direction.  We abbreviate.  We nix the gong factory and decide to go to the zoo first and see what opportunities present themselves after that.

4 ½ hours on we made the turn off to Taman Safari.  The road winds off and is lined with stalls of people selling carrots and bananas.  The driver tells us that people can feed the animals, so we buy some produce.

We gained entry to the park along with a nice, solid line of cars and busses.  Taman Safari is firstly a driving zoo.  This fits in Indonesia where walking is discouraged. The road starts along and we ask the driver for a break. We’ve not eaten and we need to use the toilet.  The driver tells us that the road is one way and the toilets and restaurants are at the end.  He thinks the drive will take about an hour. We cross our legs and eat some of the bananas.

From my previous descriptions, you may have some idea of the zoo, but this was actually well done.  Certainly they could use a consultant from Disney, but so could a lot of places in the U.S.  The animal part of the zoo was well done.  They’d done well to make the place as native as possible.  The animals roam free amongst the hills, road and clouds of exhaust.  Really, we had a lion dart across the street behind our car. Our driver told us of a time a bear climbed on his car and broke the radio antenna  For a while, traffic was blocked by a hippo in the road. Despite being in the car you could actually see a lot.

Giraffes, Zebras, camels and elephants had the racket down. They knew most of the cars bought carrots outside and so there was a bit of a shakedown.  With the volume of holiday traffic, some of the animals got full and so were subjected to just being pelted with lots of produce thrown from cars. That was rather sad

At the end of the road you could park.  There was an amusement park with animal shows, rides, a water park and some restaurants. There was an aviary and a baby zoo.  There you could get your photo taken with a tiger cub or baby orangutan.  You could even walk into the cage and feed the penguins.

We took in the Tiger show.  It was all done in Indonesian.  I know there was plot.  The Tiger tamers came out and did a dance with three women scantily clad in tiger outfits.  Then the women departed and three tigers came out.  They did some leaps and tricks and that was that.

We spent a leisurely 3 hours wandering the park.  We could have done less, we could have done more, but we decided to see what else we could salvage from our plans.  The road was still flowing uphill, so we opted for the tea plantation.  

This was quite a peaceful place.  Terrace upon terrace of hedged tea trees up and down the distant hills.  There are some platform tents and a nice tea house.  After the crowds go home and the sun goes down, I bet it is a pretty nice place to spend the night; looking across the valley watching the thunder clouds roll in or the sun sink down.  

After a tea break with darkness falling, we headed back home. Traffic was flowing our way, so we didn’t have to stop.  We cruised with the windows open. Catching glimpses of a million different stories in all the stalls, shops, nooks and crannies along the way. We made it home in an hour and a half.

PNG n Mi

I was back in Port Moresby recently.  If you read my last entry on the place, you’ll understand I had some trepidation about returning.  Not much has changed.  

Actually, that’s not quite true.  The Pacific Games are coming in some 70 days, so the whole city is getting a makeover with new roads and flyovers and stadiums and landscaping.  There are some new athletic looking sculptures that are in place, weight lifters and swimmers and the like. They are expecting 4000 athletes and 10000 visitors for the games.  One wonders where everyone is going to sleep since there are only a limited number of hotels, but they are doing their best to dress things up for the event.

The safety situation hasn’t really changed much.  I was still discouraged from walking anywhere.  Locals are still bickering with one another.  I read in the paper that one clan lost a pig and accused another clan of stealing it.  1 week later, 10 people are dead from both clans.  The killing was getting so bad, that the police chief went out and gave everyone a stern talking to.  “If I have to come back here one more time, there’s going to be consequences.”

There are worries about the local police barracks.  They are in a state of disrepair and there is not enough space for everyone.  They’ve been poorly maintained and there has been vandalism as well.  Everyone is waiting for money to come from somewhere.

You’d think the place was really poor, but there is tons of money here.  PNG has one of the fastest growing economies in the Pacific.  There is a ton of mineral, oil and lumber wealth.  I met two guys who work for the PNG central bank.  They were risk analysts and focused on investing PNG’s wealth overseas.  They took great pride in the fact they were protecting their country’s new found wealth, by investing it carefully and making the money grown.  But they send it all to places like Fiji or Australia or the US. They buy hotels or invest in other country’s infrastructure.  It is such a puzzle why the local police is clamoring for funds, but the government owns one of the best hotels in Suva.

   

Despite the no walking warnings, I did endeavor to get out one morning.  There was a monthly local craft market at the bottom of the hill that my hotel was on.  I mentioned I might walk down, and coworkers were leery.  They recounted stories of people jumping out of the bushes and mugging people.  I could, though, truly throw a rock from my hotel room and hit it.  I decided to risk it.  I mentioned to the hotel doorman and he said I should be safe since it was morning and well lit.  I think he let a guard know to keep an eye on my while I walked.

I only had a few dollars on me.  No phone. No credit card. No camera, but I did find myself on edge with every person I passed.  And there were a number of them.  This is a walking country.  People amble about.  And when they don’t amble they sit in whatever shade they can find.

 

But, nearly every person I passed bid me a good morning with a smile or paid me no mind.  No threat at all during my one minute out walking in public.

PNG is a country of 7 million people and over 800 distinct languages.  There are two main languages, English and a creole called Tok Pisin which is a mix of Indo-European and other languages.  It is a phonetic conglomeration.

I read book         IS            mi ritim buk.

I give money      IS            mi givim mani,

Child                      IS            pikinini

Today                    IS            tete

Tomorrow           IS            tumora

Perhaps my favorite phrase is the phrase for “I love you. “  It is “mi laikem yu tru.”  I may start using this in my everyday life. 

And finally, I’ll end with this letter to the editor I saw on my trip.  I think it speaks for itself.

A Tale of Two Airlines

Here’s a brief comparison of two very different airlines, SingaporeAirlines and Air Niugini.

Both are actually comparably priced.  Air Niugini has a pretty solid monopoly on the Papua New Guinea market, so they can charge whatever they want. My Singapore air flight was a short one, so it was cheaper.

Both airlines have a good amount of legroom for an average size adult. Much more than a US carrier.

Singapore Airlines economy seats adjust two different ways. There are adjustable foot rests hanging of the seat in front of you for extra for extra comfort.

Air Niugini seats have a small nubbin beneath the padding in the middle of the seat at the level of one’s thoraco-lumbar spine. It was in two different seats on a round trip.  It is impossible to sit comfortably without the nubbin poking you painfully. After 6-½ hours, it is a new level of airline seating discomfort.

There is a business class on Air Niugini that looks rather posh.  Economy class, though is set up to maximize the number of seats in the available space.  As a result the lavatories are placed along the side in the middle of the cabin and open directly onto the cabin.  The after effects of a planeload of digested airport food wafts into the open space with each opening of the door.  The only laminar air flow available only moves front to back. Even those of us 20 rows back suffer this design flaw.

The number of attendants on Singapore Air is impressive. They’re everywhere. And they still provides scented, steaming hot towels. Towels so hot, they’re issued with tongs.  When they march down the aisle, the odor of jasmine fills the cabin in a pleasing way.

One area where Air Niugini excels is their blankets.  They seem near full sized and are plush and cozy.  They’re long enough that one can be keep warm and place over one’s nose and mouth to act as a filter.

Both, airlines served equally unappealing food.  The chicken dish for both was bland and unfinish-able. Only the desserts warranted a second bit. I was expecting better from Singapore given their reputation.  If only Singapore Air would serve up those sweet-smelling towels.

P.S.  These are not photos I took.  I didn't think to take any at the time.  I found them on a website called Airplanefood.net which as near as I can tell is a website devoted to nothing but photos of airplane food.  I think I'm gonna join.

Follow the Rules

I had a conversation with a co-worker the other day.  She's Indonesian and an intrepid traveller.

She just got back from a trip to Japan and was remarking about how she managed to get all over Japan without speaking any Japanese.  She just had the train and bus schedules.  All she had to do was match the number of the route with the number on the side of the train and count the stops to get off.  The Japanese have transport down and the schedule is king!

"It was SO easy and SO fast to get around.  I couldn't believe it!  Why can't Jakarta be like this? Well, maybe it will be better in 60 years!"

I told her that Hong Kong had come a long way in the last 40 years, so there was hope.

"Hong Kong, eh?  Well, they had the British.  They brought a lot of order and fairness and efficiency"

I didn't want to point out that there were people in Africa and India that might disagree with her.

"We had the Dutch and you know they brought corruption and bad deals!"

I'm not up enough on my Indo/Dutch history, and I didn't want to inflame things by arguing that the Dutch had been gone for 60 years.  And  I also didn't want to point out that the Netherlands full of Dutch people, is clean and efficient, and is not known for its corruption.

Instead, I said, "The corruption is a drag on everything."

"Yes, yes.  You know?  I make a conscious effort every day to break as few rules as possible when I come to work.  Everyone does it, but I really try to follow the rules. Maybe we'll improve in 40 years."

That's the spirit

The Hits Just Keep Comin'!

In Suva, Fiji recently, going about my business and found myself in a musical worm hole.  

Fiji, it seems, is where pop music goes to die. The soundtrack of these islands is stocked with all the one hit wonders of yesteryear.  The restaurants, the bars, the groceries all wafting with The Motels, Chris Isaak and Lisa Lisa  and the Cult Jam.  

Lisa Lisa was still in heavy rotation for heaven’s sake!  I heard “All Cried Out” three times in four days.  

Yep. If you’re a hit maker of days gone by and wondering whatever became of your career, chances are your agent sold your rights to Fiji and you’re still a big star there.

And it’s not only American Pop.  It’s Hindi, too.  Got into a rough looking cab with music blaring and headed on my way.  The driver turned downed the volume on his radio.  “This music probably grates on your nerves”

“Mine? Not at all!  Turn it back up!  Is it Hindi pop?”

“Yes!  They don’t make songs like this any more!  Today’s songs, you can’t even understand what they’re saying.  It’s all THUMPA-Ticka-THUMPA-Ticka!”

“What’s she singing about?”

“Love, of course.  She says she’ll follow him anywhere.”

I guess the love part is universal.  Wanna know how you say “I’m all cried out in Hindi”?  It’s like this,...

 “Maiṁ sabhī bāhara rōyā hūm̐”

Speaking of hits,... I was hit by a bus.

Me and a friend in my little rental Corolla were waiting for a car in front of us to turn when we were rear ended by a mini-bus shuttle full of 10 unrestrained teenaged passengers.  “POW!” Totally out the blue.

It is amazing the number of thoughts you can have while your car spins around in the road.

 “Oh...My...God. I’m having an auto accident in a clearly developing country...What hit us?....  This is going to be complicated... I hope I’m not injured.....  I hope my friend is not hurt.... Can I still go fishing today?...  What are we going to eat for dinner if we can’t fish?...Why does my back hurt?

All that in half a revolution of a Toyota.

I’m fine.  My friend is fine. It is a pretty incredible feat given that the road is the major highway heavily plied by busses and trucks.  Every single teenager was fine, save for a tiny cut on one of their ankles. I swear those teenagers just kept piling out of the mini-bus like clowns from a circus car.

Sorting it out took some doing.  A traffic cop arrived via taxi cab shortly.  Took lots of measurements and drew sketches and hauled us all down to the local police station for statements and reports. The kids, we learned while waiting were all heading home from boarding school for Easter weekend.

Sign on Police room door.

The police interview room was filled with three desks and a computer.  The bulletin board covered in an interesting mix of crime trends and inspirational religious quotes. The officer wrote down my statement by hand and then hunted and pecked his way over the computer until he finished my report.  There was a printer, but no copier so we wandered next door to the courthouse which really was a small house. Their copier was unavailable.  Thankfully, I had my phone, so I just snapped some shots of the documents I needed.

The driver of the van, a commercial shuttle company, hadn’t yet picked up his license from the motor bureau yet.  Hmmm.  Let’s see if the company has insurance.

Here’s the final hit. I didn’t take the extra insurance that they’re always trying to sell at the rental agency, so I’m on the hook for the damage to my car. The very kind lady at Avis, says that because I didn’t take the insurance, I’m on the hook for up to 7000 Fijian dollars.  They’ll charge my credit card and I need to take it up with my own insurer and the credit card company about getting the money back from the bus company.  

Avis will, of course, provide all the documents I need, such as repair quotes and police reports and what have you, but the legwork is on me.  The Avis lady chided me a little bit.  “If you take the insurance, you walk away after a smaller payment amount.”

All the travel and finance people I’ve read  say, always decline the extra rental car insurance, it’s a waste of money. Your auto insurance and credit card will cover it.  This may be the case when you’re at home, but the lesson to consider is this. If you’re facing the prospect of getting your money back from Simi with his learner’s permit and his uncertainly insured shuttle bus company in a developing country 5000 miles away, it just may be worth the $12 bucks a day for the insurance.  

Something to keep in mind for the future.  I fear I may be All Cried Out by the end of this.

I'm the Honeydew Honey

There are many downsides to travelling alone.  It is not as fun when you can’t share an experience with someone.  When you come back, no one really can get an idea of what you’ve done or what you’ve seen.  It’s always nice to have someone along for the ride.

But, sometimes travelling alone opens you up to the unexpected. Running into an old colleague leads to a drink, which leads to meeting a new acquaintance, which leads to a glass of wine and then a  bottle wine and a nice dinner and then an unexpectedly great evening.  

I say all this as a caveat.  Yes, the evening was great, but the wine may have made what follows more interesting at the time.

I’m in Wellington and it’s a fairly balmy evening and after dinner I stumbled upon an alley night market with some great sounds and smells coming from down the alley. Diving in,  I chanced upon a honey guy.  Actually, it was honey kid.  He’s some 21 yo college kid studying bees and business.  School full time, business full time and beekeeping full time.  It was rather impressive.  

Anyway, Mrs. S.A.M. had given me a task.

Maybe as retribution for travelling so often, she gives me tasks.  

“Bring me the broomstick from the wicked witch of the east!”  

“Return this ring to the fires of Mordor!”  

Bring me a selection of cheeses from the pasturelands of Australia despite your lack of reliable refrigeration for a week.  

Often these tasks involve money. She once asked me to bring her a black opal, neglecting to tell me that black opals are only found in one place on earth and thus are the most expensive.   I like a good challenge though.  It’s a quest.

This trip’s quest?  A simple one. Honey.  Specifically Manuka honey grown from a type of tea tree in New Zealand. It is well known for it’s anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties.

So, I found this honey guy and he’s selling Manuka honey. Great, I think.  Quest accomplished!  

Because he’s a honey geek he proceeds to tell me that this manuka honey has been tested at 180 MOG.  I tell him I have no idea what a MOG is.  He says it is a measure of something honey has and the 180 is a good number to have.

He then proceeds to give me a primer on all the honeys of New Zealand, opening jars and dipping toothpicks and letting me taste each one.  Manuka, Kanuka, clover, creamed and so on down the line.

Now here is the fascinating part ( or not so fascinating part)  He pulled out a jar of Honeydew Honey and explains that this honey is made in a rather bizarre symbiotic relationship.  There is this aphid that burrows into a beech tree in southern New Zealand.  Once it burrows there, it secretes fluid with pheromones and nectar that attracts the bees. The bees fly around the bark of the tree collecting all the aphid secretions. They go back and make honey out of it.  But the honey doesn’t have enough sugars in it to be of any use to the bees and so their hives fill up with what is essentially a waste product and the colony flies away before it starves.

My beekeeper friend collects the honey, thus saving the colony a move and making this interesting honey to sell. He tells me it’s got lots of MOGs and other mystical properties and it’s the only honey that true vegans can use because it is not a product that exploits the animals.  Who knows if that is correct.  

Again, at the time, maybe with the wine, I thought it was a pretty cool nature story.  Now, though, a day or two later? Maybe not, but at any rate I accomplished my task.

Until the next day when I checked and realized that my next stop in the Pacific won’t allow anyone to bring in honey.  So, I must spend $50 to ship the honey home in the mail. Fifty dollars! That’s almost thirty cents per MOG!