Jenny & Jeff's Trek - jennyjeffstrek

from Jenny

Good morning, everyone!

Jeff and I have returned safely to Sacramento and we are happy and grateful to be reunited with our kitties, our hot shower, and our washer and dryer. I am quite jet lagged and my sleeping hours have been a bit strange the last couple of nights, but I'm catching up with stuff, Jeff has headed back to work, and hopefully I will be teaching again soon.

The last time I wrote about our trip, I believe I left off at the Nepal/Tibet border. We walked an interminable way to Hilsa, then crossed the bridge and climbed the hill to Sher on the Tibetan/Chinese side of the border. We stopped at the Chinese immigration station at the top of the hill where several young Chinese military men welcomed us and gave us hot water to drink and a place to sit inside out of the sun. There was some anxiety that we might be turned back even though we had visas and really had nowhere else to go except back to the trail. But within about 90 minutes, the Chinese had checked us out and we were on our way again. They searched each person's bags, but seemed most interested in flipping through books, journals and any kind of paper looking - most likely - for pictures of the Dalai Lama. We had all been warned several times prior to reaching the border that we must leave behind any books or papers that might have a snapshot of the Dalai Lama because if the Chinese found one, we would all be in hot water. The search went off without a hitch however, and we piled into 6 Toyota Land Cruisers with our TIbetan drivers and guide and took off for the city of Purang about 20-30 minutes away.

Interestingly, as soon as we crossed the border from Nepal into Tibet, we had to move our clocks ahead 2 hours. Apparently all of China, from the eastern reaches on the Pacific Ocean to westernmost Tibet, are all on Beijing time. One people, one time zone, seems to be the thinking. On a par with legislating against reincarnation in my opinion, but we jumped ahead all the same.

The road to Purang was mostly paved and Jeff said it was the best road he had ever been on in Asia. Several others concurred. The Chinese are working to build towns and roads even in the most remote regions, possibly to support military installations, possibly to support mining operations, possibly both or neither. We all had guesses. Anyway, we got to Purang where we stayed in a guesthouse. It was nice to be out of the wind although the guesthouse was not heated and the sheets and blankets were not particularly clean so we slept on top of cotton we had bought in Kathmandu for just such an occasion, and under our sleeping bags. Although the bathroom was quite moldy, we did have a flush toilet and a hot shower - our last hot shower for a week. We had a good dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town and slept fairly well that night.

The next day was a bit chaotic. We were up for breakfast, but before we could eat we were told to get all of our luggage packed pronto because we had to get to Chinese customs in town ASAP. We all rushed to the customs building where we put our luggage through an X-ray scanner. We were all then told we could go back to the hotel. We went back to the hotel, ate breakfast, and waited. This waiting was particularly frustrating because we really could not do much. Jeff and I wanted to do a bit of shopping and also use the internet, but no one in town was accepting American dollars or Nepali rupees - only Chinese Yuan. In past years, because Purang is a border town, it has accepted both dollars and rupees, but because of the closure of Tibet's border this year, we were the first and, we found out at the close of our trip, only western tour group to come over the border through Sher and Purang. As a result, merchants in Purang were not accepting money from other countries because they didn't want to get stuck with it. This would not have been a big deal, but we could not get Yuan - even from the bank. We went to the bank and the woman behind the counter had a journal that she leafed through and then showed me a page through the window. Written on the page it said that because the bank had not received the exchange rate for US Dollars that morning, she could not change money for us. It looked like the journal had been written some time ago and that the page was opened up whenever it was needed. I'm not sure why they couldn't use the phone to call Beijing and find out the exchange rate, but none of us could get them to give us money. Finally, our Nepalese guide, Prem, took a bunch of our money and got it exchanged on the black market. It took him awhile, but all of us left Purang with Chinese money so that we could boost our morale with at least some treats along the way in Tibet. Unfortunately, it came too late for us to use the internet or phone before we left Purang.

We drove a couple of hours that day on a paved road up to about 12,500 feet and Lake Manasarovar. At this point the sky was clear brilliant blue and we could see Mt. Kailash rising clearly to the northwest of the lake. Mt. Kailash is supposed to be the home of Shiva and to the south of the lake is Gurla Mandhata, the home of Shiva's consort, Parvati. Gurla Mandhata is a large, absolutely snow-covered mountain - beautiful and forbidding. Mt. Kailash looked exactly as it does in pictures, square and snowy, with rock showing through in ridges, coming to a point on top.

We camped that night directly beside the lake. Prem told us that in previous years, the lake had actually been much higher and we were camping on the lake bed. But since the Chinese had been siphoning from the lake to aid their gold mining operations, the lake water had diminished and had not replenished. There was a breeze, but thankfully it was not too windy that night because it was quite cold. The stars were incredible, especially the Big Dipper, which hung just above the water of the lake on the far shore as if preparing to dip out a scoop of cold water to quench the thirst of a god.

The next morning we drove to Darchen. We had been warned that "Darchen is a shit hole" by people in our group who had been there in 2006. And Darchen did not disappoint in that regard. We got to Darchen around midday and again stayed in a guest house. The guest house was warmer than the outdoors, but the bathroom was a horrific mess because the pipes had burst (no heat at 15,000 feet) and we had to use our toilet tents outdoors anyway. (I became quite adept at peeing into a bottle both in tents and in guesthouses so that I would not have to go out into the cold wind in the middle of the night.) Tibetan women roamed the hallways and - if we neglected to lock our room door - would walk right into the room to try to sell us jewelry, malas, and statues. Many dogs wandered around the town and indeed, all over Tibet we saw dogs roaming singularly and in packs. In general the dogs in Tibet looked healthier than the dogs in Nepal. Most of the dogs in Tibet looked similar - medium-sized and furry, but their hair was not too long - just thick. They seemed to be able to fend for themselves pretty well in terms of getting food, but many walked with a limp. I think most of them get sideswiped by cars and motorcycles at some point in their lives. People tend to honk at dogs crossing the road and then just keep going. It's my theory that because there is no rhyme nor reason to the traffic (no lanes, no lights) the dogs never learn which direction to go when they hear the honking - the vehicle could be coming from any direction and could dodge any direction at any time. Still, the dogs in Tibet could put up a fight if they needed to, the dogs in Nepal were basically too malnourished and demoralized to bother.

From Darchen the next morning we caught a ride out to the beginning of the Kailash Kora - the circuit around Mt. Kailash. There is an area filled with prayer flags at the entrance to the Kora where we stopped. Some of us, Jeff included, chose to take a small detour up a steep hillside to a plateau where the Sky Burial grounds are. For those of you who don't know, the traditional Tibetan method of "burying" the dead is to wrap the body tightly in cloth and take it up to high ground in a sacred place - the Sky Burial grounds. People then take the body apart with long knives and then scrape the meat from the bones. They then feed the bones first to the vultures. (If the vultures get the meat first, they will not take the bones.) Gradually the body is dismembered, consumed and any remains scattered on the plateau. I wanted to see the Sky Burial grounds, but I knew I was running too low on energy and it was going to be a couple of hour detour with a steep uphill and steep downhill. Those of us who chose to go on toward the first camp took our land cruisers up to the gate and then started walking. The first day of the kora is a relatively easy walk up a dry river valley gradually gaining about 1,500 feet in elevation up to the first camp at 16,600 feet. The altitude is what makes it challenging. The sun was bright so as long as we were moving we were warm. We passed a few other pilgrims on the way, but not many. The recent snows had been keeping traffic on Kailash to a minimum.

We walked along the west face of Kailash and stopped for lunch in a Tibetan tea house. They served black tea as well as treats like Coke or Pepsi and of course, yak butter tea, which I had no stomach for. Those who had detoured to the Sky Burial grounds caught up with us at lunch. They said that it didn't look like the grounds had been used recently. Rumor has it that the Chinese are not thrilled with the tradition of Sky Burial, but it is not clear whether they have actually put a stop to it. The way up had been steep, but the way down from the plateau had been extremely steep and icy. After lunch we spent 2-3 more hours hiking up the river valley to our first camp at Diraphuk where there is a monastery and an incredible view of the north face of Mt. Kailash. We actually made it to camp before the yaks with all our camping gear and luggage because the yak herders were late getting to the trail in the morning. We waited in the wind for awhile until the yaks - a small cross between a woolly mammoth and a cow - showed up and the sherpas got tents set up. Then we crawled inside to try to warm up before dinner.

I'll pick up again here soon. I've been up since 1:30 this morning and I think it's about time to lay down for a bit of a rest. I hope you're all doing well. Have a great weekend!

Love,

Jenny

From Jenny

Hello, everyone!

I hope you all are well in your respective cities and managing to keep from fretting too much about the financial and political insanity of the U.S. right now. It has been wonderful for us to be out of news contact during the whole mess; after all, it's all going to play out however it plays out whether we are biting our nails about it or not.

So, the last time I wrote extensively on our adventure, we were stuck in the sweltering stink of Nepalgunj, also fondly known by our group as Nepalgrunge. After two nights we were called abruptly to the airport with all of our luggage, only to sit for a few hours until we were told that the airstrip in Simikot was still too muddy and we were sent back to our hotel. Spirits were low. There was talk of renting a helicopter from the army which would be able to land all of us and our luggage in the mountains, but there was flooding elsewhere in Nepal and the helicopters were busy rescuing Nepalis. Apparently the army - rightly so, in my opinion - believed it would be bad for PR if they released a helicopter from the rescue effort to ferry a bunch of westerners to their trailhead. So we waited. After one more night in Nepalgunj, we got the word that the airstrip was dry enough to land. We taxied precipitously back to the airport and waited a few more hours for the Yeti Airlines flight to arrive from Simikot. A bunch of French citizens had been stuck up in Simikot for about a week trying to get out. Once they arrived, we and our luggage was loaded onto the 2 small 2-propeller planes that disgorged the French, and we lifted off and headed over the western foothills of the Himalaya toward the Humla region in northwestern Nepal.

The flight was beautiful in many ways with distant views of snow-capped peaks and closer views of terraced valleys. A flight attendant even made her way down the cramped aisle serving us cotton for our ears and little candies. I'm amazed that we landed in one piece. I was sitting in the aisle seat and could look through the cockpit of the plane to the windshield. After about an hour, it looked like the side of a mountain was coming at us fast and it turned out to be the runway. We did land safely and bumpily along a mostly dry and hastily repaired (they had to fill in some potholes after the monsoons) runway awash in relief, adrenaline, and applause for the pilot and co-pilot. The plane dumped us and our luggage on the side of the strip, loaded up, turned around and flew off again within about 20 minutes. They pretty much only have the mornings to make runs in and out of Simikot because in the afternoons the winds in the mountains are too treacherous to fly through.

Simikot was a literal breath of fresh air after Nepalgunj. The air was cool and clean, there were dark green trees and some lovely farmland. People were gathering grass for their livestock and it's clear that preparations were being made for the long winter ahead. Simikot is at about 9,000 feet so we hit altitude rather suddenly after our 3 days and nights at sea level, but everyone felt pretty good. We had a terrific lunch at a lodge owned by Sunny Travels - the company with whom we have made the journey. Then we put on our boots, grabbed our trekking poles, loaded our daypacks, and set off on the first leg of our journey on foot. We hiked up about 1,000 feet and then down again a couple thousand feet to a campsite on a river in a village called Dharapoori (my spelling might not all be correct at the moment as I do not have our itinerary with me.) Dharapoori was an extremely poor town and the air was quite cool and damp, being along the river. This was our first night in tents, eating in the dining tent, peeing outside in the dirt (which was actually a relief compared to the toilet in Nepalgunj.)

The next morning we continued our trek, heading gradually uphill. One of our group injured an ankle badly while crossing a stream. Jeff originally thought it might be fractured, but since the bone had not broken the skin, it was not a wound that typically merits evacuation by helicopter. Jeff splinted John and then John rode a horse for the rest of the day, downing Ibuprofen and occasionally soaking his ankle in cold streams or pools along the way.

We camped at Kermi where I had a nice pan bath and Jeff bathed with the Nepalis under the pipe running water out of the nearby stream. Any day we got into camp early enough to have 2-4 hours of sunlight left, I did laundry and bathed. As time went on, that became less and less possible. The third day we hiked all the way up to Yalbang Gompa at 10,300 feet (a gompa is a monastery) and camped in the yard of a boarding school. Originally we were scheduled to have a resting day here, but because we were stuck in Nepalgunj, we first figured we would push on through. Unfortunately, quite a few people had come down with colds and were exhausted from the three days of trekking. Prem, our Nepali team leader, told us it would be possible for us to take the resting day and arrive at the Chinese border on October 2 instead of the 1st. We had our visas to enter Tibet and he said it didn't matter exactly what day we got there. This meant that we would lose a resting day at Lake Manasarovar at just over 12,000 feet, but Prem told us that it would be a much more pleasant rest at 10,000 feet than at 12,000. As we rested at Yalbang Gompa, children came and went from their living quarters to the school and back throughout the day. It seems that most of the lessons were learned through singing and memorization. There was also a volleyball net set up where our sherpas and animal handlers played a rousing game of volleyball while the westerners all watched, astonished and exhausted by altitude and effort.

After our resting day, we moved on with people much more invigorated and spirits much improved generally. The Humla region is quite large and only has a population of about 46,000. This region was the mustering place of the Maoist guerrillas prior to their winning the election in August. The area was terrorized for many years by the guerrillas who apparently took what they needed from the population with impunity - including their sons, brothers, and husbands. Many people during this time moved from the rural areas, selling their land and heading for the cities, especially Kathmandu, where they felt safer. As a result, Kathmandu has grown exponentially over the last decade or so, sprawling as sorely as any American city without urban planning. Our dharma teacher, John Travis, was telling us this morning that when he lived in KTM in the 60s, it was a small village between the two holy stupas of Swayambunath and Bodhnath. Another traveler in our group was telling us that as late as 1989 one still had to walk across a field to reach the Bodhnath stupa. Today it is a concrete jungle, a maze of streets and smog.

The trail in the Humla region was hard. There were incessant ups and downs and it was an incredibly rocky trail in most places. At points we were basically walking up staircases that had been carved into the mountainsides. Occasionally we received cool breezes, but the higher we went, the harder the sun beat down even though it was cooler in the shade. And of course, we began to walk out above the treeline. Each day though, our kitchen sherpas carried food and equipment to prepare lunch on the trail for us. Not only this, but the animal handlers loaded up the horses and zhoks (a cross between a cow and a yak) with all of our duffles and camping gear and guided them along the same rocky, precipitous routes we were walking. At one point, part of the trail had been eroded by a landslide and our guides actually built up the trail as we watched so that we and the animals could cross it, which we all did safely.

The second to last day of trekking in Nepal seemed to go on forever. Each day of the journey we walked between 6 & 10 miles and this day was a 10 miler. We got up to a camp at around 12,000 feet where we were above the treeline, it was windy and cold. We washed briefly in a glacially cold stream and kept to our tents as much as possible, preparing to cross Nara La Pass at 15,000 feet the next day. We rose in the morning, ate breakfast and headed out swaddled in our warmest clothes and prepared for an uphill slog of 3,000 feet. The trail basically petered out into muck and slush and eventually, snow. We scrabbled up muddy hillsides into crunchy snow and made it to the top mid-morning. It was a wonderful moment. Then, the descent.

We tried to leave camp early in the morning, but it was difficult to get a group of 20+ people moving at a similar pace, early, in the cold. The day we crossed the Pass though, it was crucial to leave as early as possible because of the possiblity of rock slides and avalanche as the snow melted in the heat of the sun. Coming down off the pass we crossed a snowfield that did have a small path cut into it from traders bringing sheep, goats and salt over from Tibet. After we got off the first snowfield, we had to remove warmer layers of clothing. We journeyed on through a nerve-wracking morning and afternoon of following a winding path along a mountainside constantly looking up to see if rocks were starting to tumble down from above. The mountainsides basically have folds in them like towels thrown on the ground. In the folds were the refuse of past land and rock slides. As the snow melted around the rocks, some of them would tumble loose and it was difficult to hear them. The sherpas spread out along the trail at the more treacherous places to keep an eye on the rocks, but it was a long day down to the bottom, stopping for a pack lunch in a safe space where we could see over into Tibet along the way.

That day we walked all the way down from the pass back to about 11,000-12,000 feet and the Nepalese border town of Hilsa. We then crossed a bridge over the Karnali River which had been keeping us company throughout most of our trek, and made our way back up a hill to Sher, the border town in Tibet.

We were treated very well by the few Chinese soldiers I saw manning the immigration station. They gave us hot water to drink and we were only there about an hour and a half. They searched everyone's luggage, but were mostly interested in leafing through books and notebooks searching, I believe, for pictures of the Dalai Lama - major contraband, of course. They checked passports and visas closely, matching them to individuals, and we prayed they wouldn't turn us back because there was nowhere for us to go except to trek back through Humla to the dirt airstrip in Simikot. After awhile they let us pile into our Toyota Land Cruisers with our Tibetan drivers, loaded our luggage and camping gear in a huge canvas-covered truck, and we took off with 9 sherpas for Purang, a city near the border.

OK, enough for now. Jeff has had a frustrating morning trying to download photos to our website. We have a lot of wonderful pictures, but trying to get them out there is frustrating from these computers. I will write again soon picking up with Purang.

Be well. We look forward to seeing you all again soon. Love,

Jenny and Jeff.

From Jenny

Hello, everyone,

Jeff and I are well and I am writing you from Duhlikhel, Nepal after what has been, for me, the most harrowing and difficult day of the entire trip. We descended from Nyaalam in Tibet this morning, through the border, and down approximately 7500 feet to about 5,000 feet in a valley east of Kathmandu. We had Tibetan drivers this morning until we reached the border and then we all shared a bus. Most of the trip was a literal cliffhanger with the road either threatening to slide out from beneath us, topple onto us, or Nepalese drivers who seemed determined to fling us off a bend in the road.

As you can tell, we did make it into Tibet and the whole group reached camp at the North Face of Kailash at 16, 600 feet. 9 of our group, including 2 Sherpas, made the entire circuit, but the rest of us stayed in camp an extra cold, windy, snowy day, and then hiked back out the way we had come to meet the 9. The reason for this is because of the fresh snow up at the highest pass around Kailash, Drolma La. Our yaks could not safely make it, which meant that we would have no camping supplies and the journey to the nearest guest house after the pass made the trip untenable and unsafe for most of us. Jeff and I opted to stay at camp. A good decision - if a freezing cold one.

Tonight we are at a really nice hotel that has hot water in the shower and even came with a large spider in the toilet. Seriously, though, this is a great place by Nepali standards and we have come from an excellent candlelit meal, lemon sodas and clean companions. We will be here October 11 and 12,. then back to Kathmandu for one night before we fly out.

I will write more at that time. I hope you are all well. Take care and we'll be in touch again soon.

Love,

Jenny and Jeff

From Jenny

Hello, everyone!

I am writing this evening from an extremely slow PC in a small internet den in Nepalgunj near the Nepal/India border. (Brian, could you please get on the internet thing here in Southeast Asia and hook up all the hotels with some high speed connections?)

We flew this morning from Kathmandu south and west on Yeti Airlines to Nepalgunj. We are here for one night and tomorrow we fly to Simikot in the northwest of Nepal. We will spend one night at Simikot and begin trekking Thursday.

The flight was interesting. Security here would be quite unfamiliar to those of us who travel from the U.S. and Europe. All the bags were dumped willy-nilly onto a belt and thrown through an unmonitored X-ray machine. Then stickers marked "Security Checked" were slapped onto them. Good enough. We then caught a bus out onto the tarmac and hopped on a two-propeller plane. The trip down was actually smooth despite there being many clouds in the sky. Looking out the right-hand side of the plane you could see the snowy Himalayas in the distance. I also caught up on the news in an english-language Nepalese newspaper the flight attendant handed out. I realize important things are happening in the presidential race with people being pissed off at McCain about his 13, mostly non-American - or should I say un-American? - cars. That was all I could find on the election at this point.

We landed in Nepalgunj between 12:30 & 1pm and walked out into an incredibly humid, steamy atmosphere. Nepalgunj (the parts we have seen anyway) seems poorer than the parts of Kathmandu we saw. We had a challenging bus ride from the aiport to our hotel, but overall there is less auto traffic here and many bikes and rickshaws. Also here we have seen small horses drawing carts full of people, something we did not see in KTM. There is much more green space lining the roads, trees, standing water with lily pads and garbage floating, many cows, many people.

Our hotel here is a step above our last hotel in KTM having both A/C and a ceiling fan, along with clean sheets. Yesterday Jeff actually went and bought us some cotton material to sleep on in the hotels and guest houses. Although a sleep sack or sheets were not on the equipment list, apparently those are something you should not travel in Asia without. We had a fairly good Nepalese lunch with our group, napped, and now we are out wandering about, soaking in the sun and sweating.

I have had too much Coca-Cola. The soft drinks here are really the safe things to drink because you know they have been capped up and they don't have dubious water in them. Of course, the bottles are recycled at the plants and you don't always know if they have been sterilized so you have to be careful about using straws or finding clean glasses. In KTM they had something I loved called a lemon soda - basically just some lemon juice with soda water in it. Tart and refreshing - no caffeine or sugar. Have to be careful with juices outside areas that cater to large numbers of Western tourists. For water we have been filling our Nalgene bottles with tap water and then using the Steripen to purify.

While we were at the Hotel Excelsior we shared a travel yoga mat to practice asana every morning. However, we left that at the Excelsior with some other excess luggage to be retrieved at the end of our journey. Since then I have been doing some bed asana to open the hips and release the back every morning and then practicing some standing poses. We have been sitting with the group in the morning and evening. I don't know if we'll meet as a group tonight - I'm not sure the hotel has space.

Jeff is in the process of adding more photos to our website so check it out if you get the chance. We will try to write again from Simikot tomorrow. After that we will be hiking and mostly camping. There are a couple of nights at guest houses along the way and those may be in bigger villages, but we are entering an incredibly remote area so who knows with regard to wireless or telephone connections.

It's good to continue hearing from you about how things are going at home. You all are in my thoughts often as I travel through this extraordinary part of the planet. This was once a land of kingdoms richer than America is now, the art and architecture of the descendants of those kingdoms, the religion and ritual of those times, persists everywhere. I don't think anything dies; it just changes, it becomes something else and somehow - in spite of appearances that would indicate the contrary - flourishes. Us included.

Much love to you all. I'll write again soon.

Jenny

From Jeff

Hello After a short prop-job hop from Kathmandu we are in the border town of Nepalgunj. This is a poorer and more tropical place than Kathmandu. We have a nice airconditioned hotel room and even found an internet cafe. Tomorrow we fly to Simikot which has a dirt airstrip. It should be interesting. Best wishes. Jeff p.s look for new photos at: http://jennyjeffstrek.shutterfly.com/

From Jeff

6 days has gone by fast. We have had a fun-filled, action packed time. We visited many Hindu and Buddhist shrines, met many locals, ate some spicy Nepali cuisine, and have enjoyed getting to know the other travelers in our group.

We moved from the hotel in Thamel, the tourist ghetto to a quieter hotel where we are now with our full group of 23 people. We have had some meditations and teachings from our teacher John Travis and met with our outfitter. He says we are cleared to enter Tibet and we are excited that our trip is going to proceed.

Tomorrow we fly to the tropical town of Nepalganj and the next day to Simikot. From Simikot we begin our trek. We are in good health and are ready to be in the mountains and trees again. There may not be any internet for a while so wish us well and we will write when we can.

I have downloaded a few extra pictures on our webpage:

http://jennyjeffstrek.shutterfly.com/

We had an audience with a Tibatan Buddhist Lama, Rinpoche Shiva. He was a jolly fellow and blessed us for our journey.

I hope you are all well,
Love,
Jeff

From Jenny

Hello, all!

I hope you are all well. I just have time to write a brief e-mail before I meet the rest of the group for lunch. We are at the Bodhnath Stupa again this afternoon. This morning we woke, breakfasted with the group, sat with John for 45 minutes and then caught a bus to see Shiva Rinpoche. (Shiva, in this case, does not refer to the Hindu god, but is a Tibetan word meaning "simple.") We sat with the Rinpoche for an hour or so and received his blessing for our pilgrimage. Now we have moved onto Bodhnath for a bit and will go back to the hotel later this afternoon to put the finishing touches on packing for our trek. We leave early tomorrow morning.

Yesterday we moved from Hotel Excelsior to Hotel Vajra, which is a dive. The internet there is not working and it is fairly remote, so this will be my last opportunity to write from Kathmandu. I will try to write from our hotel in Nepalganj or Simikot before we get on the road.

Apparently the demonstrations here in the last week have had to do with the people being pissed off at the government. The finance minister apparently announced the budget last week and had not allocated any money for rituals and sacrifices. The maoist government is pushing to do away with a lot of the Hindu rituals and ceremony, but the Nepalese are having none of it. Our guide today told us that the government has backed down and agreed to budget for communal rituals and animal sacrifices.

It is still looking good for us to get into Tibet and we have been told that we are the first group this year to be allowed to make the Kailash trip from Humla. The Chinese get our passports today so we are hoping for the best.

I must sign off now. We are healthy and happy. Take care of yourselves. Much love,

Jenny

FRom Jenny

Hello, everyone!

I hope you are all well. Jeff and I just finished dinner at an excellent Thai restaurant down the street from our hotel and in an hour or so we are scheduled to receive massages. Tough life, I know. It would make more sense to get massages after the trek, but it's unlikely we'll have time. So we're going to loosen up beforehand and hope we stay that way;>

The past two days have been very full. Yesterday we visited Pashupatinath - a temple dedicated to Shiva that overlooks the banks of the Bagmati River. Non-Hindus are not allowed into the temple itself, but on the banks of the river are the cremation grounds. The Bagmati empties ultimately into the Ganges and so people are cremated along the banks of this river. Once their bodies are completely burned, the ashes are swept into the river and onward toward the holy water of the Ganges. The poor people are cremated downstream and the rich upstream. We watched as funeral assistants swept the ashes off one platform into the river and then the funeral director prepared the pyre for the next body which was laying under some arches nearby wrapped in an orange cloth. He laid down grasses and wood in such a way that the body would be held evenly on top. At the same time that he was preparing the pyre for this body, a family brought down to the river the body of an old woman who was presumably next in line. She was laid down right next to the river and they used the river water to clean her face and hands, then covered her with a cloth and left her feet in the river. As time passed, her daughters showed up wailing, surrounded by female friends and family. It was fascinating to see the grief of these women so openly and dramatically expressed on the river bank while all around milled pilgrims to the temple, monkeys, cows, funeral workers, other mourners and tourists. We stayed for quite awhile just watching all of the movement, all of the life, from the opposite bank.

We walked then from Pashupatinath to Bodhnath, a huge stupa in eastern Kathmandu. The stupa is surrounded by a circle of Tibetan stores and sits in the center of a Tibetan community. It was a lovely place. I really enjoyed circumambulating the stupa, spinning the prayer wheels and seeing the stupa's huge Buddha eyes and prayer flags in person. Jeff and I were touring with a man from our group who has a lot of experience with Tibetan Buddhism so we had fascinating discussion as well. As we were preparing to leave, we were ushered into a Thangka painting school/shop. Thangkas, for those of you who don't know, are Buddhist paintings done on specially prepared canvas and then surrounded by colorful brocade and prepared to hang on a wall. They are usually detailed, intricate paintings of Buddhist deities full of symbolism and beautiful color. I ended up finding one there that I loved that was beautifully rendered.

We then caught a cab home. The cab rides are extraordinary. It looks like there are about 3 traffic lights in all of Kathmandu and they are really considered more suggestions than anything else. Bicycles, rickshaws, cars, trucks, motorcycles, cows, dogs, and pedestrians share crowded, potholed streets. The honking of horns is a constant backbeat to life here. People change lanes constantly by simply pulling into oncoming traffic and make turns by wedging themselves in front of buses or trucks and edging aside people. It's fascinating, filthy and exhausting, dicing with death every 10 seconds or so. No seatbelts. Having said that, we have now survived 4 cab rides and we have witnessed no auto accidents so I suppose if this is how you are used to driving, you get good at it.

Today we went to Bhaktapur, a suburb of Kathmandu about 40 minutes east. It was beautiful to be out a little into the hills, but we spent most of our time in the city itself which is on the ancient trade route between Kathmandu and Tibet. This old route winds up through several squares filled with various temples and palaces. The nice thing about this historic district of Bhaktapur is that no cars are allowed so although there were motorcycles, it was a lot less noisy and smelly and much safer. It was a long cab ride out and back so we got back just in time to shower and have dinner.

Tomorrow we move with the rest of our group to a hotel (Hotel Vajra) on the outskirts of town and will begin doing more with the group. Sunday afternoon and evening we will all meet together and then have dinner. Monday morning we rise early to visit Swayambunath, a temple to the west of the city, and then re-visit Bodhnath with our teacher, John Travis, in the afternoon. Tuesday morning we will be transported to the airport to begin our journey northwest to Simikot, the starting place of our trek. We will fly to Nepalganj on Tuesday, spend the night, and then move onto Simikot the next day. We'll begin our trek after lunch on Wednesday and head to our first encampment for that night.

Still don't know about Tibet. There are demonstrations in the city right now, but word is that they have to do with the Nepalese protesting the Maoist government and don't have much to do with Tibet. We are hoping that's true so the Chinese have no reason to keep us out. But we won't know until we are at the border and I don't know if we'll be able to let you know.

Thank you to all of you who have been writing back and keeping me posted about life at home. I don't know if I'll be able to write again, but I'll certainly try in the next few days before we head into the Nepali wilderness. And for all of you who are praying for us, keep it up! The prayers are working and we are safe and healthy.

Be well. Much love,

Jenny

From Jenny

Surprise!

I am in the internet cafe writing again this morning - an unexpected stop in a busy day. Jeff needed to spend more time on-line and I thought I would just check in. We had great massages last night and I slept hard and fast for 10 hours - much needed after only getting 4-5 hours for the last few nights. The weather is cloudy and damp and looks like rain today. We have just returned from breakfast and are headed back to the hotel to divide up our gear - the stuff that will go trekking with us and the stuff that will stay at the hotel, awaiting our return in 2 1/2 weeks. At noon we head east to our next hotel and group meeting.

Thamel is the tourist ghetto in Kathmandu filled with winding streets of shops, myriad restaurants and hotels that cater to tourists from all over. It has become familiar and it feels strange to pick up and move everything again for a couple of nights, but I guess this is how it will be from now on until we return home.

I'm glad to hear from many of you that you are well even though a couple of you are still without power. I'll do my best to write again soon.

Much love,

Jenny

From Jeff

We made it to Kathmandu and have a nice hotel in the tourist ghetto called Thamel. The trip was long but we fared well. The highlight of our 12 hour sojourn in Hong Kong was a hot shower and 2 hour nap in a sleep lounge in the airport. After trying to sleep in an airplane seat for 2 days it was nice. We went on a sightseeing trip of Hong Kong which is a crowded modern city built on the slopes of a bay. There are a lot of skyscrapers and people everywhere. We had authentic Chinese food for lunch but were too tired from the travel and too drained from the humidity to get out of the bus much. The climate reminded Jenny of her Cincinatti.

We have met most of our trekking companions. About 15 of the 20 that are going are staying here in our hotel. It turns out I already knew about 8 of them. They all seem in good health which helps me feel at ease with my role as thier trek physician.

After a nice night's rest we practiced our yoga asanas and meditation and had breakfast in a tourist cafe. Today we are going to take it easy, get the lay of the land and rest and recuperate from the trip here. Our spirits are good and we are in great health.

I am entering the pilgrim mode where I start to drop some of my usual habits and worries and open up to the mystery of the journey. Third world travel in places like Nepal are much easier if one is patient, flexible, and adventuresome. I hope to keep you posted. Best wishes.

Love,
Jeff

From Jeff

Hello

We made it safely over the Pacific on a 14 hour CAthay Pacific flight. Now we are a little groggy but are taking a day tour of Hong Kong to pass part of our 12 hour layover here before flying on to Kathmandu Nepal. We have met several members of our group and they seem to be a nice, eclectic bunch. So far our health is good as are our spirits. We'll write from Kathamndu.

Love
Jeff

Introduction

Today we embark on a one-month journey into the heart of the Himalaya Mountains. We fly from San Francisco to Kathmandu Nepal where we will join a group of 20 westerners who will be trekking in Nepal and Tibet. Ours will be a Buddhist pilgrimage to circumambulate the holy Kailash Mountain. This place is considered sacred to millions of Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and Bons and is located in remote Western Tibet. We will brave the elements and high altitude to witness the external beauty of the mountains while experiencing, no doubt, the inner transformation that comes with any pilgrimage.

The trip has been almost 2 years in the planning. In between my working ER shifts and Jenny teaching yoga classes we have been busy planning, on buying sprees to REI, packing, and reading about Nepal, Tibet, and Tibetan Buddhism. As the hour of our departure gets closer our excitement rises. We have little idea what is in store for us in terms of what we will see, what will be our comfort level in the harsh climes of the Himalayas, how our health will fare, who we will meet, or even if the Chinese border officials will let us into Tibet.

Our trip leader is my long-time meditation teacher John Travis. He will be our spiritual guide and will offer meditation teachings. The guide is Christy Tews who has had extensive experience guiding groups in Asia and the Himalayas. Christy works tirelessly to make sure all the preparations are in order and the trip will go along smoothly. I went with John and Christy in 2005 on a Pilgrimage of Buddhist sites in India. That pilgrimage was life altering for me and this one promises to be so, too.

Tonight we will catch a red-eye, transpacific flight to Hong Kong then on to Nepal. It will be about a 36-hour transit and we hope to catch up on sleep during the flight. We will spend 5 days resting and sightseeing in Kathmandu, the bustling capital of Nepal, before flying to Simikot, Nepal where we will begin our trek. The trek is 3 weeks long and we will gain in altitude a little each day reaching the highest point of over 18,000 feet. We will have porters carrying the bulk of our belongings, setting up camp, and cooking for us. Parts of the trek will be made in jeeps but there will be many days of hiking of up to 10 miles.

I have volunteered to be the trip physician. I have taken a special course and read extensively about outdoor and high altitude medicine. Hopefully, we will all be healthy and my services will not be needed. For most if not all of the 3 weeks of trekking we expect to be incommunicado. Our only Internet access will be in Kathmandu at the beginning and the end of the trip. We will write when we are able. May you be well.

Love,
Jeff and Jenny