Santa and Stupas

Merry Christmas!

We had a fun week of learning, and did some Christmas crafts and baking.  I told the children that if they were well behaved and if sang loud enough Santa would come to bring gifts for them!  Another teacher had to translate, but they definitely knew what Santa is all about.  They sang Jingle Bells at the top of their lungs after that.  I've never had such an enthusiastic group of kids.  They're starting to understand the concept of pitch also, and that loud does not always equal better.  Listening is key.

Circle Singing

We made stockings out of paper and cotton balls.  The kids love to decorate with colouring and stamps.  Craft supplies are a luxury here, and it's very difficult to find anything fancy.  Santa came by and filled the stockings with candy!

So much red!

Some of the other volunteers at BaseCamp helped to make some sugar cookies that we also gave out to the kids.  It was a fun-filled sugary holiday.  One of the goals of places like the school I work at is to give the children motivation and encouragement to come to school, so they don't end up taking less favourable paths in life.  (I'm sure a little candy now and then won't hurt them.)

Christmas Eve is a night to go out here, since many people are off Christmas day, so we decided to hit the town.  We went back to the best bar, Purple Haze, where there were two awesome bands playing.  The crowds here go completely insane for good music and the dance floor turned into a crazy mosh pit.  Things calm down fairly early though, and we got back home by 11pm.  I don't know if I'm going to be able to stay awake for New Year's Eve.

Volunteer Buddies

I woke up Christmas morning to so many wonderful messages from friends and family, and was able to Skype in for Christmas Eve dinner back home.  There are now an extra 24 people from a school group staying here so space is a little tight and mealtimes are a bit of an ordeal.  Nonetheless, we had an amazing full breakfast with omelettes, then headed into Thamel for coffee and wandering.  Himalayan Java is now my go-to spot.  You can walk for ages here looking at shops selling the same things over and over again.  There are a ton of counterfeit North Face stores, and I'm pretty sure the "real" stores are fake too.

Our coordinator suggested a small hike up to the "Yellow Temple", starting near the 3 Buddha statues.  Well, we ended up at the top of some hill with a yellow building that was partly under construction but could very well have been the right place.  Everywhere in Kathmandu seems to have beautiful vantage points.  We even got a peek at the snowy part of the Himalayas.

Waaay back there.

Working with locals here, you get to actually find out the best places to eat.  We now know this secret samosa place, Tip Top, which is basically the fast food of Nepal.  You head through a secret, unassuming alleyway and then you're magically in this hub of fried and sweet goodness.  Everything is hand made, with tons of vegetables, and this magic sweet red sauce.  It's worth the long walk and inevitably getting lost en route.  Christmas dinner was a variation on dal bhat, and our wonderful cooks somehow make huge meals for over 30 people in a tiny kitchen.  We were able to stream some Christmas music, and we two Canadian girls had to explain The Log to our American and Nepalese friends.

Our tree may lack conventional beauty, but it has a lot of heart.

White Elephant!  The secret Santa gift choosing and stealing game.  The four of us from North America decided we needed to do some sort of gift exchange, so we set up a game with a 500 rupee (about $5) limit.  Everyone got really creative and we each ended up with something interesting.

I got a meditation introduction book which was perfect for my weekend trip.

We also visited the Garden of Dreams, which was one of the first really peaceful and quiet places I've been to in the city.

I’ve randomly met so many singers and musicians here.  I met a French baritone from Paris, and he introduced me to his Nepalese friend who is trained in Eastern Classical musical.  It’s pretty cool.  I hope to learn some of it at some point.  A lot of people here play either piano or guitar too.

Journey to Namobuddha:

I was supposed to meet my new French friend at the bus station, but I ended up being late and had assumed he had already left.  I jumped on a random bus headed in the direction I needed to go.  Later I find out he was actually very late and did the same thing.  This was possibly an indication of things not being straightforward for my mini-trek.

The buses here are a little crazy.  You basically show up at the stop and ask around for the bus to the general location you want.  It gets completely full with people sitting and standing, and I’ve seen a few with people riding on the top.  Buses will kind of pull over at various “stops” where people may be waiting, and the guy in charge of the door will yell out the destination and see if anyone else wants on, most of the time while the bus is still moving.  Later he’ll come around and collect the fare from everyone.  I get a discount (only 40 rupees for one ride!) with my volunteer card.

After about an hour I arrived in Banepa, one of many smaller city towns.  It’s about 30km east of Kathmandu.  The roads here take quite a while since highways as we know them don’t really exist, and the roads are very mountainous and winding.  I ended up grabbing a taxi from Banepa which cost a whopping 800 rupees to the top of Kyare, for the start of the trek up to Namobuddha.  You can see the Langtang range of the Himalayas throughout the hike and every view is stunning.

Well, I wasn’t exactly prepared for the amount of trekking involved.  It took about 2.5 solid uphill hours to the top, and then another 30 minutes to the monastery itself.  It is a GORGEOUS place.  Namobuddha is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery and sits at about 1750m elevation.  I had been really hoping to get a room in their one guest house, but nothing was available.  I was still pretty satisfied with spinning allllll of the prayer wheels.

It's pretty much impossible to get a good photo of the size of this place, unless I had a helicopter.

Every place here seems to have a story.  Legend has it that Namobuddha is the place where the Buddha gave his body to a dying tiger and her cubs.  Later I made it to Panauti where there is a famous Hindu legend relating to the rivers there.

I had to head back the 30 minutes to the little town at the top of the mountain, and found a room at a little guest house.  I bargained a good deal since I was almost out of cash, and made friends with the family who owns it.  One of the daughters is my age and we chatted for a couple hours and have decided we are friends now :) she splits her time between Kathmandu and Belgium and we’re planning to hang out.

The next morning I woke up to an epic sunrise that I could see from my balcony, and then started the long trek back.  I decided to head west instead of north the way I came from to see some different scenery.  It was another 3 straight hours of dirt road until I came into Panauti.  Sometimes I feel like I’m in Skyrim with the dirt paths and coming across villages and friendly townspeople along the way.  I met some very sweet little girls on their way to school and they gave me oranges.

Now I know where all the oranges come from!

After Panauti it was an hour and half bus ride back to Kathmandu, and I still had to walk back to the house.  All told I trekked about 20-25km and saw some pretty awesome sights.  Not bad for a first go!

Panauti

Next weekend, something a little more relaxing.

Seriously could not get enough of this.