Jai Jai Ram Sita Ram

Well, I’ve been neglectful in updating this blog. Let’s not bother with a long preamble. Here's what I have been up to over the last few months:

At the end of February, I returned to my site after the Bardia National Park trip with a few mosquito bites. One of those bites, on my right elbow, developed into a gnarly abscess (later determined to be a staph infection). I sent photos to the Peace Corps doctors, who told me to come to Kathmandu immediately, and for good reason. The damn abscess burst as I got off the plane, and it was a wellspring of pus. I dripped all over the backseat of the taxi (luckily covered in plastic), the security gate at the Peace Corps office (the guards still made me sign in—security first. One guy quipped, “American girl, Nepali infection” when he saw what I was dealing with), and finally the orthopedics unit at Grande International Hospital (the nurse gasped in shock when she saw the amount of pus. That put me at ease).

I spent 11 days in Kathmandu recovering. I maintain that Kathmandu is the worst place in the world to convalesce. You come to the city with one health problem and leave with two more. This medical trip, however, coincided with Nepal’s federal elections, so luckily for me, the city was emptied: an estimated 950,000 Nepalis left the valley to vote in their home districts. Even so, some interesting characters were still hanging out in Thamel, and the very large bandage on my elbow was like a “Hey! Talk to me!” sign to these people. What irritated me the most, though, was tourists asking if I'd hurt myself while trekking. I’ll forgive them for thinking that but no! I was not a trekker dicking around in the mountains; I'm a volunteer who acquired this infection in the mid-hills, aided by questionable hygiene practices and an indifference toward my own well-being. Mine is a different kind of stupidity from that of the everyday tourist. I'd like the distinction made clear! 

Got some sightseeing done during my medical hold.
 Here, I drew strength from Padmasambhava.

Despite all that, I'm the picture of health, so I recovered in record time and was sent back home. I was welcomed back to Arghakhanchi in grand style. Let me set the scene: the last leg of a 5 hour journey in a crowded van. I'm sitting in the back row by a window. A man gets on and squeezes in next to me. Five minutes later, he leans over to vomit out the window but doesn't quite make it. The splashback gets all over my kneecaps. It's bright orange, the color of undigested pakora. Once he vomits, it sets off three more passengers. The vomitters go ragdoll mode and I, now covered in vomit, am squashed against the wall on even the gentlest curve. Luckily, I didn't get infection #2 from this whole saga.

When I got home, I found that the windy season had started at my site. As the Santa Ana winds bring madness to Southern California, the Central Asian winds bring fear and illness to Arghakhanchi. Last year, the winds ripped off the veranda and sent the tin roof into the potato field during my first week at site. This year the winds sent me to bed with a splitting headache (one of those every once in a while makes you appreciate life all the more) and killed the calf (poetically, that is. Better than saying bloat got him.). Well, shit, I signed up for this life. Isn't Peace Corps service great fun?

With those unfortunate moments out of the way, let's get on to better things! 

On April 2nd, I hit one year of service at my site (current status: over 15 months total in Nepal). It's been a million years and no time at all. I've thought about doing a write-up of my reflections so far, but like I said earlier, I've been neglecting this blog, and that sounds very daunting. I'm paraphrasing a Philip Roth line I came across the other day that matched my own philosophy towards this reflection stuff: why turn yourself inside out when all you'll be is inside out and lonely instead of inside in and lonely? Anyway, what I'm trying to express is that you'll get the introspective stuff when I finish service. For now, let me tell you about my most recent trip instead. 

Goma Didi, Ganga Didi, Alyssa, and I at our Mid-Service Conference! 
One year in, woo-hoo! 

To ring in one year, my travel buddy Alyssa and I took a two-day trip to Janakpur, southeast of Kathmandu and close to the Indian border. The Terai, with its heat, colors, cultural clashes, stray cows, and chaos, is more alluring to me than the Himalayas. I jump at every chance to get down there. 

A little bit about Janakpur: the city first popped up on my radar while I was reading and researching the Ramayana, one of the great Sanskrit epics. The Ramayana is a meditation on love, honor, and duty, illustrating how to be a good son, husband, wife, king, warrior, and citizen through its principal characters. The protagonist is Ram, an incarnation of Vishnu, who descended to the mortal realm to slay the demon Ravana in a battle of legendary proportions. Ram's consort is Sita, the daughter of King Janak, said to have been "born" in Janakpur. I won't delve into Ram and Sita's exile or Sita's subsequent kidnapping by Ravana, but know that the love and devotion between Ram and Sita is central to the narrative. 

Despite the mythology, archeological finds suggest that Janakpur was never much of a kingdom, but rather a collection of tiny villages until the 1940-50s, when the end of the British Raj and malaria eradication in the plains led to a population boom in the Terai. Today, Janakpur is the capital of Madhesh Province, the center of Mithilia culture, and a Hindu pilgrimage destination.

 

Janaki Mandir

We arrived in Janakpur on the earliest flight from Kathmandu, and even though it was only around 9 am, the heat was already unbearable (thank God we are in the windy season. The breeze offered some respite). The five layers of sweat coating my body communicated a certain desperation, and the tuk tuk drivers, like any adept salesmen, took full advantage. I had to resign myself to getting fleeced for the short ride from the airport to our hotel. 

But what a ride it was! Tuk tuks are great for getting your bearings quickly in a city: you're not going very fast, and you're practically out in the open, able to soak it all in. Women in colorful saris balanced pots and bags on their heads (I know it's a matter of habit and comfort, but seeing someone balance a backpack on their head will never not crack me up. Ladies, use the straps! That's what they're there for!). The landscape was dotted with pond after pond, where children swam and women washed their cookware and clothes. Orange Hanuman flags (Hindu) flew next to green flags with Urdu/Arabic script (Muslim). The streets were lined with trash, maybe the most I've seen in Nepal (For what it's worth, every Nepali I talked to told me Janakpur is a dirty city). The streets and roadways were stained with red paan (betel nut) spit. Colorful Mithila murals told the story of Ram and Sita. 

After dropping off our bags at the hotel, Alyssa and I set out for Janaki Temple. To get anywhere in the city, you have to cross in front of this place. Not that I'm complaining! It's beautiful and so different from the typical pagoda style I've seen across Nepal. Janaki Mandir dates to 1910, and was built with funds from an Indian queen in Madhya Pradesh. It is designed in the grand Mughal style, with white marble, arched entrance ways, latticed windows, turrets, and lots of ornamentation. I imagine that at one time, this three-story temple was visible at all points in the city, but now it has been crowded in by tall concrete buildings.

Janaki is another name for Sita, who is said to have been "born" at this spot. According to legend, King Janak was ploughing a field in preparation for a religious ceremony, when he happened upon baby Sita in the furrow. Sita, daughter of the Earth goddess Bhumi, was adopted by King Janak and raised as a full member of his household. In the sanctum sanctorum of Janaki Temple, you'll find idols of Sita, Ram, Janak, and other members of Sita's family. 

Resting outside the sanctum sanctorum

Look at that Mughal influence!

Adjacent to Janaki Temple is another site believed to be one of two possible places where Ram and Sita were married. Alyssa and I stopped for a quick look around when a sadhu beckoned us over. We sat down in front of him, and he quickly began tying threads around our wrists and made me eat prasad from Alyssa's hand. So, I guess we are married now. 

I went to give the sadhu 20 rupees, but he shook his head and said 100. I didn't have any other bills on me, so I kept trying to hand him the 20, but he wouldn't take it. A sadhu who doesn't take any and all your money? That's a first. 

The other possible location of Ram and Sita's wedding lies a little bit outside the city. A small Mughal-style building commemorates the spot. A pond next to the temple is said to be where Ram and his brother Lakshmana washed their feet before the wedding, and where Ram cleaned his hands after applying sindoor to Sita. It was a quiet little spot and, from the looks of it, a popular place for Janakpur teens to take photos of themselves and their friend groups. 

Vivah Mandap

I love trains, so of course I had to stop in at the Janakpur Railway Station. The platform was crowded but not particularly chaotic, which was a sharp departure from my expectations--and yours too, I'm sure, dear reader. Some people threw their trash down onto the tracks, and a goat played chicken with the oncoming train, but the boarding process was no more hectic than getting on the LIRR at Penn Station. The train itself looked as comfortable as any Deutsche Bahn train I've ever ridden. 

In the evening, once the temperature had dropped, Alyssa and I watched the arati at Ganga Sagar. This pond is said to contain holy water from the Ganges River. Every night at 7 pm, three priests offer prayers from a pavilion overlooking the pond. They recite mantras, sing, blow a conch, and spin around idols and burning lamps. I wonder how long the priests need to practice the choreography before they're ready for primetime. 

We also visited the Janakpur Women's Development Center (JWDC) outside the city, in the village of Kuwa. I've long been enamoured with Mithila art, which originates in this region and is characterized by arresting geometry, disinctive stylized eyes, and the use of natural dyes and pigments. Historically, women painted Hindu scenes on the mud walls of their houses for important occasions like weddings and holidays such as Tihar and Holi. Today, that practice is fading, but organizations like the JWDC help preserve it while also economically empowering local women. 

Nowadays, women paint religious scenes, landscapes, public service announcements, and self-portraits on canvas and cloth. These pieces are sold both within Nepal and internationally, with a cut going to the artists and the rest funding the development center and its trainings in financial literacy and business development. However, a woman we spoke to said that sales are down, and the center is increasingly relying on small fees from school and college tours and workshops to stay afloat. 

This same woman (I'm so upset I didn't catch her name) very kindly took Alyssa and me around the center, where we watched the painters at work and spoke with them. It was mesmerizing to see how they first draw the scene freehand and then start painting inward from the border, mixing all their own pigments. I bought two beautiful pieces: one depicting Ram and Sita's marriage, and the other of King Janakpur discovering Sita in the furrow.  

I was surprised to stumble across a few American development projects in Janakpur. The JWDC was founded by an American woman, Claire Burkert, in 1988. The women there made sure to show me her picture (paintings dedicated to former USAID chiefs and Ambassador Dean Thompson and his wife, Jane, also hung on the walls next to Ms. Burkert's portrait). Later, Alyssa and I came across a school next to Ganga Sagar that was built by Peace Corps Volunteer Bill Sansone. I also know that the Peace Corps was involved with establishing fisheries in Janakpur in the 1970s . It's always interesting to find evidence of Peace Corps projects from decades ago. I'm part of a long chain of do-gooders!

All aboard! 

Poster advertising the arati at Ganga Sagar

Mud relief painting in the village of Kuwa, near the JWDC

Peace Corps projects in the wild

And that's it. As I mentioned, it was a quick two-day trip, just enough time to stop in and check off the major sites. Janakpur is a culturally and politically rich place, and I've only just scratched the surface. In preparation for this trip, I read--and recommend--the Ramayana (retold by Krishna Dharma) and Plains of Discontent: A Political History of Nepal's Tarai (1743-2019) by Maximillian Morch. 

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next post! 

Here I Yam! quitting Peace Corps to pursue modeling.
Photo credit: Claire

Heaven is Myth. Nepal is Real. (Bus Quote #55)

Don't be fooled: Nepal isn't one giant Himalayan panorama, but actually just one dusty chowk after another. Or, at least, that's what it felt like for the better part of our westward trip down the Mahendra Highway toward a place that had grown in my imagination over the last few months: Bardiya National Park. Alyssa and I had first talked about this trip during Pre-Service Training, and now it was finally happening. But first, the drive west. 

The urbanized Terai landscape, blanketed in heat and grime, stretched on endlessly, until, suddenly, signs started cropping up on the roadside...Watch out for tiger! Drive carefully. Save one, save them all! And my favorite: If elephants didn't exist, you couldn't invent them. I knew we were getting close. Sure enough, concrete houses soon gave way to sal forests, and before we even entered the park, we saw huge termite towers (looking strikingly similar to La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona), grey langur monkeys, chital (spotted deer), and mugger and gharial crocodiles. Some more driving brought us to Thakurdwara, a quaint Tharu town on the edge of Bardiya and the location of our homestay.  

The one interesting roadside attraction. Om Shiva.

Let me provide some background. Once a hunting reserve for members of the Rana Dynasty, Bardiya is now the largest national park in Nepal's southern Terai lowlands. Located 350 miles from Kathmandu, few tourists venture out this far, leaving Bardiya much less developed than Chitwan National Park to the east. (Chitwan is part of Nepal's tourism golden triangle alongside Pokhara and Kathmandu). 

In Bardiya, I saw only one hotel taller than two stories. Most tourist accommodations are simple homestays and eco-friendly lodges. This minimal disturbance makes Bardiya the premier destination to see the Terai's "Big Three": the Bengal tiger (125 of them at last count in 2022. Results of the most recent survey are forthcoming), the one-horned rhino, and the Indian elephant. Although March and April are the ideal months to visit (when temperatures above 100°F force animals out of the brush and to watering holes), you'll see that arriving before the start of the season didn't hinder our wildlife sightings any. 

Although I describe the park in this post as something like a playground for my own enjoyment, I do wish to acknowledge that the reality is complicated. For residents of the surrounding communities, there is much discontent. Within living memory, more than one thousand people were displaced to make way for the park's "undisturbed" area. Ongoing human-wildlife conflict has resulted in numerous deaths. And these burdens fall most heavily on marginalized Terai ethnic groups, particularly the Tharu. (In previous posts, I've written about the tension between the culturally and politically dominant hill communities and the people of the plains). This disclaimer is brief and inadequate, but I felt compelled to offer an alternative perspective before I launch in on my own experience.   

Termite tower: spit, dirt, and poop

On this trip, there were seven of us--written out here for posterity: me, Alyssa, Jackie, Tyrone, Shay, Mei, and Will. Tyrone, Alyssa, and I all received the same spiel from our host families when we informed them of this trip: tigers will kill you; don't you dare go into the jungle alone; don't stay near the jungle; there are bad men waiting in the jungle. For Nepalis, generally, the natural world is something to be feared and tamed. I guess it's the privilege of Westerners, living lives increasingly separated from the natural world, to find in it refuge, excitement, and pleasure (is this the legacy of Romanticism? I should have studied harder).  

Our homestay was a cute little place run by a Nepali-Dutch couple, and all our activities were coordinated through them. Although I'm loathe to plug any businesses on this blog (I must protect the sanctity of Here I Yam at all costs! This is a very special blog, as I'm sure you would all agree), they really do deserve a shoutout: Bardia National Park Nepal | Bardia Homestay Nepal. 

Our hosts and some of the gang

Our first activity was a jeep safari in the northwest of the park. We were separated into two groups. 4 of us in one jeep, 3 in the other. Early in the day, we heard that the other group had spotted a tiger from a watchtower. A tiger sighting on the first day? Where's the fun in that? 

For us in jeep #2, the hunt was still on. I felt that old, atavistic feeling coming on--the unyielding persistence that has driven man's dominion over all other creatures. I wanted to find this tiger, to kill it, to claim it as mine. Let's get an old goat and tie it up as bait. Let's get one of the patrol elephants to stamp the damn thing out of the grass. Let's use any underhanded method to bring this tiger to us. 

Really, this is only a half-truth. I did feel like a relentless hunter at moments, but at heart, I am a gatherer. After 10 hours in the park, I was ready to pack up, return to the longhouse, and get a fire going. I didn't see a tiger, but I saw a few jackals--animals with a temperament much closer to my own. 

Still, our guides were determined to deliver us something. News came from another guide of a leopard kill. The leopard had carried its deer up into the tree, dropped it, and then came down and got it again. We rushed over to the site; the guides entered into the brush, armed with only a bamboo stick for protection, and poked around. Nothing. I would have to wait til tomorrow for another chance at the hunt.

Chital, or spotted deer.
Photo credit: Mei. 

The next activity was a jungle walk. It was me, Shay, and Alyssa, along with two guides--one in front, one in back--armed only with bamboo sticks. We had barely entered the park when the lead guide, Balkrishna, stopped and pointed out tiger pugmarks in the sand and a nearby sleeping spot. I am a cynic through and through. I always think someone is trying to get one over on me. My first thought after seeing this "evidence" of tiger activity was, Yeah, right. Someone came out here early this morning and stamped the prints into the sand and flattened some grass.

We walked on until we reached a river. There, Balkrishna instructed us to sit and wait, as this was a well-known tiger crossing point. He showed us photos of birds on his phone when suddenly he stopped, stood up, dramatically waited for a beat, and said in his gravest voice: "I have heard the roar of a tiger." Shit, I thought, this guy is punking me. Until I heard it too! Not a roar, really, more of a lowing, but it sounded like it was only twenty feet away from us, hiding in the tall grass. 

We quickly relocated to a spot that would allow us to cover more of the river in case the tiger crossed. That day, we gave chase three times. First, to see the tiger (failure). Second, to see one-horned rhinos (success). And third, to see a Burmese python swimming in the river (success). Either Balkrishna would hear something or a call would come in from one of the other guides and off we went: fording rivers, bushwhacking through elephant grass, hurrying across the charred landscape (controlled burns are necessary to promote regrowth of the grass).

Machine makes a monster out of man. I was a lot less aggressive on my own two feet than when I was hiding inside a jeep. In fact, I fell asleep a few times on the walk. There was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. The hunter became the prey.   

On this walk, Balkrishna shared many stories with us, some apocryphal no doubt. He told us about the magical Tharu men of his childhood and their folk wisdom. E.g., If you can eat a green chili after being bitten by a snake and still feel its heat, then that snake wasn't venomous. He also told us about a tiger that lay on the riverbank for a prolonged period of time. A call went out to a wildlife photographer in Kathmandu, who flew to Nepalgunj (45 minutes), hired a taxi to Bardiya (2 hours), and then hiked 30 minutes into the park, and still made the shot. Nepal can be a very small place if you have the money. 

Through the grass. Tigers undoubtedly near.

A quick post-lunch nap.
Photo credit: Alyssa.

The hunt was still on and the pressure was building. Would I ever get to see a tiger? 

On day four of the trip, we went back into the park in our jeeps. The morning was full of false starts: guides would hear something--the scream of a deer (whoever named them barking deer got it wrong. These guys really need to be called screaming deer) or the cry of a monkey--and we would rush off to the spot. I'd peer through my binoculars and will something to move in the grass or along the dusty jeep tracks. 

Then a promising call came in. A guide had seen a tiger and it was moving toward the watchtower. We lined up with all the other tourists in their jeeps. Waiting, waiting. And then suddenly Balkrishna shouted "tiger!" and pointed behind us. I turned and there she was. A beautiful Bengal tiger sashaying fifty meters away (though I'm a terrible judge of distance, so it could have easily been 20 or 100 meters too). 

I'm a melancholic personality. All I heard after the sighting was "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee (or Chaka Khan, for that matter) playing in my head like a soundtrack. Eight hours on the chase for a 10 second sighting. We got back into the jeep and hurried over to the community forest just outside the park, where other tigers, two males and one female, had been spotted in the last few days. 

As so often happens with these things, once you see one, more and more just keep coming. We raced to the forest and flung ourselves out of the jeep (Tyrone's video makes it look like we are staging a police raid) to find a tiger cooling himself off in the river. He sat there with just his head above the water, gazing straight at us. Thirty minutes later, we saw a female cross the river. She first tentatively dipped her paw in the river, like she was testing the temperature, then swam across, got out, rolled around in the grass, and disappeared into the trees. That night we celebrated with some locally brewed rice beer, customarily served in one-liter plastic water bottles. And, of course, my melancholy dissipated.  

Any minute now...

Hey there, Mr. Tiger!

The climax of the trip was our one-night stay in a treehouse, where we saw wild boars, wild elephants, and a tiger barely fifty feet away. I can hardly convey the excitement and terror of that night/morning, and so I won't even try. I'll keep it as a private memory. All good narratives abandon the reader right at the climax, right? I've reinvented the travelogue as an art form. 

5 full days in Bardiya and I captured only a fraction of our activities in this post. In addition to the jungle walk and safaris, we also rafted down the Karnali and Bheri Rivers. It felt so good to be on the water. We saw women sifting for gold along the riverbank, men checking fishing traps from their dugout canoes, and gorgeous silt- and sandstone formations. 

Our group also visited Badhaiya Tal (my new obsession is swamp hens. Think they can be domesticated?) and the Blackbuck Conservation Area. In total, we saw five tigers, two rhinos, and two elephants. A perfect amount, if you ask me. Any fewer, and it would feel like maybe you didn't see anything at all. Any more, and you start to lose track of each individual sighting. 

All I can say is that Bardiya was a perfectly successful trip. What more could you ask for? 

Rafting under the Chisapani Bridge.
Photo Credit: Alyssa

The rickety old treehouse.
Photo credit: Jackie

Blackbuck. What a cutie.
Photo credit: Jackie

Here I Yam! keeping watch. No tiger gets past me.
Photo credit: Alyssa

In the Land of the Thunder Dragon

And now, a break from our regularly scheduled programming: a brief report on my sojourn in Bhutan.

Why did I travel to Bhutan? Well, it was Christmas, and I wanted to get away from my village, from Nepal. But not too far. I wanted to stick to the Himalayan kingdoms. So, making a financially imprudent decision based on obviously infallible logic (When am I going to be in this part of the world again?), I arranged to spend seven days in Bhutan on a cultural tour.

I won't bore you too much with the travel logistics from my site to Kathmandu; it's a tale you've heard many times before on this blog (think clown car, vomit, and moments of terror). The trip really began with the hour-long flight from Nepal to Bhutan. The plane climbed and climbed above the fog enveloping Kathmandu until, all at once, it burst into a clear blue sky, the Ganges Plain on our right and the Himalayas on our left. 

I was sitting next to a former Drukair pilot who had flown this route many times before. Our acquaintance began in the airport when he asked me to watch his bag while he stepped away for a minute. When he returned, he struck up a conversation: we went through the preliminaries--where are you from, what brought you to Nepal, what brings you to Bhutan? I learned that his daughter lives in Hicksville, only 30 minutes from my hometown and the place where one set of my great-grandparents met. Small world. 

When we boarded the plane and found it half-empty, he moved a few rows forward to sit next to me and continue the conversation. For the flight's duration, I received the VIP experience. He knew the lead stewardess (and her husband, the pilot), who brought us special coffee from first class. He took me to the rear window to have a better view of Mt. Everest, explaining that 150 mph east-west winds over the Himalayas this time of year cause the snow to evaporate, exposing bare rock (a process I now know is called sublimation). As we threaded through the hills during our descent, he pointed upward so that I could see we were flying below a monastery.  

Here's Bhutan. Lili says the landscape
looks like Idaho. 

I was greeted at the airport by Norbu, my guide, and Prakash, my driver. Prakash hailed from southern Bhutan and is a member of the Lhotshampa, people of Nepali background who settled in Bhutan as laborers starting in the early 20th century. Norbu and Prakash spoke in Nepali to each other, and since I was off the clock, so to speak, I downplayed how much I could understand (and at times I asked myself, am I understanding anything? It was a different accent than I'm accustomed to). So much for escaping Nepal on this trip. 

Something to know about Bhutan: tourism is highly regulated in a system that prioritizes sustainability. Tourists (excluding those from India) are required to pay a $100/night Sustainable Development Fee, which supports the country's free education and healthcare for its citizens. It is also required to travel with a guide to any monasteries or dzongs (more on these later), as well as anywhere outside the cities of Thimphu and Paro. There are hundreds of tour operators in Bhutan, most offering very similar itineraries. I chose the most reputable at the cheapest price point. 

The tour brought me to a few different areas of western Bhutan: Thimphu, Paro, Punakha, and Gangtey/Phobjikha Valley. Dare I say something completely ridiculous (I'm a bit in awe of how privileged I've become to make this comparison): Thimphu reminded me of Swiss towns; the dzongs of fortresses along the Rhine, especially near Koblenz; and the Phobjikha Valley, of Bavaria. Bayerische Rundfunke, a German public-service broadcaster, made a documentary about the valley and its winter resident black-necked cranes, so there's an affinity there. I'm not the first to notice these similarities, but how much of a jetsetter have I become that those connections even occur to me? 

Lauren, Elle, Helena: tell me this doesn't look like Koblenz!

I saw too much to cover in one blog post; instead, I'll focus on a few highlights. The Punakha Dzong was one, due to its sheer size and fantastically scenic location. I keep mentioning dzongs without any explanation, so let me provide one: dzongs are the political and religious centers of each of Bhutan's districts. Originally built as fortresses starting in the 15th century to protect against Tibetan invasions, each dzong has its own quirks, but there are basic unifying elements that are found in all:

• Location: A commanding position that follows the contours of the landscape, often only accessible via river crossing or steep mountain roads.
• Layout: A series of 2 or more courtyards paved with flagstones, divided between government and monastic offices.
• Architectural motifs: a three-story central tower, called utse; imposing whitewashed stone walls; and covered walkways. 
• Religious Spaces (open to the Bhutanese public and sometimes to tourists): A temple containing the "three guys" (I'll come back to this), offerings, and murals depicting the Wheel of Life, the Four Harmonious Animals, the Six Symbols of Longevity, the Four Heavenly Kings, and the Life of Buddha. 
• Code of conduct: All Bhutanese people must wear their national dress (gho for men and kira for women) within the compound. Together with monks in their red robes, this really contributed to the dzong feeling as if it were from an earlier era. I felt disrespectful and certainly out of place in my cargo pants and fleece jacket. 
• A tendency to burn: Seemingly all dzongs I visited had burned down at some point, with priceless relics lost in the blaze, and were rebuilt piecemeal over the years like the Ship of Theseus. Wooden structures and thousands of butter lamps do not mix.  

Punakha Dzong

Utse, central tower

Kira and gho in the Royal Textile Museum

Coming back to Bhutan and religion: although there are pockets of Christians and Hindus in the south (particularly among the Lhotshampa), the state religion is Vajrayana Buddhism. I don't know how to put this delicately, but this school of Buddhism is a little too out there for me, with its focus on deities, spirits, and demons (holdovers from the pre-Buddhist Bon religion), as well as its worship of spiritual teachers who are themselves reincarnations of revered masters from earlier ages. From my totally Western and highly judgemental perspective, it strays too far from the teachings of the Buddha. 

Despite being a lifelong atheist, I was raised on Long Island and therefore have a certain affinity for Catholicism. Yet my exposure to Vajrayana Buddhism in Nepal and Bhutan has made me sympathetic to Protestants who scream at Catholics, "Where is that in the Bible?" In a way, even with my distaste for this school of Buddhism, it still has worked on me by increasing my compassion for others. Huh, look at that. 

The "three guys" I mentioned earlier, who appear in most every Bhutanese temple, are Ngawang Namgyal, the unifier of Bhutan in the 17th century and the reincarnation of many Tibetan religious figures, Guru Rinpoche (a.k.a. Padmasambhava), the master who brought Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and hid secret messages across the country to be revealed by treasure hunters at a later date, and, everybody's favorite, the Buddha. I heard the Buddha's life story so many times on this trip that if someday in the future I cannot recite it back to you, just know I have been replaced by an imposter or suffered a traumatic brain injury.

All three are semi-legendary figures whose lives blend fact and fiction. Reading about their feats, you realize just how lame America's founding fathers and folk heroes seem by comparison. Where would America be if George Washington claimed to be the actual reincarnation of Cincinnatus, instead of just letting others draw the comparison? I was awed by the story I read in Bhutan's Postal Museum about Garp Lungi Khorlo, a man who rode on the wind to transport messages across Bhutan in one day and defeated a demoness along the way. What did Johnny Appleseed ever do? Certainly, he didn't transform himself into a bird to spread seeds or defeat fire blight with his sword of wisdom. I guess America has Joseph Smith for a treasure hunter but...I won't comment on how that turned out. 

Big Buddha

Milarepa and me in a meditation cave.
That's sort of a tongue twister.

Another highlight (this isn't the right word, unique experience is more apt) was a visit to the Fertility Temple, Chimi Lhakhang, in Punakha, which is probably the second most discussed attraction in the country after the Tiger's Nest Monastery (seriously, google Bhutan and every other image is that monastery). As my guide politely put it, phalluses were everywhere. Phallus worship is a holdover from the Bon religion I mentioned earlier. I wondered how much of it was played up for the delight of tourists, but even so, basing tourism around the phallus still reveals a certain "earthy" aspect to the local culture, as Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck wrote.* 

Inside the temple, I was blessed by a young monk who held a small wooden phallus and bow and arrow to my forehead. There was a scrapbook containing photos of all the babies born after their parents visited the temple and their mothers carried a 30lb phallus around the temple courtyard three times. I gave that thing a wide berth. 

The bow and arrow supposedly belonged to Drukpa Kunley, a mad monk from the 16th century who exposed hypocrisy in the monastic community through satire, sex, bawdy songs and poems, and outrageous acts. He is said to have created Bhutan's national animal, the takin, by combining the bones of a goat and a cow after a feast. Tell me you aren't moved by his teachings: 

"Vaginal fluid may not vaporize under the sun's heat. 

But it cannot be used to brew tea to quench thirst. 

The penis may have a strong shaft and a large head. 

But it cannot be used to hammer stakes into the ground. 

The sacred teachings of Vajrayana [Buddhism] may be profound. 

But sans practice, liberation remains far and elusive."

Follow the phallus to the restroom, please

Chimi Lhakhang

The takin. A big, majestic chiller.

I was surprised by how different Bhutan and Nepal feel. I wish I were more intelligent and better articulate because all I can really say is that the vibes were just different. Nepal and Bhutan are similar in many ways (in short, the same topography, geopolitics, and history of monarchial rule), but the outcomes are so different. Undoubtedly, the standard of living in Bhutan is leagues and leagues ahead of Nepal. Granted, I stuck to the tourist circuit in Bhutan, but I've been to touristy places in Nepal too, so I can at least make a one-to-one comparison there. 

Of course, I can't help but look for explanations, despite my lack of qualifications, and the most obvious one is religion: Hinduism vs. Buddhism. But this is cheap reasoning and a trope I despise in travel writing. It's one of my biggest criticisms of Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard: he writes of the courage and hospitality of Buddhist people in the Himalayan mountains, but his tone shifts as he descends into the mid-hills, where the desperate, scamming Hindus live and give him the stink eye (hey, I'm summarizing him here. These aren't my thoughts). I object to this blanket characterization. But I have to admit (and I discussed this with fellow volunteer Shay) that there is a sort of fatalism in my mid-hill community: things are the way they are and they can't be changed. And now I am going to stop while I am way out of my depth. 

 And that's my trip to Bhutan. I've since returned to my site in Nepal and am enjoying the colder weather. Stay tuned for my next post, and enjoy the photo dump below. 

*This post is informed by my own experience and supplemented by two great books I picked up in Bhutan: Treasures of the Thunder Dragon by Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck and Drukpa Kunley: Sacred Tales of a Mad Monk by Needrup Zangpo. 

Water powered prayer wheel

Wangdue Phodrang Dzong

Dochula Pass

 

Druk Wangditse Lhakhang

Photos of the royal family are everywhere

Here I Yam! in front of the Tiger's Nest.
Could this pass for a split diopter shot?

Going up North

Our small expedition met in Sandhikharka--seven of us, each from our own far-flung corner of Arghakhanchi, brought together for the first time since July. We set out for the Himalayas, those northern peaks that have lately been so majestically defined on the horizon they appear to be matte paintings. The road ahead would be arduous and unforgiving. 

Okay, that was fun, but I'll set aside the travelogue theatrics now. In mid-November, volunteers from Arghakhanchi were asked to travel to Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city after Kathmandu, to receive COVID and flu vaccines. We met in our district center after months apart, each of us prevented from an earlier reunion by trips around and outside of Nepal, the Nepali holidays, and stints in Kathmandu for medical treatment. I love a long car ride and was looking forward to the drive north into uncharted territory. Despite a serious lack of personal space (seven of us were stuffed into six seats), I count it as a successful trip (though the others may disagree). 

We stopped at Ridi Bazaar, at the junction of the Gulmi, Syangja, and Palpa districts, a Hindu pilgrimage destination that I can now cross off my travel list. I wished we stopped at the Kali Gandaki Dam to admire the hydroengineering on display, but by that point everyone was too grumpy, and "go, go, go!" had become the van's mantra. After seven hours, we reached the city I alternate between calling Sodom and Gomorrah and Shangri-La: Pokhara.  

It ain't much, but that's Ridi

What can I say about Pokhara? It's a large city with a spectacular location right on a large lake; everywhere you turn, you see Himalayan ranges, either Machhapuchhre, Dhaulagiri, or Annapurna. It's lacking the ancient energy of Kathmandu (which really means it lacks tight, congested alleyways). Most of the city, especially neighborhoods catering to Western trekking and adventure-sport tourists, is less than 50 years old. Walking through the lakeside district, you'll find clubs, restaurants, and stores for yuppies decked out in brand-new Patagonia gear and barefoot hippies alike. At night, I hated the city. But in the early morning, with quiet streets, a slight chill in the air, and the mountain reflections on the still lake, it was blissful. 

I had one rough night after receiving the vaccines, but otherwise the side effects were manageable, and I was able to do some sightseeing. I visited Davis Falls (or David's Falls or Devi's Falls--there doesn't seem to be a consensus on the English name) and Gupteshwor Cave, twin attractions across the street from each other. The waterfall cuts through porous limestone and dramatically disappears underground. A Swiss tourist drowned there in the '60s while bathing; supposedly the waterfall is sometimes called David's Falls in honor of that tourist. 

The cave was humid, magical, and quite dangerous; I was constantly in fear of slipping and cracking my head or being caught in a crowd crush. Under the Earth, Om Shiva, bow down to the corrosive power of water. It really was quite beautiful down there. 

Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave Entrance

Echoes of the Deep
Photo credit: Alyssa 

I also hiked up to the World Peace Pagoda and the Pumdikot Shiva Statue with my travel buddy Alyssa. We set out early in the morning, taking a short rowboat ride across Phewa Lake to reach the trailhead. The hike was rough, straight uphill on ankle-twisting stone steps. The views from the top were a fitting reward: the entire Pokhara valley, encompassing wetlands, the lake, and the cityscape. 

Fantastic views reward a challenging hike

Shiva: a very erotic depiction

Sometimes, things come together in such a fortunate way that I can't believe it. I had wanted to visit my fellow food security volunteers in the Lamjung district for some time. Serendipitously, the vaccine trip was just a few days ahead of a wild honey hunt in Lamjung. It's a relatively short bus ride from Pokhara to Besisahar, Lamjung's district center, so off I went into more unknown territory to experience a uniquely Nepali practice, though one that is not found in my corner of the country. 

I kicked around in Besisahar for a few hours before meeting with the other honey hunt spectators. (Sadly, I have to admit Besisahar is a step above my beloved Sandhikharka. How did I determine that? I was able to get an actual latte instead of just a milk coffee.) We were a diverse group: Peace Corps volunteers, Nepali tourists, Czech trekkers (say that 3x fast), a Brit volunteering in a school, a Hongkonger doing an internship at an IGO, a Frenchman surveying beekeeping practices across South Asia. We loaded into jeeps and left Besisahar for a small village up in the hills where the honey hunt was taking place. 

Along the way, we stopped at fellow volunteer Mei's house. I tried to make a joke, but it came out sounding like an insult to her house; seriously, I've lost my touch. I'm no longer housebroken. All my social training has been warped.

Some of the crew

We soon arrived at Ghalegaun, and I had to suppress some immediate envy toward the Lamjung volunteers. The Himalayas were right there, terrifyingly close, not some half-seen, half-imagined thing. Ghalegaun is primarily inhabited by the Gurung people, an ethnic group of Nepal, and their architecture is wildly different from that of the Hindu castes in my village: houses clustered together and linked via alleyways and stone paths--it actually felt like a town. Gurungs practice a syncretic animistic-Buddhist religion, and their religious buildings reflect this eccentric mix. Unlike Hindu pagodas, Gurung temples look like boxes with surfboards attached on each edge (this description coming from a fellow volunteer) and are decked out with fish sculptures, faces, and other objects. The wave of envy passed quickly, however, as night set in. Ghalegaun was much too cold, even for me, an arctic creature. It was too unpleasant to shower for the 3 nights I was there (apologies to my roommates Alyssa and Shay!).

Homestays were arranged for us (thanks to Mei, Charles, and Emma!). My host was a wonderful Gurung woman named Vishnu, an active member of the village's tourism committee. She has an unique background: she grew up in Uttarakhand, India, where her father was stationed in the Indian Army. She returned to Lamjung in her mid-twenties to marry. She did not grow up speaking the Gurung language and says she has an accent that her neighbors tease her about. 

The honey hunt was scheduled for the day after we arrived. I realize I haven't actually explained what the hunt is, so here's a primer. Northern Nepal is home to the world's largest honeybee (Apis laboriosa, commonly known as the giant Himalayan honeybee), which builds its nests on cliffs under rock overhangs. The ethnic groups that have long inhabited this region of Nepal, namely the Gurung and Magar people, harvest this honey twice a year to use in religious and cultural ceremonies. Honey harvested in the spring, made from rhododendron nectar, has hallucinogenic properties and is sold as mad honey. 

While some villages have heavily commercialized their honey hunt, Ghalegaun has only recently opened up its hunt to tourists (my visit marked just the third time outsiders had attended). Women, too, have only very recently been allowed to watch. 

Honey hunting is dangerous work. As a spectator, the event was mostly calm, but there were moments of pure terror. Would the hunter fall? Would the honey drop 200 feet to the forest floor? After a puja at the top of the cliff,  the hunter descended a rope ladder to reach the hives, carrying bamboo poles to pry away the combs. It's a delicate balancing act with very little in the way of protective equipment. Although wearing a bee veil, the hunter was barefoot, and I don't doubt he was stung many times on the arms and legs. 

Very skillfully, the hunter first removed the brood from the bottom half of the combs and lowered it down to the men on the ground with ropes; the larva are also used in religious ceremonies. Next, the honey was removed and sent down in a basket. The men on the ground filtered it through a bamboo doko before packing it into plastic containers. The entire process took hours, ensuring the honey hunter's relative safety and making sure that nothing was wasted or lost. There was a short break in the middle of the hunt to eat honey, sel roti, and achaar, and to drink locally brewed rice beer known as chhang (this is not consumed in my village). 

Honey hunter descending to the hives

Honey filter rigged up in the field
Photo credit: Mei

Giant himalayan honeybee comb
Photo credit: Mei

When we arrived, the bees were already agitated by a hornet. You could see the shimmering behavior: bees moving in sync, forming waves like a stadium crowd. The honey hunters were also quite delayed in getting the fire going to smoke the bees and calm them. As a result, we were inundated by a swarm of defensive bees in our spectating position below the cliff. Honey hunters and spectators alike were stung on the head and hands. I somehow escaped without a single sting, which is nothing short of a miracle considering my laxity about protective equipment.

It's no wonder that honey hunting is a cultural practice under threat. The potential for life-threatening injuries and death is too great; many honey hunters are no longer teaching the practice to their children, instead encouraging them to find safer and better paying jobs in Kathmandu and abroad. This is a problem across Nepal. Urbanization and globalization pose existential threats to rural cultures. 

Before departing Ghalegaun, I bought a liter of wild honey to take back to my host family. It has a very rich, earthy flavor that I find quite delicious, though I'm not sure my family enjoys it. It's a good thing honey keeps forever under proper storage conditions, because I suspect I'll be the only one eating it for the rest of my time in Nepal.  

Bees! Honey! 
Photo credit: Mei

After the honey hunt, it was time to return to Arghakhanchi. The return trip was no less dramatic than the honey hunt. There were supposed to be three of us travelling together, but I woke up to a text saying that one of my travel companions had been hospitalized due to complications from the flu (so much for the vaccine). A bad omen for the trip. We had no choice but to proceed home.

On the trip back, I felt muscle aches in my legs, and I knew for certain that I, too, would come down with the flu. (I always feel sickness, be it the flu or COVID, in my legs first.) When I got back to my house, I basically slept for a week straight, much to the concern of my host family. They told me I wasn't taking proper care of my health because I was drinking cold water and showering too frequently (apparently, every 72 hours is too often). That pissed me off to no end, but I suppressed the rage and said thank you for the advice. 

That was a few weeks ago, and I'm basically back to fighting shape. But please, I don't ever want to have the flu again in Nepal. I haven't been that sick since I was a kid. 

And that was my trip up north. Stay tuned for my next blog post, which will cover another trip I have planned. 

Mtn views from Ghalegaun

Oh, while I have you here, I'd thought I would share a year-end list. When I'm stressed or bored, I tend to make lists, either of things I've seen or done, or of trivia like countries and their capitals. During my illness, I took stock of the books I've read in 2025, so here's the list for the curious among you: 

(1) The Well of Loneliness                                    Radclyffe Hall

(2) Underworld                                                      Don DeLillo

(3) Yellow Face                                                     R.F. Kuang 

(4) Madame Bovary                                              Gustave Flaubert 

(5) Lonesome Dove                                               Larry McMurtry

(6) The Sun Also Rises                                          Ernest Hemingway

(7) Kathmandu                                                       Thomas Bell

(8) Song of Solomon                                              Toni Morrison

(9) Middlemarch                                                     George Eliot

(10) Delta of Venus                                                 Anais Nin

(11) Blood Meridian                                               Cormac McCarthy 

(12) Tess of D'Urbervilles                                       Thomas Hardy

(13) The Snow Leopard                                          Peter Matthiessen

(14) Human Nature*                                               Thomas Bell

*currently reading, but on track to finish by the year's end  

Here I Yam! My tolerance for photoshoots is low