10MAR14
I have been home for a week and am still coming down from
the altitude difference, time change, and the onslaught of reality. I have made the 12 hour time adjustment, but
am still metabolizing time as I was in Nepal…asleep by 9pm, up at 6am. This was not the biorhythm in play a month
ago. The ancient, steep granite stairs carved out of the
Himalayan slopes left me with a little patellofemoral (runner’s knee) syndrome,
which I am hoping will go away without orthopedic intervention. I’m taking it easy in the spin classes and
whenever ascending or descending stairs.
My last blog entry was done from Kathmandu on 2/14, before
losing all contact with the Internet.
After that, I was using paper and ink to record impressions which I will
now insert into djinncity with photos of the gorgeous scenery: mountains,
villages, and people of the Tamang Heritage and Langtang National Park treks.
That first night, after an eight hour public jeep ride (like
a taxi service to get people to towns in the mountains when they cannot or do
not want to wait on the bus), in a small town called Syabru Besi, I wrote a
brief reflection on India, which was still quite fresh.
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| Waiting for public jeep |
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| Traffic jam leaving Kathmandu |
View from guesthouse in Syabru Besi
I had high hopes for India, as a magical, mystical place of
historical importance and modern marvels (they have nuclear weapons, a space
program, and a burgeoning high tech industry).
The history is there, the magic of the Mughal structures and older Hindu
and Buddhist sites, and there is evidence of the push toward modernity; but to
the common man on the street, or a naïve tourist, it is polluted, aggressive,
and littered…ready to implode.
Newspapers talk endlessly about members of parliament on the take, doing
little or nothing for their constituents; that is apparent.
A lot has happened
since the British ended the Mughal reign in 1857, like the rest of the world,
the highways, railroads, plumbing, are there and mostly functional. The electrical infrastructure is often
unstable and amazing that it works at all.
I saw a man climb out onto the balcony of his bar and literally reach
into the jumble of wire and connect one wire to another, which made lights come
on in his second story.
The hustling, begging, expectation of baksheesh, commissions
for taxi drivers taking the unsuspecting tourist someplace he did not ask to go
for shopping or different lodging. Every
method imaginable to separate the tourist from his money made me tired after it
stopped confusing and intimidating me.
Garbage on every street and filling every vacant lot, full
of kids, pigs, cows and dogs looking for something interesting fills the air
with a stench that is barely buffered by the uncontrolled auto and truck
exhaust. Shopkeepers and rickshaw
drivers spend their entire lives breathing this blackened air.
Men, mostly, are constantly spitting their tobacco or betel
nut juice onto the street where it becomes another hazard to avoid, along with
cow shit, dog shit, and puddles of urine from everything on four legs and many
on two. Men pee against any wall
available with little concern for modesty.
The Mughal forts, palaces, and tombs are beautiful legacies
to aristocratic colonialism. I have not
read what the life of the common man was like for those 300 years. The British left the government buildings in
New Delhi, and a railway system, along with other remnants, including a
resentful memory of brutal reparations for not following the East India
Company’s or the Crown’s mandates.
The pre-Mughal Hindu and Buddhist temples, stupas, and
monasteries that I saw are all breathtaking and inspirational, as well. I did
not enter a Muslim mosque, saving those for next time, but did enjoy the call
to prayer when I heard it.
I felt like India needed a massive, never ending series of 5
year plans, or a WPA on steroids, to overcome the litter, revitalize the
infrastructure, check smog, collect garbage, and get everyone fed and
educated. In Hanoi, and all over
Vietnam, there are posters of long dead
Uncle Ho spreading the various messages of pride and hard work to help
Vietnam progress. I thought of similar
campaigns starring Gandhi and Salman Kahn to inspire pride in the country and
hope for the future. There is much to do
and many people needing jobs who could do it.
Looking back at this journal entry, I am concerned that it
seems harsh or judgmental. Obviously,
many of the infrastructure issues mentioned need addressing all over the planet
in those countries whose water and cable plants are around 100 years old. The US had the great litter awareness program
in the late 1950’s, and it took some time for the message to get heard. Things can get better before they get
worse. India is too precious, as the
Afghans, British, and modern capitalists have all understood…
Very interesting observations, Allen.
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