An evening's entertainment, Nepalese style

While in Nepal, we spent two nights at Into The Wild Eco Resort.
http://intothewildecoresort.com/
The resort is a small one. Comfortable. With friendly and accommodating staff and a lovely host.
It is set on the Rapti River, across from Chitwan National Park.

A view from the restaurant's porch, where you can enjoy some tea or a glass of wine before dinner.

Our room was on the left of this section of the resort:

View from our porch:

As you can see, this is not a "resort" in the terms of pools and water slides, gift shops and conference rooms. It was lovely and relaxing.

The first of our two nights there, the owner/host arranged for some local Nepalese women to share some traditional dance with us. There were some hand-held drums off to the side.

Some video ...

Resort guests were invited to join in the dancing. There aren't many guests at any one time (25-30 people maximum, I think, if you are filling up every bed in all 14 rooms). So in a situation like this, it's hard to hide and refuse to join in. Tim had the perfect excuse of taking photographs. Smart man.

It sure seemed like simple dancing, when watching. But when you tried to imitate the elegance of these Nepalese women, well, I had fun trying and was okay with not being successful in showing any kind of rhythm :-)  You really don't have to watch the whole video ... I was frankly too lazy to edit it to a shorter length than the 2 or so minutes :-)

Some of our fellow guests were from Japan. They chatted with Tim later (their English was far better than our non-existent Japanese!). Some, if not all, were from Hiroshima. They gave Tim a couple of postcards from Hiroshima, and email addresses were exchanged. We look forward to keeping in touch with them.

It's tough to get a good group photo with limited lighting in the dark edges of Nepal. You can see some faces in this photo. Tim is to the far left, mostly in shadow. Figured it was still worth sharing!

On a side, simply because I just had to share this photo ... During a walk to and through the little tiny town, we came across this particular local business. Not sure if I was more amused or more frightened by the artwork!  (We did not venture in ...)

A glance at our hotel in Kathmandu

If you end up visiting Kathmandu, we highly recommend the hotel we stayed in. And we recommend booking ahead, as it's small, built on word of mouth, and for reasons that become obvious to a guest, gets repeat business.

In the Kathmandu area of Thamel, Pujan and Michelle are the proprietors of Hotel Courtyard (http://www.hotelcourtyard.com/). There's a reason for the name of the hotel, as the courtyard is a welcoming and comfortable gathering place for any guests who want to have good conversation with people from around the world, or simply relax with a glass of whatever suits you.  Some of the guests have hiked Everest several times over, some stay for a few weeks at a time and make the place a second home. And then people like us, coming for a week or so.

Part of the marvelous hospitality of Hotel Courtyard is that Pujan will arrange any excursions you care for, provide a car and driver if desired, make suggestions based on the length of your visit and what you want to experience in Kathmandu and Nepal.

The hotel has some classic Nepalese woodwork details:

Our last evening, we upgraded to a suite. Beautiful!


Some streets nearby in the Thamel area ...

Road Signs -- some unique, some just funny

Tim's great at capturing all kinds of signs with his camera.

During our trip to Nepal, he had the front passenger seat (unanimously given to him by me and by Hannah!).

And when Tim and I were travelling around the UAE, I drove (because I have the UAE driving license, and, he's a good navigator) and Tim was again in the front passenger seat.

That position gives him some great opportunities for photos. That, and his really good camera lenses.

Nepal ... some unique, some funny ...

Some familiar (maybe not as polished as what we see in the U.S., but familiar nonetheless) ...

And in the UAE ...

Warning that you are passing through a Wadi (river bed):

Camels might wander out aimlessly onto the road ... (they really do!) ...

Self explanatory ... yet, not sure how the tires would actually cross like that, but perhaps that's the exaggerated point?!

After Tim sees this post, he might have others to suggest, because he has quite the collection going and I have a feeling I've missed some! (I should have had him review this while we were both in D.C., but nope, thought about that a little too late!  Now he's in the air, on his way back to California, and I'm posting this from the Dulles Airport in Washington DC, waiting for my flight back to Abu Dhabi.)

Day trek to a monastery

Hello from Washington DC. I am in the States for a NASPA Board meeting this week. The travel resulted in some delay in getting another post on this blog, but hopefully better later than not at all! 
Enjoying cold weather, and time with Tim before my meetings start. I will have to download his photos from Colonial Williamsburg and from Jamestown, and share those on this site as well.  But for now, more about Nepal!

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We crammed a lot into a week in Nepal.

We feel we had a good mix of activities during that week.
To add on at least a second or even a third week would allow substantial trekking (such as any of the Annapurna treks), as well as visiting Pokhara, and getting closer to the Himalayas so that you can see the amazing snow-capped peaks, including Mt. Everest. (After our drive from Kathmandu to Chitwan National Park, I would fly from Kathmandu to Pokhara ... just an fyi should you visit Nepal yourself, and a note to myself, in case Tim and I are fortunate enough to visit a second time.)

One of our days, we trekked a couple of hours both ways, with a destination of the Thrangu Tashi Yangtse monastery. 

Tibetan Buddhist, Lonely Planet's guide to Nepal (9th edition, July 2012) says it's "one of the three most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Nepal" (the others being Swayambhunath, or the Monkey Temple, and Bodhnath, which I'll share photos of in another post). "The site is sacred due to the inspiring legend about the Buddha, who, when in a previous life as a prince, encountered a tigress that was close to death from starvation and unable to feed her cubs. In an act of compassion he allowed the hungry tigress to consume him, a deed that transported him to the higher realms of existence." (p. 175)

Here are some photos of the colorful complex.

There was a variety of artwork, in addition to the colorful buildings themselves. Much of it portrays Buddha. 

Prayer flags are abundant in Nepal, and this monastery was no exception ...

One in particular was a bit too Stephen King's "It" for our tastes:

Okay, quickly back to less creepy images ...

The hike itself was wonderful as well. Our guide was Kamal (see my post on people of Nepal for a photo of Kamal and Tim), a lovely young man studying at university. We learned a lot from him about the Nepalese culture (Tim asked great questions about the caste system, for example), education, and the area we were hiking through because that is where he grew up and his family still farms.  On the way back from the monastery, we met his father who was herding their goats.

The scenery was breathtaking. (And especially after many months of beautiful but beige Abu Dhabi, green hills and blue skies and clouds were a welcome sight.)

The path we were on took as alongside homes and farms.

The yellow in the field is mustard. In this area they grow wheat, rice, mustard, primarily.  They use their eaves, roofs and tin shed covers for drying corn and other foods.

As part of our day, it was arranged for us to stop for coffee at a Nepalese farm house before heading to the monastery. On the return, the trek included lunch at the same house. 'Twas yummy! And such a special treat to enjoy this home-cooked meal.

There's cauliflower, potatoes, egg, rice, a Nepalese bread, cabbage.  Had we wanted to, we could eat in the style of Nepalese, with our right hand and no utensils. Hard to break the habit of eating with a fork :-)

It was hard to pick just a few photos to share, in writing about this trek. Between Tim and Hannah and I, we have SO many photos (of the entire trip, let alone of this one day). So if you want to see more, when I'm back in January, just say the word and I'll show you as many as you're willing to look at!  

Tim is also posting a lot of photos at www.tmgimagery.com