Last Stop Hong Kong

This will be my last post to the blog so I hope you have enjoyed reading it. Hong Kong was hot, steamy and extremely crowded. The subway is good but as it is built on different islands it was a struggle finding our way around. We did take the tram to the Peak, which is the equivalent of visiting the Empire State Building, and as you can see the view was magnificent.

Our 16 hour flight to JFK was as good as a 16 hour flight can be, and I am relaxing before my flight to Tampa. It has been a lot of traveling, but we have had some great experiences

Nepali Cremation

Being cremated in Nepal is a very public ceremony. The body in a shroud is placed on a pyre and burns until everything is gone. Many fires burn at the same time while the family sits on the bench behind and waits until the ceremony is over.

There is one special slab which is used for royal cremations which are witnessed by everyone who wishes. Even the cows are witness to the event, as being sacred nobody can remove them.

Kathmandu is a crazy city and both Deb and I preferred Tibet to Nepal. However, that may be due to the fact that we did not see so much of the Nepali countryside, apart from our one night at the lodge which was lovely.

Calling all hippies!

For all of you from the Hippie era, Kathmandu was Nirvana. When the King of Nepal tired of all the pot smoking hippies downtown, they simply moved to Swayambhunath Temple which became known as the Monkey Temple and made that their base.

Most of the pot purchasing was made appropriately on Freak Street which still exists today.

Shortages in Kathmandu

Kathmandu, city of 2.5 million people and unable to satisfy their energy needs. Lines at the gas stations, no electricity for ten hours each day, and a water table which has dropped to extremely low levels.

For the people who do not have running water in their home, the choice is lining up at wells to fill their plastic containers. Some deep wells involve lowering a bucket and hearing it scraping the bottom - I can only imagine the quality of the water. Of course one can purchase bottled water everywhere but poor people cannot afford it.

Farm to city

In Tibet the main crop is barley, but here in Nepal it is wheat. I do not know if they get two crops per year, but they were already harvesting and it is only May. Strangely they bring the wheat into the city and separate the grain from the chaff on the small squares.

It is a sub-tropical climate here so crops grow easily and there seems to be a wide variety of vegetables in the stores. With the exception of a couple of meals with chicken, I have been pretty much vegetarian on this trip. Kathmandu is the place to eat Momos which are small dumplings, so I will definitely try those.

Street scenes

Just a couple of Kathmandu street scenes.

Mountain to valley

After a lovely stay at the Dhulikel Lodge we have now arrived in Kathmandu. The valley suffers from air pollution, but so far it has not seemed bad and our biggest problem is the heat. No matter how much we drink we are always thirsty!

Our first day was a walking tour with our guide, and the ancient city seemed easy to navigate. In Tibet they have no maps, and as all the wording is in Chinese we could never find places.

Women here still do a lot of manual labor but our guide said that girls have much more opportunity than before. His own mother was illiterate, but after he completed his college education, he taught his mother to read and write. You see school children and schools everywhere, and all the kids wear uniforms.