Name that city....
3 cities. 24 hours. No. That's not right. 4 cities, 40 hours. Or something like that.
I'll start by saying that after I left you in the Hong Kong airport I sat in with some Philipino guys in a lounge band for several songs, met a nice Dutch guy who liked my voice and bought me dinner, and finally, FINALLY got to New Delhi, only to find that there were in fact, no showers, no food, no one particularly helpful, no ANYTHING. My ten hours would have to be spent in a waiting area with gaggles of people and it was, well...gross is kind of an understatement. Til I got the idea from an entreprenuring taxi driver to get a hotel, which, in my comeplete delerium, I did. An hour and a half of sleep and on gorgeous shower later wide awake in Delhi with 6 hurs 'til my flight. So I called the cab diver and he took me on a lovely little tour of new Delhi, with highlights including a Hanuman temple, a sweets shop, a Shiva temple, the India gate, and a gross liquor store (never mind that one, but they didn't have bottled water, so, let's say I was the only one not drinking).
The plane ride into Delhi was so stereotypical! I don't even feel right saying it. Babies cried, BO abounded, people talked RIDICULOUSLY loudly...I was at my wit's end. But all the time I at least smiled and chaclked it up to a culteral experience. Needless to say, this part fo the trip shoudl really be called, "how to spend $160 in 10 hours in Delhi". *sigh* Never mind that I had cramps the whole time. Damn.
Finally in lovely short 1 hour long flight to nepal I was sad again. Tired, listening to the Rescues, and writing song lyrics...but something happened as we descended into the Kathmandu Valley. I wish I coudl say what it was--I don't know. Saw mountains on one side, Kathmandu on the other, and I just got this *feeling*. It was going to be good.
I got in and Sunita was waiting for me with a sign. She is the assistant to Mariano here at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory, which is totally amazing. The facilities are cool, clean, modern...they're running Logic Pro on a Mac, have practice rooms, a recording studio, and best of all? A bathroom with toilet paper.
Let me backtrack. I have a Nepalese number now. Skype me any time, I'd love to hear from you. As far as I can tell, my number is 098081552790 give or take the 0 at the beginning. The country code is 977, and mind the time difference. I'll try and set up the voicemail tomorrow. So Sunita took me to the apartments that KJC keeps for its teachers. It's in Lallipur. I was greeted by Ranjan, a lovely boy (actually, he's 18) who takes care fo the place in exchange for a room, paycheck, and free lessons. He was orphaned as a baby, and Mariano has taken him under his wing a bit. Essenially, I have my own apartment in Kathmandu, which is awesome. Bathroom, shower (i'm on the 5th floor wherethere's no hot water, but really it's so damned hot I wouldn't want a hot shower anyway), kitchen, balcony, air conditioning. Just kidding about the air conditioning.
Then it was off to see KJC and meet Mariano, who is lovely, and immediately was warm and awesome, and explained to me some things about Nepal, including the exeedingly high number of NGOs here, many (most) of which don't seem to use their money for much other than making rich people richer. I just hope HLF isn't like that. It's got a good repuataion, so I'm not too worried. Mariano also explained caste systems as they exist here today, and how Ranjan's life story is all too common here in Nepal. He subscribes rightly to making people be able to earn their living, as Raph always says, rather than a handout.
Tomorrow I'll have a rehearsal for our gig on the 16th, get in touch with HLF (http://www.hlf.org.np), and maybe see some sights/sites.
Oh, I forgot the whole point. Which is that I was considering changing my trip a day so that I might see the Taj Mahal on my way back. Now that I've seen Nepal, I have absolutely no intention of going back to India. Nepal is beautiful, the people I've encountered thus far are super duper nice, and everything seems to cost somewhere between 50 cents and 2 USD. The people are still poor but the landscape is nice and the whole city, is, well...pretty. Mmm...Nepal. I'm going to go back to my lovely apartment and collapse from exhaustion.
here re the pics!
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1020487007/a=21470763_21470763/fromupload=true/imagecount=42/videocount=0/
love,
sar
p.s. Kathleen, a concrete cell? Seriously?!
I'll start by saying that after I left you in the Hong Kong airport I sat in with some Philipino guys in a lounge band for several songs, met a nice Dutch guy who liked my voice and bought me dinner, and finally, FINALLY got to New Delhi, only to find that there were in fact, no showers, no food, no one particularly helpful, no ANYTHING. My ten hours would have to be spent in a waiting area with gaggles of people and it was, well...gross is kind of an understatement. Til I got the idea from an entreprenuring taxi driver to get a hotel, which, in my comeplete delerium, I did. An hour and a half of sleep and on gorgeous shower later wide awake in Delhi with 6 hurs 'til my flight. So I called the cab diver and he took me on a lovely little tour of new Delhi, with highlights including a Hanuman temple, a sweets shop, a Shiva temple, the India gate, and a gross liquor store (never mind that one, but they didn't have bottled water, so, let's say I was the only one not drinking).
The plane ride into Delhi was so stereotypical! I don't even feel right saying it. Babies cried, BO abounded, people talked RIDICULOUSLY loudly...I was at my wit's end. But all the time I at least smiled and chaclked it up to a culteral experience. Needless to say, this part fo the trip shoudl really be called, "how to spend $160 in 10 hours in Delhi". *sigh* Never mind that I had cramps the whole time. Damn.
Finally in lovely short 1 hour long flight to nepal I was sad again. Tired, listening to the Rescues, and writing song lyrics...but something happened as we descended into the Kathmandu Valley. I wish I coudl say what it was--I don't know. Saw mountains on one side, Kathmandu on the other, and I just got this *feeling*. It was going to be good.
I got in and Sunita was waiting for me with a sign. She is the assistant to Mariano here at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory, which is totally amazing. The facilities are cool, clean, modern...they're running Logic Pro on a Mac, have practice rooms, a recording studio, and best of all? A bathroom with toilet paper.
Let me backtrack. I have a Nepalese number now. Skype me any time, I'd love to hear from you. As far as I can tell, my number is 098081552790 give or take the 0 at the beginning. The country code is 977, and mind the time difference. I'll try and set up the voicemail tomorrow. So Sunita took me to the apartments that KJC keeps for its teachers. It's in Lallipur. I was greeted by Ranjan, a lovely boy (actually, he's 18) who takes care fo the place in exchange for a room, paycheck, and free lessons. He was orphaned as a baby, and Mariano has taken him under his wing a bit. Essenially, I have my own apartment in Kathmandu, which is awesome. Bathroom, shower (i'm on the 5th floor wherethere's no hot water, but really it's so damned hot I wouldn't want a hot shower anyway), kitchen, balcony, air conditioning. Just kidding about the air conditioning.
Then it was off to see KJC and meet Mariano, who is lovely, and immediately was warm and awesome, and explained to me some things about Nepal, including the exeedingly high number of NGOs here, many (most) of which don't seem to use their money for much other than making rich people richer. I just hope HLF isn't like that. It's got a good repuataion, so I'm not too worried. Mariano also explained caste systems as they exist here today, and how Ranjan's life story is all too common here in Nepal. He subscribes rightly to making people be able to earn their living, as Raph always says, rather than a handout.
Tomorrow I'll have a rehearsal for our gig on the 16th, get in touch with HLF (http://www.hlf.org.np), and maybe see some sights/sites.
Oh, I forgot the whole point. Which is that I was considering changing my trip a day so that I might see the Taj Mahal on my way back. Now that I've seen Nepal, I have absolutely no intention of going back to India. Nepal is beautiful, the people I've encountered thus far are super duper nice, and everything seems to cost somewhere between 50 cents and 2 USD. The people are still poor but the landscape is nice and the whole city, is, well...pretty. Mmm...Nepal. I'm going to go back to my lovely apartment and collapse from exhaustion.
here re the pics!
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1020487007/a=21470763_21470763/fromupload=true/imagecount=42/videocount=0/
love,
sar
p.s. Kathleen, a concrete cell? Seriously?!
posted by sara leib at 7:02 AM
3 Comments:
I love seeing all of your smiles!
Man...sorry you had such an awful time in my homeland! Delhi was the place I least enjoyed when I went to India...there's just not much to see. It's dirty and ugly, and...yeah, well all of India is kind of smelly. BUT, there are gorgeous things to see too...the Taj Mahal is breathtaking. And beyond that there's Calcutta, Bombay, Jaipur, Goa, Madras...don't give up so fast. :) Glad to hear you're enjoying Nepal, though! Sounds awesome!
Oh, and sorry I forgot to say--this is Asha, haha.
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