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This year I helped out with the Steiner school kids Parade,

the theme for the parade was ‘Childrens games’ and the Steiners were doing ‘Capture the Castle’, on the very sensible premise, that this would allow the kids to run hooligan wise up and down the streets shrieking. high spirits and anarchic exuberance. hurrah!

The main prop was a wicker work and papier mache replica of the Brighton Pavilion, to act as the central castle.The blooming thing ended up being huge. Life size! Well, possibly not, but pretty gawdamm big anyway. Suzie, Paul and Gus did most of the work.

Once the wicker had been bent into shape and fixed, it came to the wonderfully mucky process of adding the white tisue paper. A quick squelch slop of glue, drag it up, carefully peeling the piece off the table, then drape daintly over the structure.

A skilled artisans job, the gist, somewhere twixt putting up wallpaper and hanging out the washing.

Demanding both great deliberation and also a knack for daydreaming.

Halfway through got distracted by helping put up the maypole for the next days may dance, Finns class was one of the 3 classes performing the dance, but he was gloomy about the outcome ‘stupid, we haven’t practiced’. Erecting the maypole was basically lugging upright a large treetrunk and whittling away at the bottom until it fitted snugly into the base, then attaching the crown, with all the beautiful strewn coloured ribbons. Something of prayer flags and party streamers.

I got to do sawing!

Back with the pavilion, finally the paper was all dried to ridgid brittleness. as strong as a poppadom!

The moment of truth, we hauled it up from it’s prone position and stood back to admire the work.

Titter, crumbs… surely not. Gradually we all began to guffaw.

A large central tower, topped off with a curved onion dome, flanked on either side with 2 smaller domes. COCK!

The whole thing looked like an enormous knob and a pair of balls. Even to the detail that the coloured streamer flying from the toppest turret, looked like a wisp of a whiff of jism.

It was quite unintentionally hilarious, even the kids could see what it looked like.

Oh the calumny, the shame, to bring disgrace upon the name of the school, by hauling an enormous cock through the streets of Brighton, surrounded by herds of jubilant, happy children!

Steiner Spunk.

Once the laughter had subsided, it became obvious that a drastic case of knob surgery was necessary.

Down it came, out with the saw, a quick castration, saw off three quarters of the appendage, gaffer tape it back on, then hoik the thing upright, erect again .

Much better, barely Penis shaped at all! The emminence was ready, now all we had to do was to hope for no overnight rain, else it would just melt to a soggy mess.

Sherbailey was in the parade, class 1, her first proper year, she had elected to be a damsel, so pam was busy putting the last touches to her costume, as usual it hung together with an excess of safety pins, but the damsel was damson! a colour somewhere between plum and maroon and brown. Lovely.

Next morning was bright, but a little breezy, i crossed the road to be there for 8:00 and to be part of the dragging into town posse. it was on a trailer base and the plan was to brute force, by hand, tow it to town.

A few kids were there, so they all sat in the castle and us 4 adults, went into halter and horse hauled it along. Blooming hippies. we all definitely looked the part and the whole ensemble resembled a gipsy caravan, complete with new age travellers… oh and part some enchanted fairytale day dream.

it was good fun stopping the traffic and slowly drifting along Edwards street, we just needed the half coconuts, to set up a clip clop, rag and bone mans rhythm. Cue Steptoe and son theme music.

Everybody was very friendly, all the cars hoot beeping as they overtook, a carnival atmosphere.

Fortuneately the wind was behind, so we breezed along. Coming down the main hill, it was more a matter of pushing back to apply the brakes and halt the monstrosity.

Outside the proper pavilion, we stopped for photos, the resemblance was uncanny.

You had to watch out for the thing, wide, tall load. brute of a big and burly, twice we snagged a turret on the elm trees

We’d arrived, squarely on Sydney street a few tares but, remarkably, mostly in one piece!

The Steiners were right up the front of the parade. Number 4.

An hours hanging around as gradually the children arrived, all attired in an array of varied costumes, It’s such a sweet event, all the little ones, some dressed a s playing cards, others as ladybirds.

I always love having a scoot around, watching everyone getting ready for the off, the sense of expectancy. The tingle thrill.

The samba bands all warming up, the rattle of pans and the solid boom of a drum

such a lot of work goes into the day, some of the models, there was a giant bucking bronco, a full set of monopoly playing pieces, a cardboard cut out scaletrix car.

I had no costume, so wasn’t expecting to be in the parade, Simon was there, as energetic as ever, so far as i can surmise, his day job is organising rave parades and events. just another day at the office for him, he had a couple of spare trumpets, so i had a go at producing a note.

Blubber your lips and blow a big raspberry? Sounds easy, but in truth, the strain, the near rupture, frequently results in nowt more than a strangled squelch of a fart.

Hannibals elephants? hardly. tan tarra. tan tarra, down tumble the walls of Jericho!

who smelt it dealt it

Somebody produced a medieval looking helmet and plonked it on my head.

A little camp? well a lot camp! but cinderella would go to the ball. I would be in the parade!

Finally we were up and off, the conga of schools was away…. err almost …slight snag. The immensity of the pavilion, it’s tippest top, got caught on the wires down Sydney street. You know wires which, in season, hold the christmas decorations, but the rest of the year students tie there shoes together and hoopla them till they get stuck. cobblers.

The whole cavalcade parade was halted, almost before it had begun.

Luckily somebody found a long bamboo pole, the wire was eased up and, with a backdrop of samba pandemonium, the pavilion limbo danced beneath. Away again!

The gist of the Steiner procession was that the knights in cardboard armour surged ahead, they turned, then on the pounding of a drumbeat charged!

Whooping and a hurly burly hollering towards the damsels and the castle. Then, to save the day, from behind the castle a chinese style dragon weaved out, the knights took fright!

A rabble in rabbit retreat. They were in turn chased back by the dragon and Sherbaileys gang of maidens, hot foot pursuit!

Next regroup and repeat. The tableau ebbing and flowing along the road.

Finn and his class 5 made up the head and body of the dragon and took to their part with gusto, forgetting that the parade was kids stuff and mostly beneath them.

Sherbailey and her friends linked arms and alternated between singing and taunting the knights.

A hoot and a holler!

By coincidence, curiously, I found a finger puppet of a dragon in my pocket, so used this as my chief prop. a green wiggly worm of a thing on my finger, off set by the noble plumage of my helmet. Sir Prance-a-lot.

On we went, raucous through the crowds and the streets, weaving, battling, dancing, surging all the way to the sea! A triumph!

The kids loved it, I loved it. A giggle.

………

Afterwards we had to get the Pavilion back to the school, against the wind that a way, so a real toil. My motto for getting home when i used to drink, was always, hit the sea front, then turn left. easy!

We should have yacht tacked. Uphill up Dukes mound was the worst. The calluses on hands, the backs bent, heave ho.

………..

The Pavilion stood for a further week in the playground. Then the order came from reception to destroy it.

the kids pounced with great glee. Savages. Blood lust.

A frenzy of ripping of paper, the splintering of wood, within 10 minutes the Pavilion was a mound of rubbish, Tatters and scraps, waiting to be swept up and binned.

Some of the school were disappointed, mostly with the gusto with which it was destroyed by the kids, but me, well i agree with the suggestion that we should have burnt it on the beach, let it go with a flame and a flare. With dignity.

Failing that i think gratuitous destructive urges are incredibly healthy. I’m very much in favour of jumping on your own sandcastle, else bashing over your own snowman, i think the people who put the effort in to build something, should have the joy of trashing it!

So, in my opinion the kids mullering it was just perfect!

The Kids parade. Brilliant!

Breakfast in the Amma Ashram, you’d always have to be on your guard against the eagle. His preen of plumage, a red muddy brown, his head was white.
The dining hall/café was a roof supported on pillars, open on all sides to the elements.
The westerners would queue for morning coffee, a bleary natter.
There were always the clean up squad of crows. They’d loudly dispute the fate of leftovers. Bovver boy squabbling over the scraps. In India, in the curious absence of seagulls, they burlied into the same evolutionary niche. Cantankerous Scavengers!

The eagle made his breakfast time perch atop the pillars.
From here he’d regally peer down. A glance of disdain for rice, iddli and samba. Yet he was rather partial to omelettes and cheese sandwiches. A glutton for protein.
Down he’d swoop. A full stretch talon snatch.
The startled shriek from his victim, the tumult of oohs and aahs from his appreciative audience echoing around, and back down from the roof
away he’d be with his omlette booty, a reel around, a couple of lazy feathered flaps and back to his perch
Woe betide the unwary. Those not on their guard for a predator strike.
He’d grab from a plate, else more in yer face spectacularly, pluck from your fingertips. Marine, my French friend had her omlette snatched whilst I was sitting next to her. Swift, precise, immediate and feathered there. Nobody argues with an Eagle.

I strolled over the hill to Rottingdene to the cottage where the kids and Pam now live, in order to help with the setting up of the new trampoline.
A beast of a thing, full 12 feet across.
Much head scratching from me, the holding the plans upside down, then, the traditional neurosis, a bout of flat pack panic!
Jousting poles, screws, tarpaulin, star washers and a zillion silver springs
A few huge burly heave hos, to get it into position, some fiddly threading, a lot of dratt and double dratting, spring tightening, a dose of soothing herbal tea and hey presto! 3 hours later I’d done it! a ramshackle assembly but the thing was up and in bounce fine fettle.
The kids major contribution was to bound onto it at every stage of it’s construction, ‘is it ready?’, else to squabble over who got to hold exactly which bit.

On they leapt! What fun. Twang prang colliding in mid air like flying sumo wrestlers, before belly flopping to the floor.
I stood back to admire the trampoline, it’s huge, nearly the size of the Millennium Dome.
Nope not that, but exactly the size of Stone Henge, did you know that the circumference of the dome of St Pauls is precisely the size of Stone Henge.. and that, on Salisbury Plain, graffiti scored chisel deep into the stones says “Christopher Wren woz ‘ere”. Fact. Hmm Giant space astrological super computer, Poppycock, ‘tis blatantly the holding structure for some sort of prehistoric trampoline!

I join the kids on the mat, we leap and giggle and holler.
Exuberant Tellytubbies. Hurrah!
Finn shows me how to do a somersault landing on his back.
I practice a few mighty boings, the kids stand still and the earthquake rumble of my landing skittles them to the floor.
Jelly baby wobble knees.
It really is brilliant, my dreads bounce with me, flapping up, then flopping back down
Jon Bon Jovi, Lenny kravitz, eat yer heart out!
I can see up and over the garden fence, to the next garden and then the next, there a really rather beautiful woman is hanging out the washing. mmm
I smile and on my next up surge manage to salute.

It is impossible to be unhappy on a trampoline.
Reach for the stars!
1 – 2- 3, higher and higher …. higher … and higher, from up there I can see away, away, down the hill, above the village and there .. beyond.
The turquoise majesty of the Ocean.

Trekking to Mukhtinath

ok time finally to at least start writing about the trek
mug hot swelter here in Bangkok, cannae believe i was ever cold
The Khao San road is just dreary with tourists, fun in it’s own way, but I can’t believe I went a week without seeing any other tourists!
Contrary contrasts. all doolally

quick bit of background, I did the Jomsom trek, which broadly speaking is hiking up the course of the Kali Khandaki river valley, then back down again to get out!
Coming back I yomped doing 2 guidebook days in a day! Loneliness is an incredible spur even to one as lazy as me, 10 days walking in total
The Kali Khandaki is the deepest valley in the world, as most of the time your trekking at about 2000m high, on one side you’ve got Dhaulghiri, and on the other side Nhilghiri, both of which are about 8000m, the cosequence of this being that whichever way you look half the sky is full of these immense white caps. Huge, awesome f***k off mountains
The trek is part of the Anapurna circuit, which is about a 20 day walk.
As It was January nobody could do the whole Anapurna circuit at that time of year, as the Thorung la, the high pass, was shut with snow
Not totally shut as i did meet one couple.. and a family! who had managed to get through, thanks to one of the locals on the other side helping, guiding them over.

My trek ended at Mukhtinath, up at about 4000m, which is higher than any mountain in Europe! Mukhtinath is both a Hindu and Buddhist spiritual place,
on account of there being a combination of a natural gas flame and a stream, like in the six pointed star, the sacred combination of the upward pointing fire triangle (male) and the downward pointing water triangle (female), or is that me hippy babbling?

The trek is justly famous for it’s variety of terrain and vegetation, from lush semi tropical banana and orange trees around Tatopani, through to the wind sculpted, bone dry desert of the Mustang region, furthermore theres a wide range of nepalli tribal types, a real patchwork of cultures too!
The reason the trek was so gawdamm deserted was partly that it was off season, partly that the pass was shut, but also that the plane which flies to Jomsom, to take tourists up there didn’t fly for ten days, on account of the bad weather.
Broadly the only way to get there was to walk in. proper hard slog stylee.

… and to end this preamble, I have a personal history of this trek, when i was 20 on my first ever trip to India, callow youth that i was I came up here with a Canadian called Alan,
I’d met him at heathrow, i guess, i was mostly tagging along with him, on account of being utterly bewildered by india and never having travelled on my own!
the trek was 2 days longer back then as they hadn’t built any of the road yet.
That time I’d fallen ill at Naudanda, Alan had gone on without me, and I remember staying the night in this local hovel, retching and puking and mewling and just completely convincing myself that I had mountain sickness. I remember trying to get out of bed so that I could stagger down the mountain, but luckily was too ill to move, as when I did finally go down the mountain, the route was perilous treacherous, in the dark I’d have been scuppered, a plummet tumble off a mountain in the gloom!
Oh I also remember being sick in a bag and throwing it out the window, only for the next day to find the hens pecking up my puke… yeuchh
…………
….in the nature of endless shaggy dog stories, that puts me in the mind of one new years eve, mixing far too many rainbow hued cocktails, the following day Kathy and I went to Richmond, we were sitting on a bench, down by the riverside, grumbling cheerfully to each other, then the Thames tide began to come in… and in. cars were swamped by the tide
somehow we were stranded on the bench. maroooned! Robinson Barley Water Crusoe.
An audience had gathered to watch. About now, ever the stage fright drama queen i decided to be violently sick. bleagggh.
The worst bit being that the Ducks came over and pecked it up.
groan!
memory may well decieve me, but I like to believe that we were rescued by a Rastafarian in a rowboat…. Adventures do so often end that way
…………
errr back in Nepal when I was 20, I eventually staggered on to Poon hill, which is a fantastic Mountain view top and there met a fabbo ozzie, called Gail.

also, when I was 22 I did most of the Jomsom trek, this time I got as far as Kag Beni, the little Buddhist Monastery town
One days climb beneath Mukhtinath.
I had a truly brilliant time.
On the way I met up with Mic (Thug), Rebecca, Ralph the punk, Dawn and Hugh, we must have been the slowest most stoned bunch of trekkers ever.
this ones for you guys, wherever you may well be, hope it’s a good feeling. thanks!
Oh and from this trek, to both my gentleman Korean pal…. and the Chinese femme fatale…. and the cheeky boy

the rest of this, well, just dithering ramble from my diary, mostly so i don’t forget

Day 1

acch they say that every journey begins with a single step, but this one with a local bus, then taxi to naya pul, a real dirt track of a road, so the bus leaped and bounded, and pounded my backside as we went
at one point there was a big old bang and we came to a halt, the tyre had burst. everyone hopped off and stood around. much gesticulation, hubbub huddle and pointing, in these situations every man instantly becomes a mechanic, off with the wheel, then they bundled a new one on in no time and away we went.
After this it was a taxi ride, 5 nepallis bundled in the back, me with all the leg room, sprawl relaxed up front, still i was paying 3 times as much as everybody else so didn’t feel so bad about it.
a pig pen grey cloud of dust around us
the driver had a tape loop droning on the stereo. Hindii melodramatic! much fun. I think thats probably why i love world music so much, reminds me of journeys like this
you can sit strangled bored in an office and a few notes of trundled accordion from Santa Cachon and i’m away in the bejungled foothills of columbia!

hopped out at naya pul, a real arm pit of a place, dirt and the sadness of poverty, this is what the road will bring. From here I crossed the bridge and passed the ACAP (Annapurna conservation area) checkpoint to Bierthanthi

Bierthanthi, ha the first encounter with my 20 year old self, i remember so well sitting around here watching the river swirl and fast flow around the rocks. gush, babble and turmoil
them huge big boulders
I wonder how much these rocks have erroded in the last 20 years?
At the time i was somewhat prone to pseudo mystical revelations, not much changes, back then it was something along the lines of the ‘river flows through me, but i am not of the river’, how we are not the flow of thoughts, our bodies or even the passage of time.
bless! i was a naive young chappie, rather lost, but i kinda like teh young me!

This first few hours, up to Tikhedunga is a beautiful stretch, the trail ambles along by the riverside, gently uphill, a flowerful stretch, past small farms.
There was one point with a landslide and a small shiva shine next to it
The shrines are always marked out by the shiva trident and a rope strung about with simple dried flowers
I later learned that the landslip had wiped out 2 houses and killed a whole family of 8, incredibly sad.
A harsh land
A new path clambers onwards

………..
I got myself a stick. hurrah!
last time i did the trek, when i was 23, i caught a ride on a chinese truck all the way to the end of the road, the truck driver was helping build the road. As I hopped out he grunted and handed me a big Bamboo cane staff. Perfect. I carried it all the way to Kag Beni
You just can’t beat a proper stick!
This time i saw a similiar staff, lying by the side of the river, i dragged it out. hmmm rather long
but luckily. Thanks Finn! I had Finns penknife, so out with the mini saw part of it and a few mins of frenzied hacking it became the shoulder high pilgrims staff i required. A crowd of kids gathered around to chortle and stand bemused by my antics.
One of the gurkhas with their huge f***k off kukuri nights would have gone through it with one blow! made me think of trying to open a coconut in parque tyrona, colombia. with my little pen knife took pretty much all day.
Yet one of the machette wielding locals could hack through it in 2 shakes, which they often did to impress the girls
curiously the cocnut was a bit looked down upon in such parts. just too ubiquitous!
……………………
the trudge up the hill was heavy going, i quickly came to curse every single miligram of excess baggage in my backpack, first day so every single step was hard work. light weight.

I met a tibetan looking young woman (Thakali tribe?). She was very sweet and friendly, she’d was on her way back from Pokhara, where she’d gone to get some medicine for a crook stomach. She worked in a lodge in Tikhedunga and was naturally, business being business quite keen i stay there.
I knew of nowhere better and liked her, so readily agreed
At one point she had to hop off the road into one of the terraced fields, clutching a bog roll, poor thing, whilst i kept watch, sentry guard, back on the main trail
thinking about it maybe not that wise to stay in a lodge where the cooks got dysentry, but still, if a stomach lurgy is going to get you, it sure will.
When we got to the village she waved me on. The reason, probably 2 fold, in that with so many lodges on the trail all in cooperation and competition, hanging around on the path and poncing for customers is probably greatly frowned upon
Furthermore i think an attractive young woman, unmarried, hanging out with westerners would be a disgrace, quite a restrictive culture. Very Jane Austen
When I got there the guest house was pretty good, i grabbed a coffee, i love the way with the milk, the skin quickly forms and gets stuck to your moustache, all a bit plate techtonics, the drift of continents aross the surface
The manager was a burmese looking fellow, he was very soft, effeminate, much in the way of these people, he was married and had 2 children away at school, Finn and Sherbaileys age, back in his home village, somewhere in the Terrai, near Chitwan
His job was pretty much, standing on the doorstep, saying Nahmaste to all the trekkers going up… and all the trekkers coming down. Trying to coax them in, naturally he was a smidgin bored.
The other guests were a lebanese and a united arab emirate guy (all dark hair, tache a bristle) and their guide
the guide was of maoist sympathies, talk turned to politics and he was seething at the way the king had stolen billions upon billions of rupees from the country 6 billion he said), he was pleased with the changes thus far, as 2 years ago he wouldn’t have been able to voice such an opinion, but now he could. far to go
Everybody was expecting near civil war after the elections (10th April, if they went ahead)
If the maoists won there would be trouble, likewise if they lost.
Everyday there were power cuts, there was an indefinite banda (strike) down in the teraii and the bolshie partys there were preventing fuel trucks getting through. Nepal is teetering.

The arab guys were hilarious, they were exhausted from the 2 hour walk, and had pretended to get down on hands and knees, then crawl into the village!
that night we ate together, they were great friends, they relished telling me the plot of the latest Mr Bean movie, which sounded a hoot, in one scene the queen was asked to sign a document for the terrorists, she refused. they picked up a corgi and threatened to shoot, the arabs mimicked her voice ‘yes, yes right away’.
Normally I wouldn’t go for mr bean, but when recounted by a lebanese fellow, half way up a mountain in Nepal, it does sound funny
suddenly the world is a long way away and a strange place. I love travelling.

slept well, incredible full flush of stars above, the gentle gabble of the stream below.
In the visitors book ‘the love we take is equal to the love we make’
indeed. what song is that from

day 2
she’ll be coming around the mountains when she comes,
she’ll be coming around the mountains when she comes,
she’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes

mules! They be on the trail everywhere, obviously they’re sterile, and a mix of a horse and a donkey, but whose the daddy? had i ever thought about it i would have assumed that the father was the horse and the mother a donkey. but apparently not, the babe then would be too large for the mother donkeys womb.
Rather ’tis vice versa and they have to build a pit for the horse to stand in and for the donkey to be in position. what next? step ladders step mothers and giraffes
for some reason i am put in mind of peter sellers and his affair with sophia loren, or pablo picasso and anyone
back to the mules tho’ they heavy laden have to lug everything up the hills, it’s horrible to see the deep rubbed raw sores on their backs, the toil, the near drunken gait as they stagger onwards and upwards.
what do they carry? mineral water, beer, huge sacks of rice, the kitchen sink. Often they are lumbered with twin gas cannisters, an incredible weight.
puts me in mind of a nepalli suicide bomber, just strike a match babe, start anew, it’s all over now baby blue.
osama bin down laden?

the mules have colourful embroidered head bands and each with a bell around it’s neck, the bells are of apparently random size, some with a tinkle, others with a deep throated dong, do the bells get selected on the basis of their personality? or does character follow as a result of the bell?
a bit like which chicken from the flock is selected for slaughter each night, definitely and literally pot luck
Regardless the continual crankle tong would swiftly drive me insane, how do the muleteers cope?
ah now i know, one of them passed me wearing an ipod, the modern world creeps even into the heart of the mountains, wonder what he’s listening to? music for mule traders?
they have a distinctive ulullating shout for the mules and are deadly shots with a hard hoiked stone.

anyway todays route was up, up, up, climbed over 1000 metres during the day, the first section was the stone staircase to Ulleri
crossing the first of many suspension bridges i held my cane out before me, like a quarter staff, feeling very much like Little John and Robin Hood, Finn would have loved to be here
At other times with my floppy sun hat and head high staff, i felt like Gandalf the Grey… I guess that he’d have to be grey, coz such be the dirt, even persil wouldn’t wash whiter than white.
I was thinking well, i’ve done this trek when i was 20, 40… maybe i’ll come back when i’m 60, with Finn and Sherbailey, i’d need a porter by then… and what if, god willing, i came back when i’m 80, ha i’d need a stannah stair lift to Mukhtinath by then.

finally after much plodding reached Ullerri, a very stoney village, the landscape becoming harsh, a real eagles eyrie of a place

….. to be cont’d (eventually)

Bodhnath (again)
i just love this place so much that i had to come back again on my last day in nepal.
 
One of the many meditational gestures the buddha uses is like an ok sign (hey whats next. Buddha giving the thumbs up!). Actually it’s more like 2 interlinked ok signs and actually indicates Buddha turning the Dharma wheel of life. That’s pretty much what we’re all doing at Bodhnath, around and around the stupa we go, it’s quite a long way 500m round(?), a slow perambulate, circumnavigate. Sunwise. turning, turning the Wheel of Life
A bit like being on a Roundabout!
I’ve got the hurdy gurdy carousel Magic Roundabout tune in my head.
I don’t think i’ve ever felt more spiritually connected with a building, awesome. From the moment I arrived there, gazed up at the Buddha eyes on top of the Stupa, the whole top all glowing golden in the subtle sinking sunlight.
 
I climbed up with some of the other devotees, above the base of the Stupa, just wave after wave of feeling heart happiness, I sent Warmth and thanks to all the people I love, holding you all, one by one, for a moment, in my heart
Looking up at the prayer flags as they furl and unfurl in the breeze. They were strung out like washing. A long, long line, 50 metres from where i stood, up to be tethered right at the pinnacle. Actually the Stupa looks like a big old be-tentacled Octopus!
 Their colors. Red, White, Green and Blue.
 
I stayed at one point where the flagswere lowest and densest, they brushed against my brow and i felt happy. Gazing up through them as the sway, sometimes hiding, sometimes revealing the Buddha eyes. Peekaboo.
Have you ever seen footage of a Forest of Kelp, somewhere off the coast of California, On attenboroughs Planet Earth, I believe. Long, Long ropes of vegetation, coiling and uncoiling, eerie glades of submarine sunlight. it was just like  that!
Before I get too carried away with my proesie, for the tibetans it’s half religious ritual half social event
feet firmly back on the ground, on i went, saying ‘Om Mane padme Hum’ actually feeling the words reverberate in my breast (think KoyanaSquaatsiii. ho ho), twirling the prayer wheels
yet also keeping a smile and a look for the gaggles of girls, they’d always be in threes, skipping around, holding hands, cheerful.
little kids giving each other piggyback. One legged hopalong cassady beggars
Next a pick up truck full of crimson robed monks goes past. beep beep. Everyone chases it!
Finally the truck comes to rest and the monks start giving out bags full of biscuits. bundle! he monks were near lost neath the heave and scrummage of bodies. greedy grasp of hands. Hilarious.
Next they opened one of the shrine images. A Silver mekong type buddha, volutously robed
 
Before him was a space for offerings, quickly there grew up a huge pile of Rice, biscuits and apples, later to be given away to the poor and orphans
It was all gloriously medieval and modern and just joyful
brill
 
the taxi driver on the way over was a very interesting fellow……
……………………

My other big friend Kely is an ozzie, 28, very attractive, one time life guard, she’d spent the last year and a half working in London and was now dawdling slowly home.
She’s always worked in the cosmetics business, something for Estee Lauder, I haven’t yet asked her what she makes of my moisturiser free, sun ravaged visage. ha the cracks are beginning to show, i’d be better off investing in polyfilla.
her home town is Coffs Harbour and she lived in Sydney for years, both places i know quite well
Her boyfriend is also called Kelly! freaky narcissism! I thought it was Oedipally bad enough that both my mum and pam are both called pam (they look nothing like each other i hasten to add)
she met boyfriend Kelly in Africa, apparently he’s a kiwi and a hunky brickie. He keeps on sending her texts saying ‘What are yer wearing?’, apparently this is a common text topic from blokes. me and coz have been adding suggestions as to how she should respond.
I think we all got a bit carried away as he texted back from a family bbq with an agonised ‘please stop’. ho ho
She’s down here in Bangkok now, so it’s been good meeting up with her in the evening and comparing adventures
she looked at the room i’m staying in and rejected it with a ‘her on earth would stay in this!’. the answer me, well yes indeed it is an airles shoe cupboard. Just a fan and a flophouse mattress, but it’s cheap… and the cafe downstairs is great .. and i’m going to have to get used to sleeping in the stifling heat soon.
Mostly tho’ it’s because i went to 5 other places and they were all full and i couldn’t be bothered hoiking my backpack on my shoulders anymore!
Kelly is staying in a slightly more salugbrious air con pad. natch
Anyway confusing myself, so much still to tell about nepal, which was just a blast! missing the cool and the absence of tourists already
Kelly was working in an orphanage in Pokhara (‘cept for when her mum came out and they went off trekking together!)
Sounds like all the kids were snot nosed but lovely.. and really appreciated all the attention, neither her or coz were particularly impressed by any of the organisations involved.
the guy who ran the orphanage was a christian bod, his own children were in the orphanage too and got preferential treatment, the previous volunteer had brought all the kids socks before she left, but the owner had confiscated them! they were only to be worn for best, which rather defeats the point of the gift!
Kely had got them all clean knickers before she left, but was continually concocting plans as to how to smuggle them onto the kids. life shouldn’t be so hard
Makes me think of how lucky my kids are and for that matter how we all are in the west
We all moan and grumble about debt, about being unhappy, but really are just billionaires, I am one of the most privileged people in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, at the wealthiest time in history. It’s nothing profound, just stating the bleeding obvious, i, and all of us just should find someway to just be happy.
Healthcare in Nepal is fairly rudimentary. If someone gets run over (and they all drive like demons possessed. ‘Slow Down’ ‘Chill Out’ I find myself shrieking at the fume spouting traffic, 10 times a day!), if someone gets runover and is injured, the driver who caused the accident has to pay compensation to them for the rest of their life.
Grimly, if somebody is runover by a truck, it’s not uncommon for the truck driver to reverse back over them, to finish them off.

Back to the more mundane grumbles of the volunteers, the guesthouse they were staying in was undergoing building works, had a 9pm curfew, no common area, was noisy, away from lakeside, no garden and was costing them 300rps a night (nearly what i was paying)
ust by chance Mike the head of the volunteer organisation POD was over staying that week, he hadn’t visited in 4 years, a bit of a show down meal followed
Mik was a pleasant enough fellow. Very Public School, properly spoken, upright posture and an ex army officer. A nice bloke, but not really one to drink with till dawn.
Broadly speaking i’d say the volunteer organisation was trying to do the right thing, heart in the right place, the volunteers had to pay quite a lot of dosh to work in the placements, but where the money broke down was interesting, firstly the salaries and infrastructure back in the UK, then there were the huge fees to teh tibetan bloke who organised the volunteers locally
In a nutshell none of the cash actually got through to the poor people who needed it
Despite all the good intentions in the world. money just finds money. sad really.

Kathmandu – Durbar square
the courting couples tuck themselves away around the corner of each temple
The roof supports for each of the pagodas are lewdly carved in the evocative postures of the kama sutra, they wink, wink, nudge, oogle down encouragingly on the youngsters
for some reason i have the squeeze song ‘pulling muscles from a shell’ revolving about my noggin. ha

Nearby there is a shrine with a banyan tree growing straight out of it, the Banyan, so fully grown now, that the shrine is near shattered

There is some palaver at the Royal Palace, into earshot comes that dreadful Tibetan Din!
A mish mash of drums and cymbals, with the occasional ominous bellow of horns, a real awful oompa pa pah rumpus…. oh and ornamental umbrellas … as along comes the procession, no clue what it is about, but, pleasantly, involves a lot of colourful parasols, everybody is done up to the nines in traditional garb, solemn but smiley
I always used to travel with one of those brollies on a spring, georgii markov, push the button and out it zonks, very business man james bond, ‘cept mine was green and red.
i went up mount sinaii with it up, in the desert it doubled as a very useful parasol!
………………………..

the bus ride to Pokhara

peering out the window, the road sweepers use reed brushes to sweep the dust from the pavement to the road, then pleasingly from the road bact to the pavement, cyclically karmic
the rivers are just clogged up with rubbish, plastic just never goes away.

I’m playing my mp3 player, the songs on it are just the ones i borrowed from the library before the cd drive on our old computer packed up. Mostly world music and folk, but also even Stephen Fry, reading a few chapters of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
I tried to get some more music from my brov, the day before i left i popped down to see him in his office at the Marina, it’s in one of those little yellow and white sheds, on a pontoon, right out amongst the yachts. When the waves are up, and the tide a swell, the entire office bobs up and down in a queasy fashion!
The problem being that my cheapo, 34 squid mp3 player, dang near bust my brothers posh mac! ooops that would have been a disaster, all his Scott of the Antartic scripts lorst in the Antartic wilderness!
I have decided that as i have 628 songs i may just as well play them all once through consecutively, then again. mostly because i cannae be arsed learning how the pesky thing works, but also pleasantly passive and once more round and round karmic wheel of life. giddy. is 628 a lucky buddhist number? hope so

another bus passes us, beep, beep, honkety honk, this one is called the ‘open heart bus company’, ha, reckon i’d like to be on that bus!
i’ve worked out why theres just so much horn parping, the trucks, all crudely cartoon painted with shiva, buddha or some other useful road demons god, also have a big ‘please honk’ on their derriere
The system is when you wish to overtake you honk, the truck checks whether it’s clear, honks to say it is, you overtake, honk your thanks, then the truck driver honks once more, well just because he can! Generally this works well, ‘cept our driver, like most, seems to reckon it’s a good idea to overtake, uphill, with a fully laden bus, wellying the acellerator, is a bit like flogging a dead horse. we slow motion skiddaddle by, emotion blurr
Natch it’s always a blind bend and a steep plummet away to the bottom of the valley. Fun really, hair pin bends give a great view to the plush green countryside. terraces, they are kind of visible contour lines?

…………………

A stroll to the peace pagoda in pokhara

The first step is to hire a rowboat from down by the ghat, my ‘driver’ is a young burly water boatman, a cheery fellow, he enquires if i wish to have a row, nah think i’ll conserve my strength for the hike, so instead i dandle my hand in the cool water, feeling the pull and plunge of the cool water at our passing, lolling about like the lady of shallot!
It’s a big old, deep lake, on a clear day the entire Annapurna range reflected in it’s placid depths.
I’m not a huge fan of lakes, like in the Auden Poem (“praise of Limestone’?) i feel that the spirits and demons of lakes are spiteful and capricious, like the swiss really!!
I wonder if theres a Loch Ness Monster in here? Asleep if she is… Nessum Dorma?
Nessum Korma?
Gone Fishing? Yetti Netty Nessy?

… Anyway, there really is a tiger in the hills hereabouts, i’ve now heard so from at least 3 people, one dog i met, a sturdy mastiff, as they mostly seem to be, was called tiger, the reason being that his mother had been taken by the tiger.
apparently they have quite a taste for dog meat, so, not safe at all to go roaming with your trusty hound!
the Tigers make some sound, a strangled screech, which is neither a cough, nor a roar.

Once to the other side of the lake, it’s a steep steep climb up to the pagoda (nothing compared to the hills to come!), not much there, but the walk back down through the forest is a delight, all glades and dappled sunlight. dragonflies hover and bathe in the sunshine, then zzzip away to the next patch of light.Butterflies meanwhile, oh gaudy melodrama, they erratic flap, then tragic flop. lovely colours!
Somewhere down below the path a couple of water buffalo burly rustle through the undergrowth. For some reason i am reminded of Obelix and his wild boar.
Birds tweet tootfully in the canopy, near invisible but to all but the most resolute Bill Oddie, not quite sure how, the one i spotted had a red breast and was much like a bull finch but brighter!
I stop at one place and all ’tis mellow, it’s like a spirit point, i just visualise, in turn all the people i love and see what happens. I’ve been doing it a lot this holiday, the best times are like now out amongst nature, else when transfixed in front of one of the shrines, or failing that in the time when your mind is calm and you are just slipping away to sleep. Something about the brain wave patterns? Any roads, if you just empty your heart, it is amazing how beautiful the things are that come to fill it. Hope the people i’m sending too can in some way feel it? Hope also you know who you are. keep safe. Spirit peace. Love
………………..
getting ready for my trek, i relaxed with a day in which my mission was to mostly further grow my beard! It’s coming on well. bushy Grizzly Adams, with a lot of grey!
oh and i also had to buy 2 hats, you can do anything with 2 hats, one was a daytime sun hat, plain and beige, with a big floppy brim, to keep the suns rays off my noggin. halfway twixt a pilgrims hat and a cowboy hat, slightly too small, so i had to ram it down over my dreads.
Hmm now i’m remembering when i used to go swimming in Prince Regents at Brighton, lengths, making a wake, up and down, splish splash, to and fro. toiling nowhere. My swim hat was one of those rubbery plastic ones, green, i had to really pull and polythene stretch it over my head. My bunched up dreads bulged out beneath it, it looked liek a giant brain tumour… or maybe an extra from Star Trek
accch now i’m remembering my swim hat at the hot springs pool in Karlovy vary, Czech Republic, we all poodled about amidst the primeval steam, swim hats, beflowered and smartie bright colours. very beautiful!
Oh and the other hat i managed to buy, back in the here, was a pink and purple big knit wooly number, perfect for keeping my ears toasty at night, up above the snow line.
It’s got tassels. result!
Much to my own suprise, I also purchased a Down sleeping bag and a big thick down jacket in dark green, which i like very much. stylish and very puff pastry
I was only going to rent them for the trek, but a bargain at under 30 pounds for the pair, prob being now, to get them home, i’ll have to lug them all through the swelter bucket tropics. rats!
i have never mastered the ethos of travelling light, a naturally cluttered and burdened personality.
I shall be bowed ‘neath the weight of me own belongings
mini the minimalist

…………………

well I know i need to gabble on about the trek, but it’s a big thing, so i’ll just tread water with a waffle about the people, friends i made in Pokhara, so far my diary spew has been a bit short of people!
My best mate so far has been Coz, he’s been a total superstar and literally a lifesave. cheers buddy. When i had those 7 nights on the trek when i didn’t bump into anybody, the only thing that salvaged my sanity was that getting back to pokhara, i knew he’d be there for a beer and a gossip.
I met him straight off the plane in kathmandu, in the visa hall, whilst we were both puzzling through the bureaucracy.
He’d been on my plane all the way from London, but i didn’t notice him till Bahrain. apparently i aimlessly bumbled up to the departure gate. ha. but that was because, of all places, i had a mystical experience, feeling, revelation in the airport there! really powerful
We were united by fancying the Dutch women, but as there were 5 of them and beautiful, they were near impossible to approach.
Coz gave me a lift into town and we stayed in the Hotel Excelsior. His room had no hot water, wheras mine always did, a bit culture shocked we both went out drinking together the first couple of nights in Kathmandu.
He was over here to be a volunteer and was off to Pokhara to help the kids in an orphanage, he had a big passion for sports and had bought a huge kit bag full of footballs and cricket gear to entertain the little ones with.
Lifestyle wise you’d think we had little in common, his favourite topic of conversation was filth and smut. as a country boy, from Warminster (Stone henge, longleat way, off the A303!) he also had a passion for guns and broadly speaking blasting small animals to buggery kingdom come.
He loved boxing and had spent his childhood in trouble fighting, left school with 2 gcse’s at 16, a lifelong spurs fan, a substance abuser, a potential suicide
His dad was in the SAS and afterwards had a stab making Wiltshire amateur porn videos.
Coz is tho’ a quality geezer, really good bloke, always with an interesting tale or too, and yet ever interested to listen to whatever tale i was telling.
he’d learnt a lot from the free party scene around where he grew up in the ’90’s and was a big fan of dj’ing and the hip hop vibe, into his mushies and hash.. oh and his mum was a mystic horoscope type.
Quite a contrasting individual.

His life had though just fallen apart spectacularly, even more dramatically than mine
He’d been going out with Anna, a cop for 5 years, they had a house together and he worked as a computer programmer, fair set for a placid middle age.
Then she’d dumped him, he went off the rails, crashed a car whilst drunk in the woods, lost his licence, lost his job, his mod security clearance. Had to go to therapy for various substance abuse and then come out here as a volunteer!
In reality he seemed completely, utterly sane.

After hanging out in Kathmandu, we then met up again when i got to Pokhara, he’d got friendly with another volunteer Kelly from oz (more on her later, i hope) and also with Prasang, a sweet, quite western Tibetan fellow, Prasang looked a bit like Tin Tin and supported Manchester United.

No room at the orphanage, so Coz had just started teaching at ‘Mother of Compassion’ Tibetan school. Apparently on the first day he’d been warned by the head lama (who built the school), the head teacher and the volunteer supervisor, that under no circumstances was he to sleep with any of the female teachers. Obviously a big cultural No No!
One of the female nepalli teachers was always coming on to him, but not a good idea, they would have chopped his todger off!
On his first day Coz had used all the balloons he’d bought over and the other props and after that just had to wing it!
Coz would say that the tibetans are like jews at the end of the Nineteenth century, in a way there are similarities, the Tibetan community are keen not to integrate, they all live in various large refugee camps (4 around pokhara) and are keen to preserve their culture.
theocratic in outlook, this is coming under threat from western influence, gangs and related problems are starting in the camps. Tibetans are also quite remarkably good at making money and also at generating quite a lot of funds from western donors. On the whole there a grand bunch with a mischievious humour

One day after I’d come back from trekking his school was having it’s annual concert. all teh kids from his classes had been practicing their dancing and singing for months! The concert was in the town hall and was in an exposition of Mustang culture (the Tibetans in the school were all from the Mustang province), there was quite a big police presence as Nepal has forbidden Tibetans to gather in numbers, except for cultural events like these.
Coz and Kelly were worried that the event might be like the party for Losar, the Tibetan New year, from a few days before apparently 10 hours of turgid dancing and Dahl Bhatt, culminating in the fabled yak dance, which was 2 blokes in a pantomime horse costume!
This concert got off to a slow start, the crown prince of mustang was there, so he had to be thanked 12 times, then the chief donors of the school, an elderly, wealthy swiss couple had to be thanked and presented with the largest Rosettes on the planet.
then the school Lama made a very serious speech, another made a speech, these were obviously quite political in nature, i was reminded of the political seriousness i encountered when i first went to live in Prague.
The place was packed out, crammed to teh rafters, the entire Tibetan community was out, on the whole a dowdy and poor bunch, yet all in high humour, kids spilling out of every seat, folk hanging off the balcony above. Flicking peanuts at each other and us (and Kelly claims in one case bogies!) A big social event all round.
finally the music started, on the whole it was brilliant.
The main performer was Ani Cheung, a Tibetan Nun, she had obviously lived some years in Canada and sung these tibetan chants and ballards, she had a phenommenal voice, the songs i loved were the acapello buddhist chants, one of them sent me into a trance, visualising once more the folk i love, the songs i wasn’t so keen on were any of those with a musical accompaniment, all came over as a bit twee!

Next act up were Shambala, a rock band with a funky tibetan instrument slant, all of their songs started interestingly, then seemingly went nowhere! Most of the problem were the audience, they all listened in respectful silence, but not an infectious bunch prone to head nodding and leaping uncontrollably about!
For a while i was standing by the side of the stage and was very tempted to do a bit of stage diving or a Talking Heads ‘Stop making Sense’ style boogie. Felt i should be respectful too, just for once.

when the kids came on though, a totally different atmosphere, whooping and hollering, everyone was related to one of them in some way!
The boys, as is the way of teenagers seemed so much younger than the girls, the boys all wore furry hats and had painted on tashes and beards, the girls, no beards, but beautiful traditional garb
All of them had these long, long sleeves, which they wafted in the air chinese silk ribbon style
some of it was quite mustang region line dancing, but on the whole it was just great, everyone loved it!
My favourite bit was when one of the boys fell over and lay on the floor for 3 minutes, one of his mates went over to help him up, very sweet, everybody cheered.
Apparently the boy who made the pratt fall is both the class clown and quite camp, apparently he fell over whilst playing heads and volleys and lay there writhing and clutching his groin for 5 minutes, telling everyone, that he’d ‘twisted his pen’ ha. now theres a euphemism
his nickname is ‘Prime Minister of the Donkeys’, as apparently he admitted to riding a Donkey once, this caused great hilarity amongst the Tibetans, Mustang men they are proud of their horse manship and their famous steeeds.

ooops me times up, it was agreat concert and a good day out, back to moondance for our supper afterwards!

err guess i should first off point out the obvious, none of the photos posted are any i’ve taken! ‘cept maybe a a few

The first after i got into Kathmandu, woke to find that it was a day of riot and demonstrations, apparently the government had raised the price of petrol and kerosene, yet again.
They’d tripled the price in the last year and folk just couldn’t stomach it anymore
Sure it never even made the news back home but they were the worst upheavals, since the king finally, and reluctantly, relinquished some of his power a year ago.
Good to see such a display of people power, all that i witnessed was overwhelmingly peaceful and good natured, but reports in the paper were not so benevolent
The problem obviously is that the economy is quite heavily dependant on tourism, Kathmandu (off season i know), bbut it does seem loads quiter tourist wise than 20 years ago,
any more troubles and the tourists probably won’t come at all. Still power to the people and all that! as far as i’m concerned.
Thankfully the government backed down the next day and all returned to the cheerful bedlam of normalacy.

The morning was spent huddlimg in internet cafes, sending emails and not quite sure what was happening
Every few minutes there’d be a ruckus a couple of streets away and in a minute, clang, clatter the shops would hurtle down their shutters and we’d be locked inside.
Exciting stuff!
At every road junction the protesters had dragged barricades across and lit fires
The fires consisted of burning tyres, periodically these would explode. The sound of an exploding tyre is exactly that of an exploding bomb. They go off with quite a force!
Whats more they burn with an acid stench and the smoke is a black, vulcanised smog, smells horrible, everytime you wipe your forehead, it comes away mottled black with dirt.
as though the pollution in Kathmandu wasn’t bad enough
After lunch i decided that after all it was a good day for a walk and decided to head for the burning ghats of Pashupatinath, the most holy Hindii site in Kathmandu, where they cremate all the bodies
I guess if theres going to be smoke and bedlam, may as well be holy smoke
It was actually remarkably easy walking out there, no cars, so much more pleasant than usual, all the demonstrators i met were in quite a festive mood,
they wore face masks, but that may well have been against the smog, rather than as is the fashion of anarchists everywhere
The times that Police sirens sounded in the distance, the mood noticeably darkened, they bristled.

Many folk came up, asked where i was going and pointed me on my way
The usual questions followed ‘which country’ I remember one small boy who helped me at a wrong turning, he very much reminded me of Finn.
He was non plussed by the capital of England, but, as ever, ‘Manchester United!’
So far as Nepal is concerned ‘David Beckham’ remains the most famous human being on the planet. I countered with ‘Christiano Ronaldo!’
He responded ‘Ronny’, only later did i grasp, it was old Jimmy Sommerville, spud head lookalike ‘Wayne Rooney’ he referred too

Once i got to Pashupatinath i found it a sombre yet calm place, without wishing to be a ghoulish, diana car crash type voyeur, you can stand within 5 feet of the ghats and watch the bodies burn
They are wrapped up in white windings, but all burn through to the skeletons.
There are a special group of men responsible for the burning, they mostly resemble ruddy faced trolls, the job consists of neatly stacking large piles of wood,
hoiking the body on board, then adding presumably sanctifying ghee and tending to the fire
It actually takes a suprisingly long time to burn a body and a large amount of wood, i guess we are not as combustible as i’d imagined
The family stand around watching, none of them seemed that sad, subdued and just getting on with it was the general vibe

The old woman being cremated, which i stood watch over, didn’t seem to have any family, a regular, Eleanor Rigsby.
I guess if there is any message here it is the great leveller of death. We are born alone, we die alone.
Having said that tho’ in the stratified Hindu world view, there are different burning ghats depending on your caste and social position.
I found the whole process oddly reassuring, a very coherent response to death, which allows for ullullating, mourning and the necessary rituals of grief.

Afterwards i dodged the guides and the quick buck ‘one photo, photo’ Sadhus. These Babas are as dressed up as your be Mohawked London Punks.
They doo look an impressive site in their faded saffron robes, the flourish of whiskers and skin caked with dust, all topped off with a forehead red daubed with the Tikka.

Once on the other side of the river, you can see the pre burning rituals, the familly comes from the temple down to the Bagmatti river, holy in Nepal, and here annoints the corpse with the water
poking from beneath the bindings a pale yellowed foot.

It was now that 3 young girls approached me, they were wonderful and lightened the whole affair, they were just local girls, bored at home and out to Pashupatinath for a muck about
The eldest and quitest was about 13, along as chaperones for the younger two, obviously sisters
One was shyer that the other and whispered all her english questions to her sister
the spokes girl tho’ was an incredibly charismatic, beautiful, radiant child. I can’t imagine what she’ll be like when she’s older, but had these incredible almost blue hued eyes, bush curly brown hair
Thinking about it she looked quite Kashmirri. a very striking bunch.
It was all the usual good natured chatter, refreshingly they didn’t want anything,
with the kids in Nepal always it’s just a good natured joke, they ask for sweets, mitaii, rupees and the traditional ‘school pen, just something to say with a good natured, huge grin!
I gave these kids, a couple of English 10p pieces, shiny silver, just so that they had something to show their classmates.

They said they’d show me the way to Bodhinath, the nearby Buddhist Stupa, centre and spiritual heart of the Tibetan refugee community
We set off up the hill, i sang them a nursery rhyme, Sherbaileys fave, the grand old duke of york, the marching up the hill bit seemed approapriate!
They didn’t know this one, but countered with a hindii ditty
we all then joined in for a rousing rendition of ‘baa baa black sheep’ and even more pleasantly incongrously ‘jingle bells, jingle bells’, more Dzingle bells in their version!
Acch i wanted to sing them ‘do your balls hang low, can you tie them in a knot!’ , that would have taken me back to the school bus home from Esher C of E, but rather lewd for 9 year olds.

At the top of the hill they got bored, turned for home and pointed me on my way, the angel child asked me tho’ ‘why are you sad?’
how can you answer a child a question like that! We had just been at a cremation, but generally lonely, heartbroken, a little lost, are we not all of us, much of the time some of these
seems i am.

On to Bodhinath i wandered, got there about 4:00 o’ clock and wow!
At this time of day all the Monks, old women, young children are out.
The Stupa itself is a huge white mound in an ancient square, it is layered like a wedding cake, festooned with brightly coloured prayer flags, all a flap in the wind.
Atop of it perches a pair of Buddhas eyes, with the quizzical, spiralled nose beneath it. I’ll put a picture up, you’ve seen it before i’m sure.
The main action though is below, the whole community circles and circles in a clockwise direction, twirling the hundreds of prayer wheels and chanting the sacred mantra, ‘Om Mane Padme omm’
teh shaven haired monks in their crimson robes, with their rosary beads, one of them has these huge bottle bottom glasses and an impreswsive set of goofy gnashers!
The old women in their big skirts and thick coats, I join the parade, around and around we go
like water swirling away down the plug hole, going nowhere, still going nowhere, which is partly the goldfish bowl point.
But Such a profoundly spiritual and emotional feeling, that of just being incredibly warm, nurtured, nourished and happy.
Stirring a cup of tea, cream swirl with your heart.
It’s one of those places, wheer all you have to do is just be calm, quiet within yourself and listen, just feel the place with your heart and it is just beautiful
Such a strong sense of belonging
actually you don’t need to listen at all, the whole place just pulsates with spiritual energy, as you approach it, it virtually crackles
take time just to step aside from the gyrating current of people and sit grokking the vibe on a bench
waves of heart pleasure, looking at people, curious and uplifted
I’m deffo going back there when i get back to kathmandu

Oh and i bumped into teh Dutch girls from the airplane, all 5 of them, lovely, funnily they greeted me like an old friend, they were staying out at Boddhinath, volunteering in a school there
all a bit culture shocked, but grappling with it, i said if they were ever in Thamel for a beer. achh, the way things just drift away, when maybe they should happen. chance encounter

Anyway, i got on a tempo (shared cab minibus type thing) presumably heading back to the city? yrt because of the protests it dropped us in the middle of nowhere, somewhere out on the ring road!
The other passengers seemed equally bewildered!
Out here there were soldiers and police everywhere, they looked like they’d been in running battles. all young, strong, a little spooked and sweaty
they had battens and shields and all sat poooped out on the grass
brought it home to me that a fooolish tourist, lost and wandering far from safety hadn’t been the bbest of ideas
they all pointed in different directions when i asked for Thamel?!
all the signs were in Nepalli, it was dusk, a powercut (they’re daily occurences, always seem to be at sunset too!) and everywhere mounds of rubbbish
hey ho Finns compass to teh rescue, the one he got free with a pair of Karrimore shoes
Using this, shanks pony, i trudged wearily but happily back to the Hotel. Quite a day!

Kathmandu, Nepal

‘On Me ‘ead Son’
Om Mane Padme Hum
I bellowed out across Durbar square, my shout was just enough to put the Nepalli kid off and the ball flopped down into the dust
momentarily his expression changed to mildly bewildered before windscreen wipering back to his usual, comfortable smile
1 – 0 to England
well actually about 23 – 1 to Nepal! We were playing a game of keepy uppies and not only was i rubbish at it, hot hoofing it nowhere, but like most of the kids, he was remarkably talented.
The ‘ball’ was made of a big bundle of black elastic bands, splunged and held together by a central rubber band, like some sort of sea urchin sputnik dish scourer!
good fun
the other kid selling candy floss looked on enviously, he wanted to play, but couldn’t neglect the business of hawking his wares
The candy floss, each in it’s individual polythene bag were hoisted on a pole above, individual pink fluffy clouds
hubba bubba above him
like possible cartoon speech bubbles, about his head

………….

down the hurly burly of backstreets, i gawp at people, they gawp back, mutual curiosity, it seems a fair exchange!
One small child is misbehaving, his parents are jokingly tormenting him, his dad spots me, laughing, holds him up to look in my face
‘if you don’t behave you might end up like …that’
the kid is terrified, for all the world like staring at a re-incarnation of one of the beasty demons trampled down by Shiva
he has a point, i am all weary, bedraggled dreads, a bushy brian blessed beard, but now more than half grey
we all laugh

………….

it’s a full throttle, in yer face part of town, cram cramped backstreets, where anything and everything happens
narrow little lanes, with traffic jams of pedestrians, perpetually horn beeping motorbikes and cycle rickshaws
a burly and a surge
comedy gold, i saw that staple sketch of 2 men and a large pane of glass, these poor fellows were trying to manouvere it along the street,
perplexed and worried by the whole kit kaboodle, they had to grappple with the chaos, dodging a motorbike, almost into the path of a porter,
bent double under the weight of 4 boxed television sets and a whole cage of hens
whoah, easy there, shuffle nervously too and fro

…………
there ya go a whole splurge of local colour, the usual slew stew of adjectives, such fun for me to write!
i guess this blog, when i get around too it is goung to have to metamorphise into my travel blog. ho hum
i’m curious as to how it will turn out, with all my old epic posts, a sense of audience was easy, i knew who i was writing too
the trick was always a nice piccie, an anecdote, and then go slightly further than i intended too, but a bit of a tease, i never said ‘owt much
and i only started because it was seen as improper to send emails to who i wanted, such is life

I think as a travel blog, it should be much less polished, more confessional and raw, the blog i enjoyed most over the last couple of years was Joes
you could really empathise with it, you could tell when he was having a major wobble

yeah travelling on your own is harsh, theres lots of those moments. dang painful sometimes
some times are thoroughly brilliant, others, well, you just despair
the days are fine, always intrigue and stuff to do, but evenings spent eating dinner on your own, despair, the other night, after having not spoken with anyone for 3 days, i just went back to my room and burst into tears.
dread my own company, thats when i’ve really missed the kids
selfish really
but then the last 2 days, have been a giggle of chat. You just cannae tell whats around the corner.
It’s scarey and exciting at the same time

acchh just realised i’m away to the mountains tomorrow and theers a whole heap of things i wanted to write about Kathmandu
The riots, Bodhinath, the heart and spook spirit
hopefully when i get back!
love and heart vibes, just being still sometimes and listenning to feelings is betetr than all a babble
x