Flat Stanley

Hine's cousin Monica sent us Flat Stanley, a paper person who travelled with us. Here are some photos with him in. More to follow when we receive the digital photos from John and Di (we, alas, are still using the archaic film cameras !)

Emergency procedures are required to treat Flat Stanley's severed limb, and this was before we'd even left the house !

Here's Flat Stanley with Hinerangi at Auckland Airport, ready to begin the Big Adventure...

Tama and Flat Stanley feeding the birds beside the Chao Praya river in Bangkok

Flat Stanley took some time out to go market shopping with Hinerangi

Unfortunately, Flat Stanley did not wish to go mountain climbing, so in Kathmandu he went missing, we believe in search of tigers. Luckily for Hinerangi, Flat Stanley's cousin Henry was keen to come trekking in the mountains with us. Here he is at the lookout that overlooks the village Khunde and the Thami valley, hidden beneath the clouds.

Heffalumps

About an hour's drive south of Chiang Mai is the Elephant Centre. It has an elephant hospital, and puts on three elephant shows a day. You can take rides on elephant taxis (where you sit in a large, lurching, seat strapped to the elephant's back).


Here's some shots of us riding the elephants:

Mike on Phatuap

Washing the elephants on the way to the jungle where they spend the afternoon and night. Beccah is on Phatida

Tama and Sri Siam.

Hine dismounts from Songsai via the tag long command (where you slide down the trunk)

We did the Home Stay. This is were you spend 3 days getting trained to be an amateur mahout. We learned the basic commands for mounting, dismounting and general perambulation.

Hine relaxing on Songsai.

Chiang Mai

I like Chaing Mai. It's like Bangkok's chilled out sibling. Traffic densities are similar to Christchurch, compared to Bangkok where it's closer to Spaghetti Junction.

The centre of the city is the Old City which surrounded by a wall and a moat, largely still intact.

Took the kids to the zoo. Pandas !!! White Tigers !!! Fortunately, they appear to have gotten rid of their polar bear (40 degrees C, what were they thinking ?)

The historical museum is worth a visit as well.

The night market is way cool as well. Lots of Hill Tribe artifacts on sale, and heaps of cool items to buy. Definitely up there with Suan Lum in Bangkok.

Kathmandu

Kathandu is back to normal, and even has democracy reinstated. The general impression I got was that the king has finally realised that the writing is on the wall, so has backed down with a view to becoming a constitutional monarch (i.e. better to live like a king for the rest of your life than to be ousted, even if you have managed to amass a fortune of USD300 million).

The Maoists (who are outlawed), even held a rally the day parliament resumed, and I understand it was peaceful. Apparently, their top priority is the removal of absolute monarchy and they are going to be involved in the elected representatives who will rewrite the constitution (and probably remove the King's ability to interfere with parliament).

So, the streets were once again crowded with cars, pedestrians, motorbikes, cycles, rickshaws, cows. There is a very functional social contract for the transport system in Kathmandu. Each of the road users gives way to all other road users. Faster/larger road users will beep those in front to inform them that they need give way or otherwise take care. To use the floral prose found in the Nepali English dailies :

perambulatory egress of all types is thusly amicably fluent

So we got check of Patan, which is one of the two old cities in the Kathmandu valley (the other being Baktopur). The venerable wooden architecture is stunning, and there are lots of nooks and crannies to investigate.

And summer was in, bigtime. Must have been over 30 degrees every day. It was a stark contrast to the subzero temperatures of a few days earlier.

Lukla (Mikaere)

Our trekking group ranged in age from 5 months to 80 years. Fortunately, none of the kids have exhibited any signs of illness whatsoever. Not so for the adults. It seemed all of the adults had some kind of illness (or at least a lack of appetite), so we decided to cut our trek short and head out a couple of days early.

The snow had melted below Khunde, so we made good time to Lukla (3 days trek at our kids pace). The morning we left Lukla (which is the airport used to get to/from the Khumbu), there was a fire in a lodge a couple of hundred metres from our lodge. Lukla has many lodges, and most are along the main road. Many are adjacent to each other, so fire is a major concern. Although fires are rare, there was one that occurred only half an hour's walk from Lukla in a small village a couple of days before we began our trek. It was started by a 5 year old playing with kerosene and matches and 8 adjacent houses were burnt to the ground. Only blackened, cracked (and hence useless) rocks remained.

Lukla, like every other place we visited while trekking, has no fire combatting equipement or crew. People had to organise themselves to save what they could from the burning lodge, and owners of adjacent lodges were ripping up their roofs so they could attempt to prevent the fire from spreading. Because walls are typically made of stone, fire tends to convery via the roof beams.

To get to our lodge, the fire needed to cross the road, which it was threatening to do. After a few minutes, a lodge on our side of the street was smouldering and ready to burst into flame. The lodge owner, Daputi, was very concerned, so we helped her get all her valuable / movable belongings into the back yard.

Basically, we chucked blankets, rugs, bedding etc out a first floor window onto the ground below. Hine and Tama helped move everything onto a large pile of rocks (stored for the purpose of building a large house) in the back yard.

The fire did cross the road, and two lodges started to go up in flames. However, a brave group of locals battled it by ripping up roofing iron and dousing the flames using one saucepan of water at a time. After about 20 minutes they managed to control the flames and save our side of the street.

Luckily, the lodge that the original fire started in was not adjacent to other lodges, so the fire did not spread, helped by the wind blowing in the only direction where buildings did not lie. Only one lodge and 3 adjacent houses were lost. Nobody lost their lives, and the lodge owner had enough time to retrieve their jewellery and money.

We caught our plane to Kathmandu just as the fire was beginning to recede.

Khunde

Today is market day at Namche. The market is cool. Everything is carried in by hand, sometimes for days, by porters.

So I've come down 2000 feet from Khunde to suss out the viability of putting on a BBQ to thank the Sherpas and porters. Last time, we put on a hangi, but this time the aim is to minimise the use of wood.

So far, no cigar. I although I've found heaps of buffalo at the butcher's in the market, I haven't been able to locate any charcoal. Wood is valuable and this whole region is substantially deforested, so we'll probably end up buy the lads some beers instead.

The 40th anniversary celebrations of the Khunde Hospital were good fun. Lots of eating, singing, Sherpa dancing, drinking of chang (local rice wine). I even trained up a bunch of Kiwi and American lads to put on a performance of Ka Mate. Pulling one's shirt off at -5C is pretty exhilarating.

It snowed for three days all up, but now it's beginning to melt. Namche is snow-free and Khunde is awash in slush. I hate slush, you just can't avoid it. The unseasonable weather has resulted in a change in plans. Kath and Tony have pushed on to Dingboche and will rendezvous with us in a few days. I wanted to climb Gokyo Ri, but the trail is impassable, so I've elected to hang out in Khunde. We'll leave in a few days for Thami, which is a monastry a few hours walk away.

Yesterday we held a snow sculpture competition. The kids loved it. Hine made a scale model of Bouddhanath, and Tama and I and his cousins made a snow fort (for later use in a snowball fight). Beccah and her nephew made a volcano (which unfortunately failed to ignite).

By all accounts, things are getting worse in Kathmandu. Curfews appear to be in force, and strikes have been hitting essential services. Basic necessities (petrol etc) are in short supply
and prices are rising.

Hopefully it will be reasonably stable when we get back to Kathmandu in a week's time.

Namche

I love trekking. No cars. Only the clickclack of walking poles and
the occasional dull ring of zupjock bells, or the bright jangle of
horse bells.

It is day 4 of our trek and we've made to Namche which is about 11000
ft above sea level. To get here we followed the Dud Khosi river,
traversing ridges and crossing it several times. Apart from the bridge
in Hine's post, they are all new and made of metal which as very
reassuring.

On the first day I decided to get some rope to make a harness for Tama.
He's fearless, which is not a great thing when one encounters cliffs.
So I told him it was a mountaineering rope and got him into wearing it.
The problem is, when he're wearing it, he's even MORE fearless. Doh !
Yesterday's trek was pretty hard going. After about 4 hours of some
reasonably hard up/down walking we got to the bottom of the hill to
Namche. It's a 480m vertical slog, and took almost 2 hours up
grinding, uphill effort. A couple of our crew hired horses to get up.
I found it hard, but if I was 80 or laid low by a serious flu, I'd pony
up for a horse too. Turns out the horse guide is deaf, and he really
enjoyed having a conversation we Beccah in sign.

On our way up the river, we had excellent views of Trem Serku, a
forboding peak that has only been climbed once, but the expedition that
Beccah's father, John and his good friend Fu Dorje were on. They made
the first ascent in 1963 (I think) and no other expedition has every
made it to the top.

Anyway, we were all so tired that we decided to stop at Namche. Just
as well. Namche is set in a natural ampitheatre so all of the
buildings have million dollar views across the river valley to a range
of towering, snowclad mountains. The buidings are made of stone and
there are drystone walls and terraced fields everywhere. Awesome.
While I was out shopping and meeting people, my snow sense told me snow
was on the way. So I asked Fu Dorje, who lives up the hill at Kundee.
He is a veteran trekking guide and mountaineer, and said, nope, no
snow.

Sure enough, this morning we got about 20cms of powder. I love snow,
it makes everything magical. But it's wet snow, like you get at
National Park. I'm so glad we're in a lodge because camping on damp
ground is simply awful.

John spoke with some Sherpas who have lived in Namche all their lives.
There has never been snow this late in the season in living memory.
After breakfast in a 300 year old Sherpa house/lodge up the hill a bit,
I took Hine and Tama for a snow fight. It was very cool, and we made a
snowman too.

We're off to Kundee tommorrow so attend the celebrations of the 40th
anniversary of the opening of the Hospital. Beccah's parents, John and
Di were the first Doctor and Teacher team. Many other doctors have
come from NZ and Canada (mainly) to attend. It's going to be cool.
So, we have a 3 hour slogg up the hill in the morning through slush
(initially) and powder once we gain altitude. It's a 2000 foot vertical
climb which will be challenging. We've got some Sherpas on standy to
carry Hine and Tama if they get too tired.

Internet here is murderously expensive (10 rupees PER MINUTE vs 20/hour
in Kathmandu). Also, won't be posting until we get to an internet
connection again (subject to curfews etc). Might be a couple of weeks.
Ka kite.

Kathmandu

I Love Totalitarianism

The curfew started an hour before our plane landed. After we queued our way through the interminable Nepali Customs beauracracy, we collected our bags and made our way to the the pre-arranged bus. Although there was the usual gaggle of taxi touts and luggage helpers, the carpark was mostly empty and there were no queues of taxis or motorised rickshaws.

Three police officers accompanied us on the bus, and two were wearing Tourist Police uniforms. The streets of Kathmandu were silent, the emptiness broken by the occasional squad of soldiers and militarised police. I saw no one at all, not even in compounds or at windows. Utterly surreal.

The soldiers wear standard green-brown camo which is somehow more reassuring than greyscale urban camo. Interestingly, the police camo is various shades of blue. I'm not sure what environment against which they expect to blend, maybe they are members of the Crack Jacuzzi Attack Squad ;-)

Curfews suck, bigtime. The good news is that we're staying in the Malla Hotel, which is well-appointed and centrally located. Unfortunately, so is the Imperial Palace, so we have a soldiers outside the hotel's gate. Luckily the curfew is not 24 hour, and for the last couple of days we've been able to get out in the moring and in the evening. It intensifies the generic chaos that one usually associates with Kathmandu (and Thamel, the tourist zone, in particular). Our hotel has internet, but the person with the passwords is unable to make it work, so we can't make posts or collect emails etc. The GSM network has been turned off so we can't even send txts.

Yesterday we spent the curfew (1100 till 1800) at Yanjin's house in the suburb of Maharajgunj. Yanjin is Diane's (Beccah's mum) bloodsister. We have awesome Sherpa food and spent the afternoon catching up with our Sherpa friends and drinking San Miguel. The curfew is not really in effect in the suburbs. The ladies walked to the local woman's massage house for some beautification and relaxation. I went for a walk down to the local shops. Most were open, but I still couldn't find an internet connection. I did discover a local game that is a cross between pool and air hockey. The board is square and lubricated with talc. Instead of balls, the game is played with discs. The players take turns to use a "cue" disc to knock a disk of the appropriate colour into one of the four corner pockets.

Blood

Moko are uncommon here and I receive a lot of attention from the locals for my kapowai moko. A young Sherpa man approached me and asked in excellent English if I was a Blood. He reasoned that since I was wearing a red tee shirt and had a tatoo on my arm, then I was probably a Blood. He's from the US and his name is Lil Lock, which he has tatooed on the underside of his forearms. He wore a cap over a black bandana, and on his stomach he had the acronym M.O.B. which he said stood for "Money Over Bitzes".

Two of his front teeth are gold. I pointed out that my wife has a gold tooth. I would have gained more cred with Lil Lock if I'd used a more hiphop appropriate term than "wife", but he seemed impressed enough to hand me his business card. It proclaims in red letters that he is a "G-UNIT SOILDER" [sic]. I told him he should play GTA: San Andreas.

Unrest

As far as we can tell, there has been a lot of localised unrest. From watching the Nepali news, the riots appear similar in scale and nature to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Everyone was throwing bricks (including the security forces), and there were many head injuries and arrests.

Last night the curfew was lifted from 1800 till 2300 so we went down to Thamel to a rooftop bar for a few quiets. We decided to head back to the hotel just before 2200. We stopped to buy some tonic water. Just then, a huge unimog pulled up and soldiers began to disembark. Instantly, word got out that the curfew had begun, and hour earlier than advertised. Previously the vibe had been calm, and tourists were generally allowed to roam around during the curfew. IMO, it's pretty crass to break curfew when the locals can't go out, so we never exploited this tolerance (except in Maharajgunj, where everyone was up doing it). This time the vibe was tense and the soldiers appeared angry. I suspect that the security forces had taken some casualties earlier that day and were pretty angry.

So we marched back to the Malla Hotel. And right out the front, on the opposite side of the road, were a group of soldiers. The vibe was heavy and negative. One crossed the road to stand in front of us. He checked his watch. It was after 2200, so he had the right to shoot us. Fortunately, they let us pass and we made it to the safety of the hotel.

Bangkok ano.

Superheroic
I think I've discovered a new superhero. He can be found at the Royal Dragon Restaurant which is in Bangkok's southeast. According to the Guiness Book of Records plaque at the front of the restaurant, it is the largest restaurant in the world, and can seat 1500 guests. It's so large that some of the staff use inline skates to get around. The tables are situated on square piers that jutt into an artificial klong (canal) setting. On the other side of the klong is a stage and diners are treated to a stage show of traditional and modern Thai dancing with a distinctly Asian rock band in accompaniment.

There is a 250m long dual cable flying fox that runs the length of the klong. At the beginning of the stage show, an announcement is made that Flying Catering Man will now make an appearance. And he does, dangling below the fox and propelled by a motorised dolly. He carries a flaming dish of some kind and careers first up, then down, the fox. It's amazing, and with this guy in attendance, all Evil Doers of the Culinary Persuasion should quake in their boots.

The food was delicious, especially the seafood dishes. It's a bit of a mission to get to, but if you like large scale open air dining, then this is the place for you.

Bizaar

Being a fan of Fritz Leiber, I would like to say I've discovered the Bizaar of the Bizarre. Unfortunately the Bizaar we discovered is more astutely funky than bizarre, so perhaps I'll have to settle for Bizaar of the Bountiful Purchasing Options. It's called Suan Lum Night Bizaar and contains hundreds of stalls. There are plethoric quantities of extremely funky and arty housewares: lamps, vases, lampshades, lights, retro furniture, paintings.

We bought a beautiful painting of the Buddha's face which will have above our fireplace. The artist carefully wrapped the painting, but when we got home we discovered a mosquito had managed to get into the bubblewrap. Nightmare, we'll have to unwrap, check for mossies and then wrap it again.

Getting ready

So, we're off on Monday 3rd of April. It's an 11 hour flight to Bangkok. But at least it will be direct, and not through Sydney, saving 3 hours.

We'll arrive in Bangkok around midnight, which means the traffic will be minimal, and we'll get to the hotel in a fraction of the time during the daytime.

Aucklanders who think their traffic is bad should spend some time in Bangkok...once, it took me 2 hours to get from Khao San Road to the airport, only about 20kms away. I was an hour late to pick up Beccah, who was not best pleased...