First Days Back in Nepal

A Very Big Shopping Trip -- Arriving in Kathmandu and Purchasing Supplies for the Monastery

I remember the first time I drove through the busy streets of Kathmandu when I first arrived last fall. It was all so foreign, so busy, and so disorienting. I was filled with the excitement of the unknown and was surprised at each new thing. The drive I did this morning, though we passed all the same places, felt entirely different. As we made our way through the city we passed places I recognized. The familiar smell of car exhaust, smoke, and incense that wafted through the taxi windows burned my throat but it felt strangely comforting – I was somewhere I know. I was arriving in a country that just seven months ago had been a question mark but now felt like a second home. When I saw Cousin Nima and Uncle Ngima at the airport I ran and hugged them, they are now family and its hard to remember they were ever strangers.

As we drove into the Bouddha area of the city, the streets started to fill with prayer flags and the Hindu temples lining the roads became white stupas. We wound through tight streets until turning down an alley to the Shechen Monastery where I would be staying in the guest house. Passing through the gates of the monastery felt like stepping out of the city entirely. The bustle fell away and the sounds from the birds perched in the many trees filled the air.

On our way into Thamel we stopped at a small corner store for toothbrushes. We looked at the various options and after choosing the ones we wanted we placed an order for 60. The shop owner needed to bring them from the wholesaler so we would pick them up later. We started our shopping trip in a medical supply store where we bought 30 bottles of scabies medication and bandaids. At the medical clinic this past fall, we found that most of the young monks had scabies but since the medication is hard to access in rural areas and we didn’t have any with us at the clinic, most of them have still not been treated. I watched as Nima carefully checked each bottle for the expiration dates and manufacturers information to make sure they were all good.

Walking through Thamel is a fascinating and incredibly overstimulating experience. There are always 100 things to look at but avoiding being hit by motorcycles always becomes the number one priority. No matter where you are you are always in their way and you better be paying attention because they certainly won't stop for you. I forgot to bring a mask and after a short while I began to feel myself wheezing and the air seemed to crackle as it entered my chest.

From there we turned down the small alleyways that led to the clothes market. Stalls were stuffed with everything you can imagine. We arrived at a shop with socks, the same one we had gotten the socks for the monastery from last year. Cousin Nima and Uncle Ngima did all the talking and negotiating. We got 70 pairs of socks, all the specific color of the monks robes. Getting the notebooks was certainly the most tedious of the tasks as the sheer volume made transporting them quite a struggle. We got a total of 450 notebooks, half for writing in English writing and half for Nepali. Leaving all our other stuff at the notebook store we quickly went to buy the soccer balls, volley ball, and ping pong sets. With a bit of a struggle we fit all the stuff into one small taxi and drove back to Bouddha, completing the biggest shopping trip of my life all within the first 6 hours in the country.

Arriving in Kathmandu

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The Shopping Trip

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14 Hours in a Tin Can -- Jeep Ride from Kathmandu to Taksindu

It is hard to describe the 14 hour jeep ride from Kathmandu to the Taksindu monastery as it was an adventure that spanned many conditions, environments, climates, and emotions. Words I would use to describe it include exciting, treacherous, beautiful, bumpy, dusty, sweltering, freezing, dramatic, and nerve wracking. All is to say, it was certainly not just another long car ride.

I left Kathmandu at 5am. With the help of my uncle Ngima and cousin Nima I loaded my three large duffle bags of supplies and rice bags filled with 450 notebooks on top of the jeep. The jeep itself was an incredibly decorated vehicle with every inch of it covered in some sort of sticker, neon lighting, words, or tassles. Because I had so much stuff I needed to arrange a private jeep but the normal capacity is 9 people so there were some extra seats which were filled with three women and two little kids. I got to sit in the front seat and directly behind me was cousin Nima’s youngest who would be accompanying me up to Taksindu. At first I had thought that was very nice but unnecessary – turns out there's absolutely no way I could have done that without him.

As we drove through the outskirts of Kathmandu and a city called Baktipur I was stunned by how grey the skies were. The air hung heavy with a mixture of fog and polluted smog. The roads were busy with many cars, buses, and vans piled high with bags on the roof. Through most of Baktipur the road was under construction and completely unusable so everyone was forced to drive on bumpy gravel paths right in front of the houses. The constant throng of traffic all huffing out black fumes made my eyes burn and my lungs wheeze, despite my N95 mask. The driver played an endless playlist of upbeat Nepali music at full volume the entire way and since I was sitting directly in front of the speaker, my ears throbbed.

After leaving the city we drove through a long stretch of valley. Here, the road had mostly been wiped away by landslides so we were diverted again onto a gravel path that led us to the rocky riverbed. For hours we drove along beside the river, occasionally driving through the water to the other side when the path got too thin. We bumped along with dozens of other vehicles and occasionally sped up to daredevil speeds to pass ahead. There were many near miss head-on collisions. Driving in the riverbed kicked up massive plumes of dust that engulfed the entire jeep and covered my skin in a layer of dirt. The day was hot and sunny and especially sitting right by the engine I was sweltering.

Occasionally the driver would pull to the side of the road for a few minutes to smoke a cigarette

The drive got significantly better once we left the valley and began on the winding jungle roads. The air cooled slightly and the stream of traffic thinned so the air no longer hung heavy with dust. The surrounding greenery was beautiful but the air was still completely grey and I could barley see the hills just across the valley. At one point we drove past an entire hill on fire, sending pumes of smoke into the already choked sky.

After lunch we began driving directly up into the mountains. Whenever we would pass through small villages the driver would momentarily put on his seatbelt in case a policeman sat in their station. The rest of the vehicle was not so lucky to have seatbelts.

We climbed the mountain on steep switchbacks so narrow we were often brought to a standstil when a bus would meet another large truck heading the opposite direction. We would have to wait for them to masterfully manuver backwards and to the closest edges of the roads to pass eachother. Anytime we caught up to another jeep I would immidiatly roll up my window to try and avoid the immense plumes of black exhaust and our driver would often preform nail-biting manuvers at high speeds to pass them. The higher we got the more the weather began to change. For a moment it was a pleasant cool temperature, the first time in the day where I wasnt sweating profusely. That quickly descended into a bitter wet cold as we entered a dense fog cloud and it began to rain heavily. We drove along the narrow cliff edges with barley 10 ft of visibility ahead and more than once the driver made an abrupt turn that kept us from driving straight off. The damp air soothed my lungs and felt incredibly refreshing on my face and for the first time on the journey, the roads were in great contition (though incredibly narrow).

When I saw my first rhododendron my face split into a wide smile. It was a singular flower on a small nush – a bright red contrasting the green leaves and heavy grey of the fog. The roads were lined with pine trees covered in moss and the weather made the entire atmosphere incredibly aesthetic. More rhododendrons filled the landscape and it felt as though I was driving through a watercolor painting. As we entered the region of Solukhumbu I began to see the characteristic white houses with blue tun roofs and big gardens. Upon reaching the town of Salleri, the capitol of the Solukhumbu district, the driver told us we would have to change jeeps as this one was too big to manuver the road from Phaplu to Taksindu. After transferring all the stuff from one car to another they stuffed it so full of people there were two children practically sitting on my lap.

It was about 20 minutes after leaving Phaplu when I understood exactly why the larger jeep wouldn’t have made it. I had driven these roads last year and remembered them as jumpy but overall not too bad. They were nothing like that this time. Trenches of mud sucked at our tires, threating to hold us back and trap us. Boulders the size of basketballs littered the road and many times I heard the painful scrape of metal on rock as we drove over one a bit too big. Sitting inside the jeep felt like riding a mechanical bull, I was thrashed around violently and my elbow felt like it might just snap from keeping my head from slamming into the window. At that force I’m sure it could have cracked my skull or at least given me a wicket concussion so I stayed as far away from any hard objects as I could. The further we went the emptier the jeep became as people left to their own houses. With less people the jeep bounced more and there was no linger anything holding me in place so I was flung around more violently than ever. My arms and knees smacked so hard into the frame of the car I felt certain I would be incredibly bruised tomorrow. The air grew so cold I shivered and wrapped myself as tight as I could in my hoodie. I have been on many adventures in my life but never have I been in such a treacherous car ride. As I was being thrown around my stomach began to experience immense pain that nearly made me cry out. I curled into a ball as best as I could while still protecting my head. Most of my being was miserable – I was in pain from my stomach and the car, freezing cold, and utterly exhausted but I was still incredibly excited to arrive at the monastery and awed by the beauty of the scenery. I had to fight back tears of desperation yet my heart raced with the thought of nearly being there – the place I have thought about everyday since the moment I left seven months ago. After nearly an hour my brain seemed to entirly switch off and I was teetering on consciousness. There were times I felt certain we would have to turn back or get helplessly stuck. The fog was so thick we nearly drove completely off the road and one time our front left wheel (the one directly under me) slid off the cliff and spun freely in the air. My heart sank when I saw the yellow glow of the low fuel alert flash on the console and panic began to grip at my throat at the idea of being stranded in the dark, cold, muddy trenches of the road. I truely have no idea how the jeep (or me honestly) stayed in one piece for the ride.

When at last I saw the glowing lights of the monastery up ahead I nearly burst into tears. It was a beautiful sight, glowing brightly in the fog and the beams of our headlights illuminating the gold and white stupas ahead. For the last hour of the ride I had been listening to the How To Train Your Dragon soundtrack in my headphones (as it nearly felt like I was riding a dragon) and at the moment we crested the hill and saw the monastery the most beautiful and dramatic part of the song began to play and it was as though I had my very own soundtrack.

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