Langtang Trekking

The night before the trek we met up with some Spanish friends (Alba, Pablo, Javi, Arnao, and Anna) that we met in Kolkatta who also happened to be in Kathmandu for a mini vacation after volunteering. It was their last night of travels as their flight back was the next day so the night stretched a little longer than it probably should have. After a few drinks at the Kathmandu Guest House we made it to bed at 1:30am to get up at 5:30am to meet our porter the next morning.

Mike and I are a little bit on a budget so we opted to share one trekking bag for the week and share the expense of one porter. We met Mr. Lama and headed out to the taxi which he paid for and up to the bus stop where we caught our 7.5 hour bus ride that was actually suppose to take 9 hours. Thank God! The first part of the bus ride was horrible as Mike and I had no seat so we ended up scrunched up next to the driver in the front of the bus with two rather large Nepali women who kept moving throughout the bus ride.

After lunch I decided enough was enough and went out on top of the bus where about 50 other Nepalis had been riding the whole time! What a rush! Despite it being the monsoon season, the weather was amazing so there were no clouds which meant I had the perfect view of all the constant death-defying switchbacks which are all so common in a bus ride up the Himalayas. I sat and talked to a Nepali guide for a while. In between comments I would have to duck below overhanging power lines and tree branches.

After about 7.5 hours we were let off at a landslide which was too dangerous for the bus to cross. We got out, registered with the Langtang park officials and set out past the landslides down the first nights stop in the national park to a town called Dunche (Doon-chay). The first night was rather uneventful as we were exhausted from the bus ride and basically slept the whole time in Dunche (sleeping ended up being a common theme throughout the trek).

The following morning we trekked for a town called Syabrubensi where we started up at one of the trail heads. It was Mike, our porter (Mr. Lama), and me with two day-packs and a bag with the rest of our belongings for the next week. We had no food (we could buy food at towns along the way), just Iodine tablets to purify the water from waterfalls coming down the mountains. At this point in Syabrubensi we had been hiking for 2.5 hrs and were a little behind as our LP Nepali trekking guide had the first day's trek start at Syabrubensi and hike for 6-7 hrs to a town called Lama Hotel. For the most part, the first part of the trek was fairly straightforward until we hit a few landslides where we had to find our own way up or down the mountain safely through other obstacles. We were still below the tree line and ran into some vegetation and a certain species of thorn that Mike and I both grabbed onto which made that part of our hands go numb for a few days afterward (probably poisonous). We had been trekking for most of the day when we ran into a waterfall falling straight along the path. There was no way around it or under it except to get soaked so we took out the rain coats and took it on. As it turns out, most of our clothes would not be dry the entire week. That night we stayed in a little town called Bamboo which consisted of two lodges and two families in the middle of the national park. We paid 150 rupee ($2) for a hot bucket shower and actually the same price for the room for the night.

The following morning we woke up early and headed out for the day of catchup. We made it up 400m in the first hour, stopped for some milk tea at Lama hotel where we should have stayed the night before. Then proceeded see how close to Langtang Village (LP guide's stop for night two) we could get for the night. There were a few villages that normally have lodging for the night, however there was a festival going on in one of the other areas of the park so the families had all left and locked up all the buildings. After hours of hiking and a few abandoned villages later we were getting a bit concerned about finding a place to stay for the night as we were all running really low on energy, water, and food as we hadn't had lunch at this point. Finally, after ascending 1500m and an incredibly long day of trekking we made it to Langtang for the night and stayed at one of the nicest places of the trek, Peaceful Hotel. 1760m is in one mile so that was almost a mile up in 1 day!

Day three consisted of a shorter trek up to Kanjin Gompa which is the final city along the Langtang route. It took us a little less than 3 hrs and we found a lodge next to a 700 year old Buddhist Monastery for the night. The next morning when we woke up the views were incredible! I'll upload some pics when I get back to the states. The monastery was really cool to check out and we also went to a yak cheese factory where the manager let us sample some. It was actually really good, although don't worry, it doesn't compare to Wisconsin cheese!

The decent was suppose to take us two days but took Mike and I three days as we had some stomach problems towards the top. The first night we went back to Langtang and stayed at Peaceful Hotel again, followed by another days trek down to a town called Remche (Rim-chee) for the night where we had a nice hot propane shower! Most of the places we stayed at offered solar powered shower, but because of the monsoon season there were alot of clouds which put the nix on a hot shower.

The last day of the trek (day 6) was definitely my favorite part. We decided to take the "high route" back to Syabrubensi instead of the original way that we came which meant we skipped the landslides and waterfalls and also meant we got some amazing views! We had read that if you're afraid of heights don't take the high route because there are some sheer drop-offs along the way. They were right, it was a little nerve wracking at first, but the path was safe in terms of footing so we had nothing to worry about.

We made it back to Syabrubensi and stayed the night in a Nepali hotel instead of a tourist hotel because it was the cheap route. Mr. Lama talked to the locals that night about a bus back to the landslide the following morning. They said it wasn't going to come as there was a motorcycle accident along the way which caused a traffic jam. Since the roads are so narrow there was no way of knowing when the path would be clear again. We decided to give it a go the next morning and see how far we could get. We headed back to Dunche and walked past the landslide where we found a bus to Kathmandu at 12:30 in the afternoon! The good news was that we got a bus, the bad news was we got the back row, which isn't even enough room for Nepalis. I barely fit...I should say I squeezed in. In the US the capacity for this bus would have been 45 or 50. In Nepal there is no such thing as "capacity" so we had easily over 100 people on this bus (including the roof). Tonight I'll be going to get a massage to recuperate!

We made it back to the KGH last night and I have another two full days in Kathmandu before heading back to the states! All things considered trekking was a great experience. Difficult, especially the 1500m climb, but definitely worth it!

Kyle

Chitwan National Park and Kathmandu

Hey Guys!

Mike and I left Kolkatta on August 1st on a train that was scheduled to take 16 hours to get to the border of Nepal at a town called Raxaul which is a major trade route between India and Nepal. Considering none of the previous trains that we took have been on time it turned into just under 20 hours. We were both so tired from taking extra afternoon shifts in volunteering the week before that we were both banking on sleeping for most of the trip as it was an overnight-er. Well as with all traveling you need to be a little flexible, especially in India. About halfway though the night I was woken up by a horde of Indians wearing orange piling on our car in the aisles, between beds and putting down mats wherever then could. They were all wearing orange because that is the apparel of the Hindu pilgrims in the festival of Puja which is around this time of year. This had never happened before so Mike and I think that it was an overflow of people who didn't have any room in the third class seating and had to make do and find other places to stay on the train. There were so many people flooding the train at once that one man opened up the window above my bunk and hoped in through the window over my legs. Mike even ended up sleeping with another Indian for much of the rest of the train ride! As I was lying down in my bed one Indian sat right down near my feet. I knew where this was going, so I made sure and not budge an inch. That lasted for about 5 hours, two of which were spent with me trying to hold back the urge to pee. I knew that the second I got up it would be a free for all for my bed. Sure enough, I got back and three orange, puja-clad Indians were in my seat. By that time the man sleeping in the same bunk as Mike had left, so I went to the upper bunk to chill with him.

We finally made it to Raxaul and walked for about twenty minutes to the border and almost passed into Nepal without getting the official exit stamp on the Indian side of the border. The office wasn't well marked, there was a TON of traffic and there was nothing stopping us from crossing over easily. We finally found this little dusty office near the border, got the stamp, made it through and went to the Nepali border stop on the other side of the bridge in Birganj, Nepal. From there we boarded the first of many Nepali buses through the mountains. It left at 2:30pm and we made it into Tandi Bazaar at 6:30 which is a little over 3 miles outside of Sauraha, Nepal, on the edge of the Chitwan National Park. We found a little budget place there, Chitwan Rest House and stayed in little mud huts which actually happened to be very nice! The staff was amazing and hung out with us for a few hours under a little straw hut while we ate some amazing spicy Nepali curry and made plans to wake up early the next morning to go on a two day jungle walk. We had read up on the rhinos, tigers and sloth bears many times to know how to react if we came upon one that seemed aggressive. We set out a little after 8am and had to cross a river to get into the park. Sure enough, even before we got in the boat, our guides, Poohban and Pasun pointed out a crocodile poking its eyes and snout just above the water in a marsh. Alright, here we go! The guides were very experienced and had years of experience between the two of them so I wasn't worried. We walked through a heavily forested area of the jungle for a while followed by large expanses of 8-13 foot tall grasslands. Every few hours we would come across a lookout tower in the grassy areas where we saw many different species of birds, monkeys, deer and other animals and various crazy looking insects including a bright yellow and green caterpillar which the guides said was in the most poisonous one in all of the forest. Luckily their easy to spot! That night we made into a place just outside of the park as you can't stay inside the national park at night. The place we stayed at was another mud hut, but was just built 6 months ago. It was just about as nice as you could think of a mud hut. Mud walls, floors, and a mud bathroom, equipped with a squatty potty.

We ended up having another amazing Nepali dinner and sharing much of our food with our guides. Nepali people are also very into their homemade wines so we sampled the local white wine selection...ok actually more than sampled. Nepalis don't drink socially, they drink to get drunk. So about halfway through our first few "wine glasses" aka Moonshine, our guides also gave us their portion. Needless to say we were well under our way after about an hour and a half. We ended up sitting around chatting with the guides and the family of the owner of the mud huts until late into the night. We would have felt horrible the next morning if it weren't for a massive amount of food that they served us at 10pm. We ordered chicken beforehand. It wasn't much but seeing as they didn't bring us anymore food, we thought that was our dinner. I don't think I've ever eaten so much rice in my life! We ended up drinking a TON of water afterward, then headed off to bed.

The second day of the jungle walk turned out to be much like the previous day until later on in the afternoon when our guides decided to get off the trail for a little break. We hung out for a while in our tree stand for a few minutes when I spotted a wild elephant! As we took pictures the guides seemed to be discussing something intensely in Nepali which we couldn't pick up on at first. Even through the elephant was a long way off, Poohban was very adamant about leaving. We found out later on that it was for a good reason. He knew that elephant well as it had recently trampled someone a few weeks earlier. If we had not stopped at this tree stand when we did, within the next 3-5 minutes we would have been dangerously close to the elephant! So that was a bit intense. We walked for a ways afterward and finally crossed the river to make it back to Sauraha to finish up the journey. Couldn't have crossed at a better time as there were two rhinos waiting for us on the other side of the river! We were looking for them for 2 days without finding any. Ironically we finally had to leave the park to find them.

We stayed that night in the Chitwan Rest House and got up early the next morning for an elephant ride through the jungle. It was nice to simply ride and not walk for a while. The animals were much friendlier as well and we got within a few feet of various types of deer and wild boars.

After the elephant ride we took a five hour bus ride to Kathmandu and are currently staying at the Kathmandu Guest House which has been amazing. It has HOT water! That was the first hot shower we've had in over a month. Beautiful. Today we went around Kathmandu and made plans for our 7 day trek in the Langtang region of Nepal which will start tomorrow morning with a bus ride we have to be ready for at 6:20am!

Sorry for the grammatical errors/if anything is a bit confusing. I haven't had much time to type tonight as we've had errands to run and are meeting a few Spaniards for dinner that we volunteered with in Kolkatta. They also just happen to be in Kathmandu!

Enjoy and God Bless,
Kyle

The Home for the Dying and Dispensary at Sealdah

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. It all started with Sunday after I had just gotten over another spell with Indian food, I was to lead a group of 25 to Nabo Jibon. Most days at Nabo Jibon we only have four or five volunteers but on Sundays we bathe, bandage and feed about 40 street children from the neighborhood in the area, Kadamtala. The street kids, surprise suprise, have alot more energy than the mentally and physically handicapped children we work with there on a daily basis. One kid would want up on my shoulders while the next would come and take my hands as if to say "entertain me." So I'd swing him around in a circle for a while, not getting dizzy at all, and put him down. Next thing you know 6 more kids showed up right by my side wanting to enjoy the same sensation! Mike ended up spinning so many kids that he felt nauseated after a while. There was another group of kids wanting me to throw them up in the air as high as I could...over and over and over again! It ended up being a bit of a tiring morning.

It being our last full week in Kolkatta, Mike and I decided to try and pick up a few more afternoon shifts. These days have been long and exhausting, but definitely worth every minute! Working the afternoon shifts ended up bringing me to an MC house known as Kalighat (the home for the seriously injured and dying) as well as a dispensary near the Sealdah train station wrapping wounds for people who otherwise could not afford medical care.

Kalighat in the afternoon is pretty low-key compared to the morning shift as most of the wound care takes place in the morning. So I visited with the patients, did some of their laundry, and fed one of the seriously ill patients. He can barely move and is almost on the verge of needing a feeding tube so the sisters blend up all of his food and serve it in more of a paste form. Apparently over the last few days he had still had a real problem eating this "mush" and tended to cough it up over the person feeding him. He ended up coughing up a bit at first but then another volunteer from Canada came over to help me feed him just to be with him as he struggled and prop him up a bit. It took us an hour and a half to feed him but at least this time he was consistently downing the food that we gave him. Thankfully, no blended rice and curry ended up in my face!

Yesterday Mike and I were at the Sealdah dispensary dressing wounds with a few medical students. Mike had worked here before so he guided me through the first few patients for 45 minutes until he had to leave. Here we are, a poly sci and engineering major cleaning and wrapping wounds from car accidents to dog bites to who knows what else. Many of the patients weren't able to communicate to us how they came to have gaping wounds but just came in with large amounts of skin missing, looking for us to change out their bandages.

The first patient I worked on was definitely the most difficult of the day. The back of his heel was badly disfigured. He had an open wound that looked to be healing up rather nicely but also had a black infected ball of fluid buried underneath a callus. I was told my one of the medial students that the goal is to let the fluid release as soon as possible so I scrapped away at the callus for some time, all the while making the patient reel in pain. Being my first patient, the obvious pain I was inflicting was a little hard to take but it had to be done so I just kept on going. It ended up getting to the point where he couldn't take it anymore so I wrapped the rest of his foot up and sent him on his way. On Monday he'll have to come back so the volunteers can have another go at it.

Today I worked another afternoon shift at Kalighat which ended up being a bit more difficult than the first time around. When it came time for food, I was helping out a one of the patients who had obvious trauma to his head. He's not there at all and apparently has a problem with people feeding him. I put one bite in his mouth and he proceeded to just let the food sit there, not chewing at all. After a few seconds he decided he'd had enough of my help and got up from his chair and went straight over to the table where one of the volunteers was distributing the pills. I ended up having to forcefully sit him back down in his chair multiple times while he had a mouthful of food. He was getting more and more angry with me so one of the other volunteers tried to spend some time with him and calm him down. Some other volunteers needed help elsewhere for a while so I left for I bit and found out a little later that this patient had physically went after one of the volunteers and Mike had to wrestle him off. We ended up heading out at a little after 5 with the patient still not having finished his food.

Tomorrow will be my second to last day volunteering with the MCs in Kolcatta. In the afternoon I'll head out to get my haircut which will come with a head massage for a few extra rupee! The whole thing, haircut and massage won't cost any more than 50 rupees, or just over $1.

Kyle

Leprosy Center

Thursday we headed up to Titagarh which is Mother Teresa's leper colony. They make the MC sister's sarris as well as wooden chairs for the mentally and physically handicapped patients at Nabo Jibon where I work. I was actually expecting it to be a bit more of a shock than it actually was. I had previously seen "The Human Experience" which captures a few scenes of a leper colony in Africa with seemingly horrible cases. Today at Titagarh I came to find out that leprosy, if diagnosed correctly and early, is curable. Because of that along with the fact that they are very well taken care of, most of the people that we met didn't seem to have that severe of cases, which was nice to see.

The rest of the morning was a bit crazy as our bus was held up in a traffic jam, which we later came to find out was partially due to a political rally. There were tons of people on the streets! Because it was taking so long, we ended up getting off the bus to walk back to our hotel. Luckily it was monsooning at the time! It took us a while to get back as the many of the side streets were flooded! A few Indian kids saw us taking pictures on the way back so we have a few snapshots of little Indian children in the flooded streets of Kolkatta.

Peace,

Kyle

Kolkata

Its been a little over two weeks since taking on the contrasting city of Kolkata. I say contrasting because I'll be walking down the unsanitary street with butcher shops getting ready for their next slaughter on a wood stump right out in the open air for everyone to see. A friend of his is sitting next to him on his cell phone (possibly making orders for more livestock shipments?)

It is definitely an Indian thing to throw trash everywhere. You'll walk down the street and have to go out of your way to dodge the latest pile of litter that had been swept up by wooden and straw brooms. It'll be hauled away...the question is...when?

I've been sick for the last few days so I've had some time to think about the city and the experience I've been having in being a volunteer. I have been working at Nabo Jibon (a center run by the missionary of charity brothers for the mentally and physically handicapped). Because we don't speak Hindi or Bengali and none of the patients there speak English all we can really do is hang out with them. At first this was difficult and a little arduous as if I wasn't doing anything for them. It seemed like we were there for a little over 3 hours and left without making much of an impact in their lives. I started to notice how "the little things" went a very long way with them after about a week when many of them started to remember my face and would come up to me and just want to hang out. I'm reminded of what Mother Theresa said "But we can do small things with great love." Apparently the brothers have seen that I have been doing all that I can for the kids because today one of the brothers talked me through a whole set of excercises that he would like me to help out with on Friday for a few of the Cerebral Pulsey patients! It should be a little more difficult volunteering as the kids usually cry or scream while going through therapy.

Tomorrow it will be off to the leprosy center where the lepers make the Sarris (traditional Indians womens' clothing) for the MCs. It was a bit of a mad rush by the volunteers for spots on the tour so I'm thinking it will be an awesome experience!

Take care and God Bless,

Kyle

The Accident!

I was actually planning on telling my parents about this in August but over the phone Dad blatantly asked "have you had an illnesses over there." Seeing as I'm volunteering with the MC's lying seemed out of the question. Now the word spread from Dad to Mom (go figure), why not tell everyone...

Here goes:

It was last Sunday morning when I woke up in our hotel in Gaya, India, to use the bathroom at 6am. Up until that part of the trip my digestion of the seemingly inedible Indian food had been going well. This morning my stomach was tossing and I figured I'd use the bathroom, take some Cippro, then go back to bed. I used to bathroom then got up to wash my hands when I started feeling incredibly dizzy and reached for something to stabilize myself. After that I found myself on the floor. Apparently Mike had woken up from my nose breaking my fall and came in to see me lying face down in a small pool of blood (my nose was cut) besides a few other minor things to clean up...

Mike, being a great friend and the son of two paramedics, helped me up, got some water, bandaged up my nose (which may or may not have been broken) and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, which happened to a 30 to 40 minute ride by auto back to Bodhagaya. There was also a medical facility just down the road from our hotel, but that one opened up at 10am (apparently these workers need their 8 hrs). I ended up deciding to go to the clinic in Bodhagaya, which made us miss our train at 9:30am which we had already paid for.

The auto driver we found (Gupta) couldn't have been better! He not only did he take me slowly to the clinic (over all the potholes), but he also stayed with me all day while I was there. Its funny looking back on it. On the way there, he slowed down and stopped and said to us "just one minute." I was thinking is he going to get some food or something. I soon found out that he was praying to a Hindu god whose shrine was on the side of the road while my dehydrated self was hanging out it back.

We made it to the clinic where I remember a shot in my nose as well as some stitching and a shot in the backside (I'm thinking was for a the concussion). I remember the doctor saying that I should go get some rest. Part of me thought that I shouldn't sleep after the concussion, but he drove a hard bargain as I was exhausted. I got some sleep on a metal table in the clinic as IV packets ran through me. As I slept Mike figured everything out for the next 24 hours; he left with Gupta to purchase new train tickets for that night. We stayed at the clinic and until around 4pm. and Gupta graciously took us back to our hotel.

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Meanwhile 6 days later I have not had any major problems. Today I volunteered with a nurse from Spain who took out the stitches for me. He then told me that they were put in wrong (perpendicular to how they should have been). He took them out without a problem and the cut is healing up nicely so I'm not worried.

Hope you all enjoyed the story.

Take it easy and God Bless,

Kyle

Kolcutta and the 4th

Hey!

We arrived to Kolcutta (in English Calcutta) yesterday morning and had no problem finding the place we'll be staying at for roughly the next month! The room isn't much (we're paying 200 rupee or the equivalent of 4.5 USD/night for Mike and I), but its good enough for a good backpacker's room! A lot of volunteers have stayed here over the years and theirs a good amount of graffiti on the walls. Unlike what you would expect, much of it actually very uplifting creative and enjoyable. Although there are other poems and phrases that you can tell have been written by people high as a kite on something! Its interesting.

Yesterday we went to orientation to start volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity (MOC) at Shishu Bhavan (the charity orphanage). So many volunteers showed up that we can each only work one shift/day (either a morning or afternoon). It was neat to sit around and socialize with all the volunteers who are from all over the world. There's a substantial amount of Spaniards so its great to be able to practice my Spanish again! After orientation we hit up McDonald's with a few friends from the US to celebrate the 4th of July! Then went out to a western rooftop restaurant for a drink or two.

Today was the first day of actual volunteering! We woke up at 5am so we could be ready to walk down to Mother House for daily mass at 6am, a little breakfast and socializing and went out for the day to our respective locations. I decided to work with in Nabo Jibon which is a house for the mentally and physically handicapped. It took an hour to get there, two buses and a short walk to get there. Its run by the Brothers of Charity who are mainly all Indian nationals. We hang out with them, wheel them around in their chairs if they can't walk, sometimes dance if they're up for it, and play cricket (or try to). Lunch seems like it will be a daily adventure as some have better skills than others when it comes to feeding themselves. Some who can eat on their own try to help out the others who can't, which is a sight to see in itself!

I have the morning shift so the afternoon has consisted of lunch with a bunch of other volunteers, catching up on some much needed laundry (by hand) and other odds and ends.