27 November 2007

Recharging in Brighton


It's been exactly a year since we left California on our current trip. We recently arrived in Brighton, England where we're visiting friends and working on www.erinslist.com before returning to India. The posts below are about some of our adventures over the past year.

The Museum of Murdered Birds


Recent headlines in the UK are about bodies being dug up out of a serial killer's yard. They remind me of a recent visit to the Museum of Murdered Birds in Brighton.

Actually, it was the Booth Museum, just up the street from our place at Aussie Matt's. Every time we walked past Erin pointed at the poster for the current display: DEATH. She was determined to see it so we walked over last Sunday. Inside there was a sign that explained the show very succinctly. Here's the "money" quote:

"His (Edward Booth's) parents left him well supplied with money, which he used to fund his passionate interest in birds. Booth's love of birds led him to take an interest in taxidermy - the art of mounting animals in a lifelike manner - which allowed him to fill his house with the specimens he had shot."

I assume Mr. Booth showed "love" for his friends and family differently.

The dead, stuffed birds are in glass display cases, surrounding a room filled with random skeletons. My favorites are here and here

I can't bring myself to say any of the bird displays were "favorites" but this one here
brought up a question: did Mr. Booth love the rabbit as much as he loved the eagle?

Our intrepid naturalist had a thing for squirrels, too. here
This is just creepy.

The Secret Waterfall






When Andy first mentioned a camping trip to a waterfall he was very clear - we weren't to tell anyone the location. The spot is too perfect to let it get overrun by, well, others like us, travellers in Goa looking for the next big adventure. I'll keep up my end of the bargain.

Six of us planned a 10 day trip to the remote jungle location, which sounded great until Erin and I realized it meant carrying enough food and supplies on our backs to live for 10 days. Andy, Maria, two Erics, Erin and I hired a car and driver to take us several hours away from north Goa to the village nearest the waterfall and hiked the last three hours to camp. Andy and Maria had been there before, but when they turned off the path into what looked to the rest of us like deep jungle I was momentarily worried. Maria assured us they knew where they were going, that we were in fact following a path of sorts, but I was unsure until we came out on a beautiful jungle stream. Our camp was a small clearing on the edge of a deep pool.

For the next nine days we swam in the pool, hiked up and down the river to find other pools and small waterfalls to play in, kept a fire burning all night to keep away the panthers that live in that part of the jungle (which required hours a day of foraging for downed logs to burn) and ate the meals cooked mostly by the two Erics. Canadian Eric and Andy stumbled onto a big cat's den on one excursion, returning breathless and briefly afraid after seeing the bones and half-eaten carcasses of cows and goats. The den was two km from our camp and after that we were all (Erin in particular) a little more vigilant about the nightly fire. We weren't too worried - six humans pissing and shitting (buried, of course) in a hundred-yard circle around our camp seemed like a great way to mark our territory, and the big cats of India are wary of hunters.

The real adventure was on our way out. There's a railway switching station at the bottom of the mountain below the falls, and we'd learned a train to Goa stopped there at 4 am every morning for two minutes. We decided, for reasons that made sense at the time, to hike down the steep path to the switching station, a two hour walk at least, at midnight to try to jump on the train.

The steep walk down the mountain was grueling and dark - we weren't as weighed down as the walk in but each of us were still carrying at least 15-20 kilos on our backs. The worst almost happened - in the narrowest place, over a 100 meter drop, Erin slipped and almost went over the edge. To the others it looked like I'd grabbed her in time but it was only her twisted knee that saved her life when it caught on the way down. We were all shaken by the close call and Erin suffered what at best was a strained ligament, but adrenaline kept us moving.

We were relieved when we reached the switching station about an hour before the train. The lonely station attendant was scared out of his wits when we walked up in the dark. Andy and Eric speak Hindi well enough to learn that he thought the voices he heard coming up the track were ghosts. When we sat down to wait Erin's knee started to swell.

The arrival of the train was surreal. It rolled to a stop in the darkness and we ran out to climb on, but the doors of each car were locked from the inside. We ran the length of the train, trying all the doors and calling out to anyone onboard to open one for us. Finally, at the last car, a man got up and unlocked the door - just as the train started moving. I stopped running - I figured we'd missed the train and would have to figure something out. But Andy jumped up on the ladder and hauled Maria in before we knew it. I heard him yell "Erin, you're next!" and she gamely limped/ran over the loose rocks and got her foot up on the ladder. As she tried to lift her injured leg into the door she suddenly fell backwards, hanging onto the moving train with one arm and leg, the other limbs flailing precariously close to the rolling wheels of the train. There was no time to panic - running behind her, I got my hands firmly on her butt and launched her through the door. American Eric was the last one on, running at full speed to catch up.

Once we were all safely inside the train we sat and looked at each other with stunned silence. A big adventure was over. Erin limped for two months.

Mayday with the Maoists

We didn't go to Kathmandu this spring to investigate the Maoist rebellion or the birth pangs of a new republic, but to renew our Indian visas and spend a few days in the cool air of the Himalaya. We read the local English language newspapers (my favorite article was a sarcastic put-down of the US ambassador for characterizing GW Bush as one of the global giants of environmentalism) and the amount of Maoist activity they described was surprising, particularly the "bandhs", or strikes, that effectively closed the rest of the country off from Kathmandu. The lead article in the Kathmandu Post one day was an interview with the leader of the Maoists, now part of the interim government. He was clear in his demand - the interim government must declare Nepal a republic by May 15, or there would be consequences for Nepal's recent peaceful facade.

The next morning I noticed, in passing, that it was May 1st. Hmm. Mayday. Maoists. It could be interesting, I mentioned to Erin.

There have been problems in Nepal for several years. Erin and I first visited the mountain kingdom in 2001, just months after the entire royal family, with the exception of the King's brother, were gunned down in highly suspicious circumstances. The "official" story was that a love-sick prince had, at a large celebration, killed his parents, siblings, assembled relatives and then himself because he wasn't being allowed to marry the woman of his choice. The only member of the family not present at the celebration became the new King. Conspiracy theories spring from less, but the people of Nepal seemed willing to accept the official version.

Despite the palace intrigue, our visit in 2001 was amazingly free of difficulty. We toured and trekked and moved on after a month. The stories of the Maoist insurrection in the villages seemed very far away as we dined in Thamel (the tourist section of Kathmandu) and trekked part of the Annapurna circuit.

Within a couple of years the situation in Nepal worsened, with the King eventually acceeding to the Prime Minister's wishes and disbanding the legislature. Big mistake. This led to an alliance between the Maoists and the displaced forces of democracy, which in turn created enough unrest that the King backed down. It was approximately a year ago that the interim government, with a large representation by the Maoists, took power with the charter to plan for the birth of a republic.

Back to May. The talk in India this year has been the re-opening of Nepal, and it was confirmed by the crowds of rich westerners thronging the streets of Thamel. The shops were doing good business and the restaurants were full of steak-eating (in a Hindu country) trekkers. But everyday a new story in the paper... businessmen being assessed "special" taxes by armed Maoist youths, road closures (by the Maoists) on the way to Kathmandu to protest police actions elsewhere, beatings and even special license plates some of the Maoists were using on their vehicles. The government, and the people, seemed paralyzed by fear of the mostly young (and angry) "reds", and no one seemed willing or able to exert any control.

Mayday. During breakfast we saw a small group of slogan-chanting, red-flag-waving marchers skirt the edge of Thamel. I foolishly thought that was the end of it. We decided to go to Durbar Square for the day and were convinced by a bicycle-rickshaw driver to go with him - he wanted the business worse than the taxi driver, and even though it would cost us more to be conveyed by pedal power, while sitting in the hot sun on a slow journey, we couldn't resist his near pleading.

About 5 minutes out of Thamel we came upon a small group of red-flag-waving youths stopping and turning around traffic from the opposing direction. It was odd watching the hardened (and older) taxi drivers taking immediate instruction from the youths in rags. All vehicles turned around as soon as they were told, with no argument. Our rickshaw was passed through, as we seemed to be going in the direction they wanted us to go.

As we approached the first major intersection we could see quite a few men with red headbands and flags, and four of them came running up and stopped our rickshaw. They were angry and seemingly drunk with power. One of them did most of the talking (yelling, actually), all of it to the rickshaw man. None of the Maoists even looked at me and Erin (surprising but appreciated - we seemed like excellent targets for angry young Reds, being carried along like colonials by the labor of another - an issue any fair-minded person fights with in Asia. Is it better to be politically correct or feed the rickshaw driver's family? I waver).

After a few minutes watching from above, while the young Maoists refused to let the rickshaw either continue on or go back, Erin and I hopped down and started walking back toward our hotel. Before long we saw why the traffic was being diverted - thousands of red-flagged and headbanded marchers were coming our way on the narrow street. We pressed ourselves against the wall and watched them go by for about half and hour.

Most of the marchers were having a great time - many looked drunk. I spotted "Eminem" and "Fitty Cent" t-shirts along with many other examples of American cultural hegemony. Mixed into the mostly male crowd were a few women. Most of the crowd seemed benign - except the stick wielders. Every few yards there were men, usually young and usually angry looking, walking along with sticks they used to clear the way or nudge the marchers along. They were scary, actually. One of them looked at us with pure malevolence as he passed. I couldn't resist meeting his stare - I hoped my expression was loving and accepting. He held my gaze until he was well past us.

After waiting out the march we slowly walked back to Thamel. Along the way we saw some shopkeepers hanging royalist flags over the street - not so bravely done, coming 45 minutes after the march had passed. I tried asking some of the shopkeepers about the march and the Maoists in general but they all seemed very reluctant to say anything. "Too dangerous" is all I could get out of one of them.

We were out of the country before May 15, the date when the Maoists' leader had insisted upon the declaration of a republic "or else" (my translation, not his words). In general my sympathies are with the rural poor and trade unionists who make up the majority of the Maoist movement - the monarchy has not served the people of Nepal and what I'm witnessing are the results of generations of unfair treatment. I have no position on the economic policies being espoused by the Maoists in Nepal - I haven't done the research to know what they demand, other than the end of the monarchy, and I can certainly support that.

No matter what your politics you better keep an eye on the situation if you or anyone you know is planning a trip to Nepal in the near future. I'm not so sure it's as settled as the travel agents might have you believe.

Ma Ganga


We left Goa in late April, just as it was getting very hot. The Himalaya is the cure for the season Indians call "the hot". After a month in Nepal (getting visas, eating western food in Thamel, dodging Maoist demonstrations) we joined friends from Los Angeles, Tom and Yvana, and followed the pilgrim route from Delhi through Haridwar and Rishkesh to Gangotri, where the Ganga falls out of the high Himalaya. From there we trekked along the holy river to its source.

It's a full day's walk from Gangotri to Gaumukh, the glacier that's more or less considered to be the source of the Ganga, or Ganges as western maps like to call it. We spent the night in a government-owned dormatory (barn) four kilometers from the glacier and walked the rest of the way the second day. The last kilometers of the trek are hazardous - rockslides created by leaping Himalayan Mountain Goats sent rocks crashing down onto the narrow pathway. At one point, while we thought we were safely hiding behind a boulder from a slide, a grapefruit-sized stone rocketed between my and Yvana's heads, no more than a foot from either of us. After that we got very serious about watching the rocks - and mountain goats, above us.

It was worth the effort once we reached Gaumukh, where it's said that immersing oneself in the freezing cold water wipes away seven generations of one's families sins. I did it, and it's as cold as you might expect for water pouring out of ice, but it was so dry that the water evaporated as soon as I stood up and felt the warm sunshine. Tom and Yvana got the holy cleasing too, but Erin said she hasn't sinned as much as the rest of us and contented herself with washing her face.

Somehow the pictures of me in the water got erased - you wouldn't have wanted to be around the evening I discovered this and accused Erin of doing it - accidentally, of course, but they disappeared right after I showed her how to delete pictures. She resents the implication and in fact I hope she never reads this blog - it's a subject that should die a quiet death... We've moved on.

But we're not here to cast aspersions, afterall. I'm more interested in the sins I've apparently washed away for me and my family. As I see it, I've got a lot of sinning in the bank and I intend to spend it all before I pass from this mortal coil... and since I took one for the entire family I guess all past family grudges are cleared up, too. What a relief!

The Indian beaches get the publicity but the Himalaya is the best part of the subcontinent for me. It was interesting the way the Hindu pilgrms got friendlier and friendlier as we got closer to Gaumukh, closer to the source of Ma Ganga, the river that flows from Shiva's hair...

Gaumukh is disappearing fast, like all the other glaciers in the world. I'm very happy I got to see it - it was worth the two day walk.