Friday, 1 March 2024
We arrived to a nearly vacant Siem Reap International Airport (SAI) at about 1230 coming from four days in cold rainy Paris followed by three sweltering, radiant days in Bangkok. Out ATR 72-600 from Bangkok Air was the only plane anywhere at the airport as it taxied to a stop at a gate equipped for much larger aircraft. Because the jetway would not accommodate our little prop plane, we walked down the aircraft’s own steps and across the blazing tarmac to a ground-level entrance. From there, we walked in the empty halls to immigration.
The immigration hall had about a four-to-one passenger to agent ratio, but still l took longer than necessary. We’d completed our immigration and customs cards on the flight and had hard-copies of our eVisas, but that didn’t seem to speed things up very much. Our agent was picky about the photo he took of each of us and seemed to really enjoy stamping things with his three different red-inked stamps.
Our bags were on the carousel by the time we made it to baggage claim and Paren, our Cambodia contact for the trip, was waiting for us at the door.
The weather was just like Bangkok with hazier skies due to some burning rice fields we saw on the aircraft’s approach. The road into town from the airport was new and uncrowded. We passed barren rice fields, cassava, and orchards of cashew trees laden with red cashew “apples” with the dangling nut below. Farm carts were along the road as were many large, white Brahma cattle and their calves.
Paren told us about his background, saying that his parents had split when he was young and that he’d struggled to go to school, walking four kilometers each was to school in the primary grades and then, for “secondary” (i.e., middle school) biking 15 km each way, just happy to have gifted a bike by a local charity.
He told us about the constant pressure on children to drop out of school to help parents farm or fish and how few opportunities there were for many. He had been tempted to drop out many times, too, and sounded grateful but not boastful that he’d stuck to it.
He’d managed to go to high school as well and then got a job as a nighttime hotel receptionist working nights and staying in a simple apartment room. The hotel gave him at least one meal per day, but after rent and electricity, he was netting only one dollar per day.
His break came when he was offered a job by an NGO named Plan International where he worked and learned English, ultimately becoming an English teacher. He then moved to Bridge of Life, his current employer, and is our primary contact and driver for the project.
Paren took us to a cell phone store on the way to the hotel and I bought a Samsung Galaxy A14 replacement phone for my Google Pixel 6a that died in Bangkok, leaving me anxious about connection to an extent that was both depressing and surprising.
The sales clerk was very helpful and installed my Pixel SIM card. Ultimately, the phone worked, but the SIM did not. I would have to rely on WiFi and tethering to Becky’s hotspot with her Pixel 7 to stay connected and get a new SIM when we returned to the States.
We checked into the hotel at about 3:30pm and moved into our spacious room after having the entire complex explained. It was a remarkably nice, quiet place, well above the highway motel and restaurant where we stayed in Costa Rica last year. The Khmer House Resort has both a fresh and a salt water pool, restaurant, laundry service at only $2 per kilo.
In the room, we found that the air conditioning worked well. We spent much of the remaining afternoon moving into the room that we would occupy for the next ten days. I also set up my phone, trying unsuccessfully to work out the SIM card issue with Google Fi technical reps by phone.
At dinner, we met Natasha and Chinoo who had also arrived early. Natasha had been traveling in the area as part of a family celebration. Chinoo had arrived from Phnom Penh via Taipei, originating in Toronto.
The outdoor restaurant served excellent local food and the service was friendly and helpful, if very slow–even to bring out a cold beer. Prices were very cheap: $1.75 for a 12 ounce bottle of Cambodia beer and most main course plates at only $5 apiece. They had some craft cocktails, too, that were $4 to $6 each.
We got to know Chinoo and Natasha and talked about each of our travels to date. Chinoo was very jet-lagged and left first. Becky and I were in bed by nine and slept fairly well.
Saturday 2 March 2024
I left early for a walk around in Siem Reap from the hotel after our 7am breakfast at the hotel. At breakfast, I’d had eggs Benedict and sent a photo of the plate to the team via WhatsApp. I told Becky that I would be back by 10am and started a loop (or an intended loop) using Google Maps as my guide. My intention was to walk by several restaurants that I had researched as well to judge the distance to Pub Street and the downtown area. Most of the rest of the team were landing at about 9:45am Saturday with Paren picking them up and driving them into town. Given the long drive, I didn’t expect them to arrive before 11am.
I was immediately impressed by how much cleaner Siem Reap was compared to my memory from ten years earlier when I’d visited here as part of a trip that included my very first Developing World Connections project. (Back then, Siem Reap was an additional destination as our main project was near the South China Sea coast and the city of Kep.) The town seemed quiet as a few tuk-tuks, scooters, and cars scurried around the relatively uncrowded streets. I made some wrong turns, but eventually found the Haven Restaurant where we would be dining on Sunday evening as well as a few other attractive places that I would consider. My walk took me by the very large Angkor High School that seemed to have hundreds of students in two big white, four-story colonial style buildings.
I made it to downtown in about 40 minutes and crossed the bridge towards Pub Street. The river was fairly clean and there was evidence of many lights in the trees and on railings and decorations.
Pub Street and its area was clean and being cleaned by many workers. Signs displayed beer prices as low as one dollar US per draft There were pizza and Mexican food restaurants, massage parlors, souvenir shops, and the typical touristy souvenir shops one would find in any city.
The walk back was uneventful and I returned just before 10am. The team and Paren arrived an hour later and we had a quick chat before releasing everyone to their rooms to recover. Some were very jet-lagged while others had also already been in the region (e.g. Hana and Tarek had been traveling in Japan and Vietnam). We agreed to meet at 3:30 to go on our scheduled city walking tour organized by Deepak.
Some of the group did meet for lunch at the hotel and I explained the policy towards alcohol and meals–everyone was on their own for all alcohol, but DWC picked up meal costs.
I spent some time at the pool and did exercises (push-ups) early in the afternoon and Becky enjoyed lounging by the pool and on our room’s terrace/patio.
We traveled to the walking tour meeting point in two groups of six using the hotel’s free tuk-tuk service. Once there, we met our guide, Tee, and a 60-ish London couple that were also joining the tour.
Tee was very engaging as she led us through one of the smaller, but central city markets and explained what products were Cambodia and which were actually imported. As usual, I enjoyed taking market and people photos.
We next walked along the river, through town. Everyone was impressed by the beauty of the city.
Tee led us to the Royal Residence and a main memorial square and told us about the current political situation in Cambodia as we stood near a large billboard with a picture of King Sihanouk commemorating the 70th anniversary of Cambodian independence from France.
She told us that the current government was suppressing much of the country's disastrous recent history, including the 70’s genocide under Pol Pot and the civil war that followed. She said that social media was monitored closely by the government and that she had to be careful of what she posted.
We continued to walk through the city and entered a small craft market set up as a charity by a Taiwanese businessman. Artisans at the store paid no rent, kept all of their profits, but had to agree to only sell items produced and crafted in Cambodia.
We bought some Kompot pepper as did others and a few bought Cambodian ice cream (much like Thai ice cream).
We completed the tour at Pub Street and told Tee that we would take tuk-tuks back to the hotel. Those cost us $1 per person. Back at the hotel, we met for dinner at about 7pm.
At dinner, we all sat at the same table with me at the head and, after ordering drinks, we covered trip and DWC policies. The team was enthusiastic and happy to have all arrived on time. We answered several questions and then ordered our breakfast for the next morning that the staff said would be ready by 7am for our 7:30 departure. I spoke with the staff again–that was VERY helpful–and made sure that all food charges would be put against our room bill (covered by DWC) and that anyone’s alcohol bill would be separately charged to their own room.
Monday 4 March 2024
Neither Becky nor I slept well Sunday night. I was up before 5:30 and then over to the restaurant to load photos and use the stronger wifi. I was pleasantly surprised that they were setting up breakfast quite early.
The team arrived on-time and our plates were brought out beginning a few minutes before 7am. Everyone ate quickly and we were ready to go at 7:30.
Paren arrived in a 15 passenger van that had exactly 15 seats. We were very cramped in the van and the air conditioning to the rear was poor. Tarek and I discussed getting a second vehicle and Paren agreed to talk about that possibility at the end of the day.
The drive out of Siem Reap, on very good roads for the first 60-plus kilometers, was smooth. The land was very flat, dominated by brown, barren rice fields. There seemed to be villages, homes, and merchant stands along the road the entire trip to Kompong Khleang, the Floating Village, of which Outaput was a small neighborhood.
As we got closer to Tonle Sap, the road narrowed and we could tell that we were on a tall earthen jetty with homes and businesses on either side of the road, but water or marshland below us. Kids, dogs, scooters, carts, tractors and pedestrians crowded the road and we made very slow progress.
Ultimately, the road turned to dirt and narrowed more. We crossed a bridge with a giant, gold Buddha statue and temple and then were in the Outaput area.
When we arrived, we saw the home sites as a barren, dry area along the water and below permanent homes mounted on stilts 15 to 20 feet (4-6m) high. The water had receded to a fairly narrow channel that was no more than 30 meters across at some points and well below the base of the tall log pedestals, with barges, floating gardens, and fish nets still in the water. Narrow dragon boats sped up and down the channel at high (and very loud) speed. Other, larger passenger boats with a capacity of probably 100 carried small groups of tourists for their floating village excursion.
Merchant stands had corn drying as well as fish and frogs. Many of the homes doubled as little shops out front, selling snacks. Kids played under some of the houses and in the street. Most of the transportation was by bicycle.
Paren showed us where to place our equipment in a large, elevated home near the work site and introduced us to the lady of the house–his older sister. We would have lunches there prepared by her and use the toilet there as well. The steps from the dry-season road to the main living area were very steep and about four meters high.
We walked to the worksite and Paren introduced me to two of the four locals with whom we would be working, Kwon and Muk. Neither spoke English but seemed very friendly.
A shade tent was set up near the worksite and a cooler of ice and water bottles placed there as well as two rest benches.
We started work with a situation and safety chat and then brought down tools, hardware, and lumber from beneath and inside the nearest stilted house to our north.
Our local leads quickly laid out two foundational grids of roughly 2” x 4” boards that were about 5 x 8 meters. They measured for placement and then we nailed the board together into the grid for both houses.
We next cut stakes from dry tree limbs, each about one meter long and five to ten centimeters thick. The local crew used hand axes to sharpen one end of each and then we pounded them into the soft ground framing (inside and out) each grid. We must’ve used nearly 100 stakes.
Next, the locals used a long, clear piece of plastic tubing with water as a long-distance level as we lifted each grid and nailed them to the stakes to set the entire structure level on all sides and corners.
Once this was done, two large drills were brought out and holes were drilled for securing half-inch bolts at every conceivable wooden junction, fastened on each side by washers and nuts.
We all worked together drilling, bolting, and tightening together the grids as a local used an angle iron to cut excess bolt length once secured. The remnants were ground again at each end for reuse. Each original headless bolt was nearly a meter long, while each securing segment was four to eight inches deep.
The team and locals worked very well together, but the heat was taking a toll and we took many breaks.
Once the bases were leveled and secured, the locals nailed in vertical columns of 4” x 4” lumber about three to four meters tall. We drilled more securing holes into each and bolted them to the frames, as well as adding additional, fortifying horizontal cross pieces (stringers) to the base.
It was time for lunch now and we went back to the home to relax. Our chef had made some excellent egg dishes with fish and also served noodles and bowls of chicken soup. We had plenty of cold water, plus another jug and plates of bananas for dessert.
Everyone continued in high spirits, but needed a break. We relaxed until 12:45 with Paren taking a short nap inside. Tarek, Hana, Alex, and Anna found the back deck that overlooked the waterway and had a bare wooden bed area and a hammock. It afforded a great view of the whole area, but the noise of the dragon boats cut into the ambience somewhat. Importantly the “shotgun” design of the house allowed for decent airflow and the brief was especially good on the deck.
The afternoon continued with much of the same sort of work. We brought in more lumber and made a second level of grid about one-half meter above the original, securing those boards to the verticals as well. This took the whole afternoon, but we were happy to complete it all before the end of the day on both houses.
Paren explained that the next day we would be setting the floor atop the second level grid using boards planed and cut on-site the next morning. We hoped that meant a little less intense work in the heat!
We jumped into the vans (or rather, crawled) all exhausted by the day and conditions. We did a quick debrief once started and I admitted that I should’ve done a better job of taking breaks myself and was totally exhausted. My smart watch told me that I'd spent several hours of the day with a heart rate over 110 and 120 bpm, peaking a few times at 140 bpm.
The ride was otherwise quiet and several tried to sleep. We arrived at the hotel at 6pm and decided against going downtown as a group for dinner. Rather, we mostly stayed at the hotel and relaxed. Deepak and Bella went directly downtown for dinner, while Alex and Anna joined them after dining at the hotel and all went for massages.
We showered and met back in the restaurant, arriving at different times and ordering in a long series. Dinner was again excellent, but slow. We enjoyed fruit smoothies and beer and Becky had a mango Margarita with an extra shot of Tequila.
I messaged DWC and asked about getting another vehicle to transport us to and from the worksite more comfortably. Joy approved the request and I relayed the message to Paren. We would pay an additional $180 for four days with another car driven by Paren’s brother–it was the same SUV that Paren had used to pick us up at the airport.
We went back to the room and I put on my swimsuit for a dip in the pool. No one else was at the pool, but dozens of small bats were swooping over the water picking off insects attracted to the water and light. I did a few laps in the freshwater pool, the bats dodging my head each time I surfaced.
Back in the room, we went to bed quickly, putting off most admin work for the morning.
Tuesday 5 March 2024
Becky didn’t sleep well again, but my night wasn’t bad. I woke at about 5:30am to see a message from Chinoo that he had slept very little, suffered from chest pains, and had arranged with the front desk staff to have a doctor arrive to check him at 7am. He didn’t think that it rose to the level of an emergency that needed him to rush to a hospital, but wanted to be checked anyway. Hana was not feeling well either and decided to stay home for the day and rest as well.
I worked on some photos on my laptop in the restaurant and tried to keep track of Chinoo via WhatsApp messaging. Breakfast was served on time and the rest of the crowd was ready to go on time.
When I didn’t get a response to my messaging, I went to Chinoo’s room and chatted with him and his doctor. The doctor was prescribing him antibiotics for suspected bronchitis and he also believed that Chinoo had some underlying cardiac artery disease. He said that Chinoo’s blood pressure was normal and saw no other symptoms. If he had any more chest pains, though, the doctor said that Chinoo would need medication for angina and that he should contact the doctor immediately.
I passed the news to Joy and DWC. Chinoo said that he would stay behind and rest for the remainder of the day and hope to join us on Wednesday. The first van left on time and Becky and I departed in the SUV with Paren about five minutes later.
We caught up with the van about a kilometer from the worksite at a checkpoint. Paren told us that the other car needed our visitor’s permit to enter the floating village area.
We went through the usual set-up, dropping bags off in our headquarters home and carrying the tools and supplies to the worksite. Tarek (especially) helped move the shade tarps and position them for maximum effectiveness.
The first thing we did was complete quality control on all of the bolted joints, making sure that the nuts were tight–as Alex had been doing at the end of Monday.
While the bolt quality control was going on, we moved our large 2”X4”X12’ boards from under the closest stilt house and brought them to an outdoor table saw that ripped each one into a long 2”x2”. These were mounted on the frame as the final base for the floorboards and more bolts held them in place.
We next moved many, many bundles of six floor boards each to where an outdoor planer had been set up. It was gas powered and very loud, throwing wood chips and sawdust everywhere. We had two volunteers feeding them into the planer while two others accepted the planed boards and stacked them. Finally, volunteers were given electric angle grinders with solid grinder wheels to take the edge off of the planed boards’ side edge.
With the quality control done and all of the base for the floors complete, we began hammering the floorboards into place. We worked well in teams of three to five with someone using either the circular saw or the jigsaw to square the ends of some ragged pieces.
Time was moving quickly and we broke for lunch after finishing about half of the south house’s floor.
At lunch we had the same very good food and relaxed until 12:45pm. We decided to not go to the Cambodia Circus on Thursday night (a cultural event proposed by Paren) and I confirmed dinner reservations for both tonight at Jomno (recommended by Paren and one of the places I’d seen Saturday on my walk around) and Friday back at Haven. Deepak said he and Bella wanted to go out on their own on the last night.
Nastasha told me that her flight left Friday night at 8:30pm and we discussed arrangements getting her to the airport in time that evening.
Having the second car now would make it much easier to send Nastasha, and potentially others, back to the hotel early on Friday. I assured Nastasha that we would take care of her and get her to the airport in plenty of time. I assured everyone that they would have time for dinner Friday, too.
Messages from Hana and Chinoo indicated that they were feeling better back at the hotel.
In the afternoon, our tasks and goals were clear: we would finish roughing out the floors. This meant about two-and-a-half floor boards (in length) to cover the depth of each house, nailed into the supporting boards below. We used a jigsaw in addition to the circular saw to trim boards to the appropriate length.
One of the most tedious jobs was smoothing the edges of the planed boards, but we attacked that quickly following a break and finished enough boards to complete the day’s project.
As the work wound down, we sent eight of the team back to the hotel at about 3:45pm and four of us stayed behind to finish the final nailing and paint eight of the floorboards bright red or blue. We finished that work just after 4pm and were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by the crew with congratulatory ice-cold cans of Ganzberg beer bought by Paren. Karthik and Carolyn joined Becky and I in enjoying the refreshment and toasting our co-workers. We discovered that this was not only Karthik’s first ever beer in his life, but his first ever alcohol. He thought it tasted a little like tonic water–which it did.
I took a few photos on the way out and we loaded up just before 5pm, arriving back to the hotel right at 6pm. Chinoo was still resting and doing better, as was Hana. Alex and Anna said they were meeting people by the salt water pool and, as we arrived, we greeted them there. I changed quickly and joined them after a fast outdoor shower by the pool to get the grime off.
We had reservations at JOMNO Cambodian Food for dinner on Paren’s recommendation and met in the lobby at 6:45. Tarek and Hana decided to stay behind, as did Chinoo. We arranged tuk-tuks and were on our way.
JOMNO was a more upscale, white table cloth place that (most importantly) was air-conditioned on the inside. The food was probably 30% more expensive than Haven, but very, very good. Most of us had dessert as well. I think the team was very pleased with the evening. A few went into town for massages, while the rest of us took tuk-tuks back to the hotel.
Wednesday 6 Mar 2024
I woke early as usual and slipped out of the room to do some administrative things. Breakfast ran a little late and Paren said he might be late, too, but in the end, the vehicles left just a few minutes after 7:30am with the larger van in the lead and three of us with Paren just two minutes behind. Chinoo and Hana both decided to stay back at the hotel for another day and rest.
When we arrived, the locals were already working on substantial strengthening additions to the base and also to adding the vertical stringers on the side walls to which the corrugated steel sheets would be attached. Ceiling cross boards were also added. Almost the entire day consisted of attaching (with nails) these vertical pieces and then, once the horizontal ceiling beams were tacked onto the existing structure, drilling and bolting all of the upper lumber together.
The ceiling beams were only about five feet, seven inches above the floor (1.70 meters). I know this because I’m just over 5’9” (1.77m) and smacked my head on many of them. Everyone over 5’7” in height left the project with marks from hitting our heads on low wood.
The team continued to work together very well on all of this, rotating in and out. Tarek and I did almost all of the drilling, while Alex continued leading the quality control team that marked and made sure that all bolts were securely tightened on both sides. I was impressed by the overall team and project because almost all of the tasks were do-able by every member of the team and everyone had a chance (it seemed to me) to do every task that we accomplished.
The heat was even worse than the day before and we constantly emphasized breaks. The locals were even taking more breaks, too. We broke for lunch at a natural stopping point around 11:25am as the locals were working on the roof sloping pieces that attached to the top framework. The roof slope was fairly shallow and looked to be no more than 20 degrees.
We had the same excellent lunch, but extended the break a little longer due to the heat and waited for some of the other work to be done that we couldn’t complete high in the ceiling area.
After lunch, I returned to the site and saw some local kids playing volleyball at the site with a well-marked (with staked cords) court rectangle. I played a few points with them. The kid on my side (we played two-on-two) was excellent. He looked to be no more than 10 or 11 years old and could bump like a champ. They served by kicking the underinflated volleyball over the net with amazing precision. They scoffed at me just a little when I served conventionally. Carolyn and Tarek joined us for several points and all had a good time.
Another kid showed up with an American football and I showed him how to throw it. We played catch on the road for a while. He had excellent hands for catching, but they were too small to effectively grip the full-sized ball and throw a spiral regularly.
The afternoon was more of the same, with some pauses as we ran out of nuts and washers for the bolts and some of the cut sections of long bolts needed to be ground down so that we could rethread nuts on them and use them in other places.
We finished the day just before 4pm as all that could be done prior to attaching the roof was done. We cleaned up the area, as usual, and loaded the vehicles, every bit as tired and sweaty as any other day even though we had probably worked less. Again we remarked at how much energy it took to fight the heat. We tried many strategies to mitigate the issue during the day. I put ice chips under my hat and let them melt on my scalp. Many kept them bandanas/buffs constantly wet, but we were still overheated.
The drive back was peaceful and calm. Natasha rode back with Becky and me in the SUV. We agreed to meet Paren at 6:45pm to go to our cooking class that evening. Much of the group had post-dinner massage plans in town again, too.
I took a short swim when I returned–after another outdoor shower at the pool to remove the dried top layers of sweat. Everyone was able to relax for over an hour before departing on-time to dinner.
We drove into town and stopped at a small corner restaurant called Angkor Hand-Pulled Noodle and Dumpling Restaurant. Once there, the owner (another old friend of Paren’s) and head chef showed the team how to make dumplings with prepared fillings of chicken, vegetables, and duck. We made about 50 of them, placed on trays that then went to the kitchen to be steamed or fried.
In the kitchen, I cut up the beef and chicken into one centimeter cubes for the evening’s “Lok Lak” and mixed each in separate bowls with oyster sauce, ketchup, finely ground black Kompot pepper, two egg yolks, and a teaspoon of what the chef called “chicken powder.” I took this to mean powdered chicken bouillon but wasn’t sure.
Karthik sliced the vegetable garnishes for the Lok Lak and Tarek fried the dumplings. The rest of the team was enjoying drinks at our two tables. We occupied the whole restaurant and the owner turned away many customers who were strolling by.
The Angkor beer was cold as were the soft drinks. We had a little evening breeze at the outer table and felt much more comfortable. The dumplings came out first and were really excellent, especially in the shop’s own dipping sauce. Next, we had the Lok Lak with fresh vegetables and another dish the chef had prepared in advance: sesame honey chicken. The last one was my favorite and many others agreed. Becky and I took note of the restaurant and thought we might come back to it for one of our additional nights after the project.
At about 8:30pm, we departed the restaurant with much of the group headed to downtown for more pre-arranged massages. It would be another first for Karthik as he’d never had one before. Becky and I returned to the hotel by tuk-tuk, accompanied by Carolyn.
Thursday 7 March 2024
Breakfast ran a little late again, but we had no issues being on the road by 7:45am. Chinoo and Hana remained behind again. Chinoo had decided to rebook his flights and leave early on Friday morning. Becky and I rode in the van today.
We arrived by 9am and went through the typical set-up. I spent a few minutes visiting the Bridge of Life School classroom set up for the community in the same stilted building where we stored the tools for the project. The poorly lit room had a large white board in front, a single teacher, and about 30 kids that seemed to be five to seven years of age seated at low desks. The teacher was working on their alphabet with them in both Khmer and English and they were repeating the letters and sounds that they make after him, all in unison. They seemed to break in a Cambodian version of the Alphabet Song that American kids learn, but repeating it many times over. I took a short video and a couple of still photos of them.
At the work site, the weather was even worse than the previous three days–and the worst of the entire week, it would turn out. By now, we were getting used to the routine, though, and everyone was taking frequent breaks. The work continued to consist of adding frame pieces for the back two rooms on each house (bathroom nook and kitchen) and then the opening/doorway that led to a back or stern deck.
Paren was very helpful helping us set up all of the verticals that would support the corrugated steel walls for these inside rooms as well as more work that needed to be done on the sides. The locals concentrated on the rafter work running stringers along the top arches that were supported by the main frame. In other words, the rafters were not unitary pieces placed atop the structure like we had done in Kenya or is done in building most American houses, but were built onto the main structure one piece at a time.
We had started the day thinking there was a chance that we might have a chance of coming close to completion on Thursday, but those hopes were dashed pretty quickly as we saw how much work we had to do. More measuring, cutting, placing, nailing, and bolting continued through the entire morning.
The eight pieces of what constituted the painted frontice were given a second coat in the morning and two were placed on the arch roof facing just under where the roof metal sheets would be attached later. Eventually, the same was done on the back of each house. We now had a red and a blue house.
Just like in past days, the whole team seemed able to do almost every task. Tarek and I did most of the drilling and Alex led quality control of all bolted joints, but everyone else helped in those areas while sharing painting, measuring, pilot-hole drilling, and nailing work. I did climb up into the gables to nail a few pieces. This whole project was remarkably equitable in terms of everyone being generally able to do every task assigned to us.
We were wiped out for lunch and not only stopped for that break earlier, but stayed a little later. The heat was oppressive. I did a few volunteer interviews for use by DWC on their social media accounts at lunch as in past days, but we did not go back to work until almost 1:15pm.
The afternoon tasks would be fixing the very shiny, reflective corrugated stainless-steel sheets to the side walls. These sheets were remarkably light and thin. The locals put up each sheet (about two or three feet by eight feet, or maybe one-and-a-half or two by three meters). They would tack top nails through the steel into the wall’s vertical wood boards and then we would put additional nails about four “ridges” below, continuing to the bottom of the sheet, with sheets overlapping by two waves in most cases and about 10 centimeters side-by-side.
The nails had free-spinning, circular steel caps and were each about three centimeters long. They were made of very soft steel, though, and bent easily when pounded into the beams even if they pierced the steel sheets as if it was aluminum foil.
We all eventually learned that if you could not be deadly accurate with each hammer blow, then you needed to be patient, taking 20 or more lighter, precise taps to get one into the steel and support. It was very frustrating, but it seemed to be a difficult task for the locals, too, as there were many bent nails either replaced, nailed over, or just pounded in, bent. The job would easily take over one thousand of these nails, not even counting the rooftops.
The Sun’s reflection off of the steel as it slipped lower in the sky made the unshaded sides deadly for this work. We could put in 20 or 30 nails and then need to take a break, all of us sweating profusely. The team was pretty discouraged, really, as the day ended. We weren’t near completion and it didn’t seem that we would complete the project in another day.
The nail patterns were also not consistent around the houses, with spaces between nails on individual rows varying from three to six ridges and side-by-side ridges looking very different.
We loaded the vehicles and left shortly after 4:00pm. It was probably the least amount of work, in terms of actual time, that we had put in–again due to the weather conditions.
We had no plans for dinner. Becky and I decided to stay in and eat at the hotel while the others eventually met downtown at a restaurant called Mesa. Carolyn put the dinner on her card and collected money from everyone and I reimbursed her (with Becky’s help) via PayPal. Paren took Karthik for more shopping–this time for some gemstones and jewelry. His shopping list for family and friends was being completed.
After dinner, several volunteers got their usual massages, and others came straight back to the hotel. Becky and I retired early, anxious about the last day of work.
Friday 8 March
On our final morning, it was cloudy with some light rain showing on the radar with weather.com but no sign of rain at the hotel. With the clouds, it was even more humid–something I didn’t think possible.
At breakfast, we talked about the day ahead and later plans. The van was going to be driven by Paren with most of the group. They were planning to stop to buy house-warming gifts (home wares) for the two families that would be receiving the houses. Deepak organized all this as well as a plan to buy ice cream for all of the local kids sometime during the late morning.
Carolyn, Becky, and I went in the SUV directly to the work site with Saro driving us.
Driving in Cambodia is interesting. The car drivers seem very calm and they don't tend to drive fast. The roads are generally in very good condition, with many being redone during the pandemic when no tourists were visiting. More than half of the vehicles on the road are scooters of one sort of another.
The scooters drive everywhere and in every direction and lane and seem to be governed by only one rule: don’t die. Many of even the larger intersections are completely uncontrolled and so virtually all drivers slow on approach and work their way through based upon a first come, first served right-of-way rule.
Passing on the highways is constant and when cars do so, they ignore any oncoming scooters because it’s the scooters responsibility to avoid death, not the car driver’s job to avoid the scooters.
Scooters pull small trailers and tuk-tuk carriages (remorques) and have panniers for cargo. Many carry four or more people–I’ve seen as many as six–including toddlers, grandparents, and whole families. Almost all drivers wear helmets, but fewer passengers do.
The highway to the work site includes a section of the airport road, but the main artery that we take is lined by many small shack businesses selling sticky rice in bamboo, fresh, dried, and smoked fish, duck, and chicken, fresh fruits and vegetables, noodles, and all sorts of prepared street foods.
The land is incredibly flat with roads and paths elevated by one or two meters to avoid flooding. White Brahma cattle are in the fields cleaning stubble from the harvested rice fields. I wonder when the elevated paths and jetties were first built–probably centuries ago in many cases.
Mobile phone coverage seems to be everywhere and there are phone shops (primarily for Chinese brands like Oppo, Vivo, Huawei, etc) in every little village. Coverage is pretty good because the land is so flat. Everyone you see has a phone, including kids under 12 – at least in the city. At the floating village, we saw fewer phones, but the center of town had phone shops and ATMs.
Despite all of the trash we see around the Floating Village site, there are active measures to clean up the area. We saw troops of uniformed elementary school kids alongside the road before school picking up trash with large rice bags. Unfortunately, most of the trash seems to be just dumped into a pile and burned. Small trash pile fires seem to be everywhere and, even though it's the dry season, there doesn’t appear to be much concern about the fire spreading or getting out of control, presumably because of the high humidity and amount of green plants and grasses that are near the piles.
Most homes outside of the Floating Village are made of the same red brick that we used ten years ago to build latrines near Kept, Cambodia. The larger homes are well-appointed and maintained, with stucco over the brick walls. Many are built on stilts or with only storage areas on the ground floor. We were told that that is a tradition based in part for the security of the occupants and provides a “barn” area to gather domestic animals overnight. We saw this in Nepal and India, too, especially in rural areas.
Older wooden homes are still common with many on stilts of heights ranging from one to two meters even in areas that appear to be far from any significant water.
We passed several nurseries for flowering plants and fruit trees. Bougainvillea are common among the former. Fruit trees we see near the road include banana, mango, papaya, jackfruit, and (so I’m told) lychee and passion fruit.
Temples are frequent, surrounded by many ornate family stupas that contain ashes of ancestors.
As we approach the work site, having turned off of the main Highway 6 south towards Tonle Sap, the raised nature of the roads becomes more pronounced. Now we’re driving on wide, stable jetties. Closer to the water, some of the flats have bright green dry season rice growing, supported by the high water table and some irrigation. There are rectangular ponds retaining water after the lake has receded, some farming fish, others serving as lotus flower farms, and others to support irrigation. There is also one small crocodile farm near the work site.
At the turn to the south this morning, the Sun started to burn off the cloud and any home of better working conditions vanished. Paren assured us that this would be a fairly light day with much of our time devoted to cultural affairs like meeting the families getting the homes as well as other locals–and, of course, ice cream with the kids.
We knew that we had many nails to pound attaching the corrugated steel panels to the side walls and roof and wondered how much our local friends had done between our departure Thursday afternoon and our arrival Friday morning. Paren was concerned about the status of the homes and whether they would be presentable to the accepting families.
When the three of us started (Becky, Carloyn, and me) it was clear that the locals had been hard at work. Steel sheets were on the roof and that’s where they were concentrating their efforts. We added nails where they had been omitted and filled in whole sections. But, due to the low Sun and breeze, the conditions were almost pleasant and we worked non-stop until the rest of the group arrived about an hour later.
We finished the last rows of nails that we could reach and went to work attaching capping boards on exposed edges of steel on the sides of doorways for safety. This would require eight pieces per house for the two external and two internal doorways.
This involved lots of measuring and cutting and the entire team was up to the task, enjoying the weather and working quickly together.
Before long, the left or “red” house was getting close to being finished and Alex, Thomas, Carolyn, and Karthik swept the floors and removed all sorts of scrap metal and wood. Where we could, we helped the locals with the remaining cut pieces of corrugated steel attached to the front and rear gables.
Near 11am, we took a break to give out $25 worth of ice cream for the local kids, bought from the local vendor. That amount bought about 200 popsicles of one sort or another. Tarek, Alex, Anna, and really the whole group walked down the center of the street handing out popsicles to kids before they would melt. They looked like Pied Pipers with all of the kids following them. Some tried for a second and I’m sure a few succeeded, but it was remarkably calm and orderly.
Meanwhile, others completed painting the front awnings. All work was now progressing rapidly in the much better weather, easily 2-3C less than past days with a nice breeze. We commented that if the weather had been like this all week, we would’ve finished by Thursday’s close.
We broke for lunch feeling good and in better spirits. No one took a break after eating today. We all went back to the worksite and either did cleaning, final touch-ups, or began bringing the house-warming gifts to each home
Coming back and doing more painting, trim, and clean-up as the left house was done and all of the workers moved north to the blue house. Only roof work remained and that was going well.
Several local leaders arrived along with our two recipient families and lots of other kids. Lots of kids playing with Tarek and Hana (expectant parents, themselves). Paren introduced the female community organizer that helped decide the recipients of the homes. She spoke first followed by two men who were local/city chiefs. Paren did the translation for all involved.
Next, we were introduced to the two fathers that would get the homes and then the team was introduced and they asked for a few words from Hana and me. There were thanks and words of appreciation on all sides, of course.
The fathers drew numbers to decide which family got which house, red or blue, then each family came into their new house and saw their house-warming gifts. We went to the red house first. The family sat on a bed mat and thanked us. Meanwhile, the workers were still pounding the final nails into the blue house. They were asked to take a break so that we could hear each other speak.
We took photos at both sites with the families and then we went outside for group shots in front of the houses. The whole team glowed, almost as happy as the receiving families.
Our lead group of three left at 3:30 to get Natasha to the airport. The locals continued to apply the final touches and we were told that they would do a few more things in the following days, but the houses were “complete.”
I decided to go for a photo walk for a few kilometers thinking all were almost ready and they’d pick me up on the way. I put my best lens on my camera and walked the kilometer back to the giant golden Buddha statue by the bridge, taking about 100 photos along the way, mostly of people, bicycles, scooters, and houses.‘After walking a mile, I turned around, wondering where the others were. I was afraid that they’d passed me at some time when I wasn’t looking or wasn’t visible because I’d climbed onto the tall elevated area around the Buddha.
Then I realized that they were probably back at the house drinking beer with the workers, so I hurried back to find exactly that. I enjoyed two cold Ganzberg’s and cooled off for one last time at the work site. We thanked the workers on final time and left just before 5pm. I emailed Haven Restaurant telling them we’d be late, arriving at 7pm, and sent a message alerting the rest that we wouldn’t be back until just after 6pm and that we would be leaving for dinner at 6:45.
On the way back, we talked more with Paren about birth control, marriage, alcohol, and other issues in the community. He told us that alcohol was a problem because of the easy, cheap availability of rice liquor that could sell for as little as $0.75 USD per liter.
He also said that girls married very young and that it was not uncommon to see girls that were only 15 or 16 with a baby. Birth control was (obviously) not widely practiced despite encouragement from the government. He attributed that to a lack of trust in the medical/health institutions in the country and the high cost of health care for all. He was as frustrated by what he saw as we were.
We did return at 6pm, cleaned-up quickly and took tuk-tuks to the final team dinner, arriving on time. Deepak and Bella went to dinner on their own and were missed. We ordered appetizers, beer, and enjoyed a great meal. Before the main courses and dessert we renewed the now traditional, individual speeches or testimonials of what each of us like most about the project.
Everyone spoke of the same general issues: team cohesion and warmth; the sense of family; the oppressive heat; the fun of having a project where everyone could make a big contribution; the satisfaction of helping in a village where so much help is needed; the appreciation of the community; etc. Becky pointed out the many roles that Paren played from driver, to NGO lead, to project foreman and translator. We have not been on a project where one person did so many different tasks. We thanked him deeply. More than a few of us became teary and emotional.
I thanked Hana for making the project happen despite pushback and changed policies at Salesforce. She had been the driving force that ultimately made the trip go.
As usual, we returned to the hotel while some went for their final Cambodian massages.
Saturday 9 March
I was up by 5:30am to work on photos and see the others off. There were many tears in the hotel lobby as Paren took the first nine to the airport, departing at 7am. We tracked their progress on WhatsApp and all shared their favorite photos from the past week, as well as photos of their journey either home or to a real vacation spot like the Thai coast and Phuket.
Becky and I spent the day doing all kinds of admin stuff, posting photos, and responding to WhatsApp messages. I hit an ATM to get cash to pay Paren for the extra vehicle and we saw Thomas and Kellie off just after lunch and were now the only ones left. Everyone made their flights on time and to their destination.
That evening, Becky and I arranged an evening/sunset tour of Phnom Bekhang Temple with the hotel as well as a late checkout on Monday for flight to Ho Chi Minh City. We toasted the team's success again that night on Pub Street with a $1 beer and a lychee daiquiri and looked forward to our next adventures: a one-day tour of more temples (Beng Melea and Koh Ker) the next day and then our departure for Vietnam on Monday.
Becky and I are packed are ready to go tomorrow. Very much looking forward to our flights to Costa Rica and returning to San Jose for the first time in over 15 years. We'll be working with Mar a Mar Costa Rica -- the organization responsible for the coast-to-coast Camino de Costa Rica, a through-hiking trail. I'm the team leader for this Developing World Connections Trip, the first DWC working trip since the CoVID pandemic shut down operations in early 2020. We'll be joined by Mark Kijowski of Parma, Italy and David "Hoot" Gibson from Dayton, Ohio--both worked with me on our last trip to Nepal in 2019. Also along will be Becky France (most of you know her!) and Bonnie Weinstein of Albuquerque, New Mexico. this will be their first DWC trips. Jody Tippett of Kamloops, British Columbia is the new Communications Director for DWC and will be on her first trip. Jody will work with us for the first week of the trip. More tomorrow!
17 Oct 2019
I slept better than any night so far, waking only once in the middle of the night--oddly when the power went off and my white noise devices (ceiling fan and air conditioning) stopped. I didn’t wake up again until shortly after 6am, then did my normal routine prior to breakfast.
At breakfast and along the way, team members were discussing the weekend plans. We were being expected to vacate our rooms and put all of our bags into one room for the two days we would be at Bardiya National Park, but many wanted to just keep their rooms and either pay the difference or asked why DWC wasn’t covering that cost. In the meantime, I confirmed--as we had suspected--that the negotiated price for the rooms didn’t just include breakfast, but also dinner and all of our bottled water every day. Both the hotel owner and Dinesh confirmed that verbally.
So, en route to our work place, I composed an email to DWC suggesting that, since all of the meals were included, which was a significant savings over expected costs, that they (DWC) pick up the costs of our rooms over the weekend as well as covering the cost of the additional single rooms we now had for Hal and Mark. I allowed Mike to pre-read the email before sending it and after a good suggestion on his part, I sent it on its way. (As I type this morning on 18 Oct, I’ve received approval for my plan as well as approval to buy any snacks and additional food needed for the team during our remaining time.
Today was going to be the big day for setting concrete rings into our four very wet septic pits. Each team went to their site and began work quickly. We were actually surprised at how well it went, too. Team 1 had their rings in quickly after fishing a very agitated rat from one pit. They had already set rock and gravel in the bottom the day before.
At our site, Mark went into the first pit and using a stick and the water line as a reference proceeded to use rocks to shim the bottom ring the Mike and team had installed the day before until it was level. We then used four people at a time with ropes around the rings to lower them into the pit. The process went smoothly, using the stick and rocks to continue shimming the rings and make sure we were vertical and very closely in the center of each pit.
Our local leader for the day (who had a very difficult name to pronounce, so we just called him “Yellow Shirt”) was a very strong young man with zero people skills. He had impressed Mike the day before as someone who considered us a hindrance to his work despite the fact that little was done when we weren’t on site and he simply couldn’t get ANY of the heavy-lifting or digging work done without us. He wouldn’t smile, wouldn’t try to communicate with any of us, and frankly was as ass. I told Sam, one of our very friendly, hard-working local folks with CPN who spoke some English that Yellow Shirt wasn’t very friendly and Sam just smiled and shrugged and said that that was just the way he was and that we all had to work with him. Oh well.
After the third ring was installed in the first pit, Yellow Shirt starting bleeding profusely just above his left ankle on the outside of his leg from two puncture wounds. I did not know what caused them. Nonetheless, I got out the first aid kit and with Debra’s help, we cleaned the wound with disinfectant wipes and applied a compress. Happily, the bleeding slowed fairly quickly. We sprayed with Bactine and applied a large band-aid to his leg. He was silent through the process. I then got out tape and wrapped it around his lower leg to keep the band-aid in place and asked Sam to tell him that we didn’t want him going into the water again today and that he should keep the would dry all day. Same relayed the message, Yellow Shirt responded to him, and then didn’t make any attempt to say anything to Debra or me. He just went back to work. No smile, no thanks, not even the simplest acknowledgement of our existence.
A few minutes later, Debra brought the compound’s wife and mother to me for treatment. She had badly cut the tip of her pointer finger on her left hand with something sharp (possibly a rice scythe?) and it was infected and dirty. We cleaned it up as carefully as we could with wipes and bactine--it had to hurt her terribly as the nail was nearly sliced down the middle--and then I carefully wrapped it with four band-aids and some tape. We again instructed her to keep it dry for at least a day. Meanwhile, we made a point to check on her again and encouraged her to go to the local free clinic for better treatment.
Despite this cultural clash, we got all of the rings in quickly. The first pit, though, needed another ring to protect it from monsoon waters and keep the rim firmly above ground, so we put in an order by phone with Sam’s help for the required ring as well as the two caps we knew we would need--one at each site.
We then left Debra and Grace to help with the concrete and installation of the structural rods for the latrine along with a few local workers. Mike, Mark, and I returned to Unako House and helped Team 1 haul sand and gravel to a large open pit where it would be mixed and used for the same installation at that site. We had heard that Team 1 also needed one additional ring, but that was not the case.
Once the 45 baskets of sand and gravel were hauled to the mixing site and the portland cement was added, Deb and team did some work dry-mixing along with a local woman, Sima. By then, though, groups of ornately dressed women were arriving for a large meeting at Unako House concerning women’s issues in the region--an event to which we were invited. We called for Grace and Debra to return for the event and Mark started to trot in that direction to get them. They were on their way, though.
We sat in the front left corner of the meeting on the second level of Unako House and were amazed to see about 200 women seated cross-legged on the floor, some with small children. They waited patiently in the heat chatting amongst themselves. It seemed clear that some groups were in what almost constituted uniforms--saris of identical design and decoration--that we presumed represented unique villages. Dinesh later told us that some had some from up to a three hour’s drive away and that many had walked more than an hour to attend the meeting.
The meeting started with some short speeches and then the local dignitaries sitting to our right were blessed with a red tika and given a sash that went around their necks. The same presentation was then held for each of us. All of us, though, were VERY dirty, straight from work. I was, in particular, at my dirtiest and felt terrible among all the finery.
Dinesh asked me to get up, move to the back of the room and take photos and in doing so I had to walk right down the middle of the 200, tip-toeing in my dirty boots between the amused (or shocked and stunned) women, hoping that I wasn’t dripping sweat or dropping dried mud on them as I passed.
Music started and three beautiful young ladies danced on a large red plastic tarp. They soon asked Debra, Grace, Deb, and Sue to join them, and Debra and Grace did so. Before long, the men were dancing, too, except for Hal, while I was happy to be taking photos and a video of the event from the back of the room.
The dancing done, at one point a local leader stood and said a few words, then I was motioned to the front to accept a small plaque showing the community’s appreciation for our work. I was just filthy, though. I said a couple of words of thanks and returned to my seat. At this point, we were asked to depart and we went out to the north, shaded side of the building for lunch while the meeting carried on.
Lunch was a rather unique roasted rice along with chicken in a mildly spicy yellow sauce--very good once again. We chatted over lunch and made plans for the afternoon. Our final ring was delivered as well as the needed to caps, so we off-loaded the cap at the first site and then delivered and installed the final ring and second cap to our site. Mike, Grace, and Debra stayed behind at that site to continue help with the latrine while Mark and I returned to Unako House. Once back, we joined with Hoot and were led by Hemraj to the third work site. Meanwhile, Team 1 was mixing concrete for the vertical rod installation led by Sima and Deb.
Dinesh said that third site was about 500 meters away, across the main road from Unako House. We walked with Hemraj and one other young man to the site that, according to Hoot’s GPS, was 0.88 miles or 1.4 kilometers away. We didn’t enjoy seeing the different countryside, though, including crossing a small stream that had many cattle grazing nearby.
When we arrived it was clear that we would be digging in an elevated area about five meters or so above any nearby water sources, ditches, or streams, so that made us optimistic. It took some time before we were cleared to work, though. Our local technical leader was quie.t but very nice and down-to-business. He and Hemraj staked out and marked the latrine as well as where the rings would go. We suggested that the rings be a little farther apart than in the thick, clay soil of the other locations as the mostly sand composition at this site worried us in terms of sidewall collapse. Hemraj explained that to our leader and he agreed. The pits would be a little over two feet apart.
Pleasantly, too, a young lady delivered three perfectly new Tata shovels complete with sharp points. We got to work quickly in the hot sun--zero shade or breeze--and also asked that Hemraj send a message back to Unako House asking that Mike and Grace be sent over to help.
Work went quickly in the much drier soil. The young lady and our tech lead dug the latrine foundation and placed river rock and dry concrete mix atop the rocks after staking it out with sticks and twine. We dug in teams of two: Hoot and Mark on the east side; Hemraj and me on the west. Both teams made good progress and we were happy to not have mud and thick clay. Mike and Grace arrived shortly thereafter and we shifted to three-person rotations, with Mike joining us and Grace on Mark and Hoot’s “team.” Our only obstacles were a few roots, the occasional gravel (that gave us a sense that this was a filled hill) and the oppressive heat that required us to rotate diggers frequently.
I decided that we would work until about 3:40, giving us time to walk back to Unako House to meet the others for departure. The digging seemed to get a little competitive,especially in the last few rotations when we were changing diggers at the same time, comparing depths, etc. By the time we finished, both holes were over five feet deep and almost six feet in some places. We’d kept good diameters all the way down, too. Hemraj said we were done as the pits only needed to be five feet deep here due to the elevation and dry soil--that was a most pleasant surprise.
We walked back and along the saw families winnowing rice and carrying bales of rice stalks along the road. Three girls were carrying big loads on their heads and asked if I would take their photo. I did some group shots and then did close-ups under the burden of the rice bales and was very happy with the result. They were practicing their English and giggling as they asked my name and where I was from--a great highlight to the day.
When we returned to Unako House, we were very impressed with the work of Team 1 that had four rods set in the concrete-molded corners as well as the squatter “toilet”, trap, and piping to the pits set--virtually complete, functionally at least. Debra suggested that as we drive out we go by the other site to see what Sam, Yellow Shirt, and the others had done since she had left (Note: she was not optimistic). We all agreed and shortly after 4pm we departed, headed south on the narrow farm road.
We were actually pleasantly surprised by what we found at Site 2. The work was comparable to Site 1 except that the toilet had not been placed and set, not the piping. The corners and vertical rods were in place, though, and it would be less than an hours work to catch up to Site 1.
The return that followed took us on backroads--about as backroad as possible in Nepal--and we emerged from the farmland and tight squeezes between fences and bamboo stands at the main river crossing bridge back to Lamahi. From there it was quick drive in.
This was probably my most exhausting and sweaty day. Mike and Mark agreed. We were as fatigued as we’d been all week and ready for a long cool shower. We gathered cold water bottles and headed to our rooms.
At dinner, we talked about the next days plans--something I’d discussed with others on the team and then with Dinesh during the return drive. We would send two each to Sites 1 and 2 to help with completion of the latrines, send a couple more to Site 3 to help put the finishing touches on the pits and work on the latrine foundation, and then send the “Digging Team” to Site 4 to get started there. Meanwhile, we asked that rings and caps be delivered to Site 3 even if we couldn’t install them on Friday. Dinesh agreed to the plan as did the others.
Dinesh also told us the plan for Bardiya--that we would wrap up work by about 11:30am, get lunch at Unako House, and then return to clean-up and try to be on the road to Bardiya by 1:30pm. He also covered the Bardiya itinerary and I once again briefed the group on the room and spending plan that I had emailed to DWC. We all drank a little more beer and wine (following the usual dinner plates) talked about the day and retired early--we could tell that many were fading quickly.
That evening, I got a message from Debra that she wasn’t feeling well due to a persistent cough and some congestion and that she would be skipping the morning’s work on Friday to recover. That morning we had also stopped by a pharmacy to get her some cough drops.
16 Oct 2019
I spent my first waking hour-and-a-half writing this blog and loading photos before going to the lobby for coffee at 6:45. It was another cool, hazy morning but we could see a little more blue in the sky today--or maybe that was just our imagination and best wishes.
Today’s breakfast was a little different with grilled eggs on lightly toasted bread for sandwiches and local, small and tart bananas. I had two of each and particularly liked the bananas. Everyone else seemed to like the change.
Dinesh couldn’t join us in the morning as he was already on his way to Unako House for meetings. Instead a tall young man named “Man” joined us. Everyone was ready to go at 8:10 and Santos was there early with the bus. Man asked if anyone wanted to ride on his motorcycle with him to the site, but I quickly declined for everyone--especially Grace. We had a good chuckle over that. Man took off on his bike and we were a few minutes behind.
About a mile into the trip, we realized that Man was just dropping his bike off at home (or somewhere) as the bus picked him up on the way. We stopped in Gadhawa at the concrete shop where they made blocks, bricks, as well as the concrete rings and caps used for septic pits. Sam met us there and he along with Santos were trying to arrange for truck and wagon transportation for the 24 rings and four caps that we would need today. We looked around the site and found the rings and were fascinated by the machinery and processes used to make the pieces. There were also long rectangular steel molds for the kind of steel reinforced pillars that are standard for local home and building construction. There were several rings and caps recently formed that were drying and curing on the ground and the rings were stacked in several places about four high. Checking the dimensions, each ring seemed to be about two- to three-inches thick, 14”-15” in height and with a diameter very close to three feet. Mark later did a calculation on the weight of each based upon the density of concrete and came up with a very believable 260 pounds.
The wait for a truck took much longer than usual as it turned out the first candidate hand truck wasn’t operable. We waited almost an hour for the first to arrive, then loaded six rings and two caps aboard the small steel trailer. The hand truck, used for everything from plowing to towing and taxi service in the area was very slow when laden with the trailer and rings. It was also slowed by our driver’s propensity for stopping in each direction to pick up and deliver other cargo for additional pay, we later learned.
We arrived at the work sites shortly after 10am and found that at the near site the local workers had determined that one pit needed to be three feet deeper and the other one only needed another foot of digging. Mark jumped in along with Kevin and they started to work. Meanwhile, out hand truck and rings showed up and we walked behind it to the second site. There, we needed to prep the path to the latrine pits as it was a narrow fit to our work site for the truck and trailer.
The truck and trailer backed in very delicately to the closest approach point to our latrine, just a footstep away from the pig sty. Meanwhile, we had to disassemble most of the wooden gate to the homes backyard area where the latrines were located so that we could bring the rings back. The 30 meter move of these 260 pound rings was not trivial and by the time we had them stacked near the pits along with two caps, we were all drenched in sweat.
The first thing we did, though, noticing the speed of the truck was to unload all six at the back of the wagon so that he could head back. In addition to unloading the rings, one of the local guys also went into our pits and dug out a little more along the sides to even up the pits. Even more water had seeped in during the night and the water level was just at seven feet below the ground surface.
Santos had the bus waiting for us and we jumped aboard to go back to the concrete foundry for another load. When we arrived a truck was blocking the way getting a load of bricks, so we had to wait almost a half-hour for the driveway to clear. During that time we bought drinks at a local restaurant--bottled Coke and Sprite along with some cold water--and sat in the back to relax.
We finally had a chance to load the rings and did so quickly, returning to Unako house to find the pits complete at the nearby site as we also unloaded this shipment of rings there. By the time this was done and we’d sent the truck back for more, it was lunch-time.
During lunch we discussed our mounting frustration with not knowing who was in charge or what the plan for each latrine was. We had not received any kind of plan, the plans seemed (to us at least) to be changing hourly, and there was not a good sense of why we were doing what we were doing. I also did not have a good sense that whoever was in charge of the building knew anything about soil hydraulics and water tables.
After lunch--which was excellent, by the way, featuring a rice and coconut porridge--I asked Dinesh about our concerns. He still could not tell me who was in charge, but did say what we would be doing next which was to put rocks in the bottom of each pit to make sure the rings had a level base on which to sit. In each pit, the water was bailed again until they could see the bottom in order to ascertain if the base was level as rocks were thrown in, but that was very difficult to maintain as the water just seeped in quickly, covering the rocks and any sand that was added.
We asked about the steel rods that would act as the corner braces for the structures and never really got a good explanation for why those couldn’t be now installed into the set foundation corners with rocks and concrete. We wouldn’t do that until Thursday when the welder would come to look over our work, but then he wouldn’t weld the top braces and roof truss to our four vertical shafts until Friday. Oh well. In the meantime, we had people sitting around that could’ve easily and enthusiastically installed the rods.
In the afternoon, we managed to get our final two loads of rings to the sites bringing the daily total to 24. At the far site, with Mike’s, Debra’s, and Grace’s hard work and insistence, one of the rings was actually installed in the base of the first pit--video’ed by Debra for our instruction. Mike reported that the expert at that site, though, wasn’t completely happy with how level the ring was in the bottom of the pit and said that we would need to go down into the pit with two of three people in the morning and shim it level with river rocks. That should be fun.
Meanwhile, back at the near site, the foreman kept insisting on adding more sand and gravel to the bottom of each pit which, given the water that had now seeped back, only raised the level of the water and did not provide any visibly level bottom.
As we left, Dinesh and I chatted for a short time and he apologized for not fully explaining the process to us at the beginning. I told him that, especially with a group of five PhD engineers and yet another engineer in Mark, we could probably be a LITTLE overbearing in our questions and need for explanation, too. We ended the day, though, happy with our progress and ready to put all of the rings into the pits the next day. Dinesh also said that we might begin digging at sites three and four later tomorrow if the rings went in quickly. We could leave behind some of the team to do the concrete and rod installation while we dug pits again. There was some mention of a visit to see and meet some locals that would be at an indeterminate (or to be determined) time, but that was left as a possibility only. We all seemed to hope that that would be quick and that we would have a full day of work now that we’d overcome some of the uncertainty of the previous two days.
On the return to the hotel, we picked up a few locals who asked for rides. Santos had done so a few times earlier moving from Unako House and Gadhawa and back during the day. In each case the riders were thrilled to get a free ride to their destination and not required to pay. It was a special treat, it seemed, to ride with a group of dirty foreign workers, too!
We returned to the hotel shortly after 4:30 and everyone went to their rooms for their own cleaning ritual. Hoot brought laundry to the front desk and we’ll all be curious to see how that goes. I didn more bucket laundry.
Dinner was ramen noodles and chicken in a spicy sauce along with plenty of beer. We hung around until about 8:30pm talking, then everyone went to their rooms for a good night’s sleep.
During the day, I did take a few minutes to photograph the rice harvest, especially the winnowing of the rice using hand-crank fans to blow the husks away from the rice--all of this done by hand. The amount of hand labor--or lack of machine assistance--in the rice industry here is amazing. All of the fields seem to be ut by hand, gathered by hand, arm, and back, and threshed by hand. We’ve seen a few machine systems threshing the rice along the roadsides, but it was all from stalks carried to that site. We’ve also seen a few tractors plowing fields, but water buffalo seem to be as prevalent for that task as well.
The land is amazing fertile, too. In the bottom areas around the river, people are gathering what looks like wild growth lentils. I could find black lentils growing in the corners of fields and it was unclear whether those gathering the lentils had actually planted some small plots of their own on public land or were just more-or-less scavenging. The rice grows amazing thick here and in the ditches and along fences you can see long green beans growing free, squash sprouting from thatch roofs (the fruit growing on the roof), okra, and all types of flowers. Cabbage and cauliflower are being grown in some fields and we did see one field of corn as well. The only bare earth is in the rocky banks of the rivers. Everything else is green or grown and ready for harvest.
15 Oct 2019
I woke up at about 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Closer to 5am, I just got up and rearranged all of my things in anticipation of the day. I also began posting photos and writing this blog before going down for coffee at 6:30. I also spoke to Becky by phone (wifi) and updated her on our status. Wifi was poor in the lobby, so I returned to the room to get more work done.
I went back and forth between the lobby and room for a few hours, alternating between coffee and wifi. Mike sat outside in the cool morning air with his coffee until the air conditioning was turned on in the muggier lobby. A local woman came buy with a large bag basket of produce on her head for the hotel. The lady proprietor picked through the small bags in the basket consisting of mustard greens, spinach, and the very long green beans that seem to be a staple here.
At breakfast we discussed the days plan with Dinesh. Everyone was excited to get started. We were told that wouldn’t be leaving until about 8:20, which we interpreted to mean that we wouldn’t be out of the hotel until 8:45, but we were happily surprised when Santos, our driver, showed up with the bus shortly after 8am. We were on the road by 8:15 and headed southeast across Lamahi and then on the road to Unako House (local home of CNP) and our work sites.
Along the way, Dinesh explained that this was one of the main roads to India and that there was considerable construction along the way, funded in part by the Indian government, to improve the road. We saw immediately that the state of the road was not very good and in one little town saw the construction first hand. The road was down to one bumpy, muddy lane in the middle of town and workers along the side were putting in drainage channels. The road alternated from very good to very poor several times and included a long, “one-plus” lane bridge across the river. I say “one-plus” because a bus and a tuck-tuck could cross paths on the bridge, but it wasn’t wide enough for two vehicles larger than a passenger car. On the return that evening, we had to wait for a string of buses coming the other way.
Dinesh told me that we could be passing through another town on the way and when he arrived he explained that, outside of Lamahi, it was the nearest large town that included both a police station and small clinic. He also said that we were passing by the hardware store where we might be buying things during the week and asked if we’d like to drop by to see what they had in stock--a short five minute visit. I agreed and the stop was just that--about a 50 meter walk from the town’s main intersection to the very, very crowded little shop that held everything from a paint mixing machine to corrugated steel roofing sheets, glass, plywood, flooring, hardware, etc. It was kind of like a micro-Home Depot in the size of a small convenience store. Every square inch was used for something.
Dinesh had told us that there would be a welcoming ceremony at the Unako House with the families that we would be helping attendance along with the rest of the staff and some trainees. When we arrived shortly before 9am, that’s exactly what we saw. We were greeted with leis of flowers and led into a large room with about twenty others. We were seated in somewhat of a semicircle and a little girl, along with a couple of other young ladies came around to each of us giving us a hand-full of flowers and putting s very bright pink bindi on each of our foreheads, saying “Namaste” as she did so.
Dinesh then introduced us to everyone and asked if one of us would like to say something and that he would translate for us. I stood up and gave a general thanks and welcome and Debra did the same, emphasizing CNP’s role in helping girls and women and how much that meant to her. Dinesh also explained some of the circumstances of the families, especially pointing out a widow we would be helping near the Unako House that had been abandoned by her husband’s family upon his death--a cultural issue not uncommon to the area by which the husband’s family places blame for his death on the wife.
We then took a few group photos and split into our two groups. Debra, Grace, Mark, and Mike joined me--we would be walking to the widow’s home about almost a kilometer up the road and the others (Hoot, Mark, Deb, Sue, and Hal) would be working at a site just a few meters from the building.
Sam, one of the staff members, joined us in the walk to our work-site as did Santos, our driver. The road was dusty with loose gravel, traveled by a tractor, a tuck-tuck for local transportation, and many on bicycle. We passed small farmhouses with water buffalo, goats, chickens, and a few pigs. Several of the homes had beautiful gardens with tall marigolds and other flowers attracting plenty of butterflies. Families from the homes were making their way to the rice fields as harvest season was underway.
When we arrived at our location, we were pleasantly surprised to see that much of our work would be done in at least partial shade as there were several small trees lining the ditch bank near the stick, mud, and thatched roof home. The site “foreman” used his three meter tape measure to mark out circles where we would dig the two septic pits (four feet in diameter), separated by about two feet, and the structure itself that would only be four feet by five feet. We were surprised that all of their measurements were in feet.
Our team took to digging the septic pits quickly--maybe too quickly. We were digging furiously and started to sweat profusely and overheat. Our pent up enthusiasm was getting to us. The weight and thickness of the loamy soil quickly took its toll, though, and we slowed. We had to cut through some fairly big roots as well.
At first, two could dig at the same hole at once, but once we were down into the ground by much more than about two feet, it got two crowded and we had to alternate. At first, the foreman said that we needed to dig down “nine feet” as we would be putting in (i.e., stacking) six half-meter tall, one meter wide concrete rings for each ring, but I had my doubts as to whether we’d be able to go that deep before hitting water.
As we worked in each hole, the foreman, along with Sam and Santos dug the foundation for the latrine with a wide hoe. It seemed larger than what we’d done with bricks in Cambodia. Once that was dug (about six inches deep and a foot wide, they began to line it with large, rounded river rock.
Throughout this process, we had about ten kids from the family and nearby watching us, ranging in age from five or six up to early teens. Some of the kids helped by carrying river rocks to the foundation--something Debra was helping with, too, but most just stood around and watched. As it got warmer, I opened my bag of Jolly Rancher hard candies and handed them out to the workers and kids who seemed to like them.
The digging got more serious as the clay soil got thicker and thicker. Soon, in the hole nearest the house, we were alternating one person at a time and struggling to pull that person (Mark, Mike, or me) out of the hole. Grace was working hard on the other hole as was Debra and while one was in each whole, the others were using the excavated clay to build a berm between the latrine and the drainage ditch beside the home--something we told might flood the house during the monsoon season. We also had to clear the excavated dirt from around the pits just so the digger could successfully toss their shovel-fulls of clay over the edge.
Soon, in the first hole, we were too deep to even throw out the clay easily. Debra suggested using the plastic buckets nearby and also tried to explain to our non-English speaking foreman that we needed steel buckets and rope. Sam and Santos weren’t there at the time, so this became a little frustrating. We decided to use the plastic buckets while we had them--along with some rope--and that worked for about five or six trips out of the hole until the handle broke. It was repaired but broke again. By then, Sam and Santos had returned, understood the problem, and promised to go into town during lunch to get steel buckets.
We took a lunch break at noon and walked back to the Unako House. The others were headed to lunch at the same time. We could see that they were suffering a bit more from the sun than we were with their work in an open field. They did have a “relief site” next to the building with shade, though, at which several chairs allowed them to take breaks. They also were struggling with the thick soil and, in their first pit, had hit water barely a meter down.
Lunch was a good break. We had a chance to clean up a little, get some water and have the standard meal. We compared descriptions of our sites and discussed the project more. Then and again later in the day, we realized that the latrines were going to be different than we expected and the thought came to us that it would’ve been nice to see a diagram or photos of the plan or to just visit a similarly completed toilet in the area before we started work.
We walked back after lunch and had a very productive afternoon. We completed digging the closest pit first. Mark had struck water before lunch and when we returned there was quite a bit in the bottom. We used the bucket to clear out the water and continue digging, but it was clear that we wouldn’t get much farther down. Same came over and told us that we were close to finishing and that seven feet deep--the depth to the now-established water table level would be good enough. Meanwhile, Grace was working on the second pit with Mike and Debra was helping with the rocks and mortar at the latrine, all of us switching in and out of roles, taking some photos, too.
Over lunch, not much was done with the toilet structure, but once the two pits were completed by about 2:30, everyone focused on that. Our foreman allowed us into the mix as Grace and Debra brought us buckets of mortar and we worked to together to add layers of rock to the walls of the latrine. Mike turned on his bluetooth speaker and the kids listened first to some classic rock and then some country music of Mike’s choosing. Grace (and I) got sick of that, though, and she chose a “Glass Animals” playlist followed by my selection of “Portugal. The Man.” The kids seemed to like that quite a bit better.
By about 3:45, we were done with the rock and mortar. The foreman and others piled some dirt around the outside the rectangular structure (with a step on one side and a slot on the other for the pipe) and filled the two-foot high structure with clay from our excavation piles to keep everything in place. We were told that we would dig out the clay from the inside once everything was set the next day.
As we left, I took a few photos, gave the kids another Jolly Rancher, and we packed up for the walk. It was a beautiful afternoon with the fields being harvest, the golden colors and vibrant dress of the locals making for some striking sites and photos.
At Unako House, we surveyed the work of the other team with Kevin and Hoot still digging away. One of their pits was nearing seven feet in depth--it was the one farthest from the nearby well head, while the other, only two feet away was wet barely four or so feet down. Mark jumped into that one and did some more digging, but it seemed obvious that both would have water in the bottoms when we returned the next day.
The rock structure at this site was a little higher than ours by a few inches and they did not used mud in the middle to hold things in place. They also seemed to use noticeably bigger river rocks than we did.
We decided to pack up for the day and left by 4:10pm. On the way back, Dinesh showed us a completed latrine that we saw from about 100 meters away.
Back at the hotel (we arrived at 4:45), everyone cleaned up with some doing sink laundry but others discovering that the hotel would do laundry. I cleaned my clothes in a bucket of hot water in the bathroom, showered and felt refreshed. We started to gather for the 7pm dinner by 6pm to have some refreshments.
At dinner, Dinesh told us that we would be helping load the concrete rings in the morning and that he had some meetings but would see as on-site later in the morning. He also said that the menu would change a little the next day and that we’d get some noodles and chicken instead of the same meal we’d had for lunch and dinner in each of the last three or (in some case) four days. That made everyone happy.
The evening concluded with Hal singing “Oh, Canada!” to the Canadian ladies in our group, fueled by a couple of beers and a generous shot of “Old Durbar” Nelapi whiskey--a highlight of the day. I was in bed shortly after 9pm and slept (with a few interruptions) until almost 5:30am.
14 Oct 2019
I woke up before my 5am alarm, took a shower, completed my packing and brought everything downstairs in two loads, The guy at the desk was very helpful--he’d been on-duty all night--and took care of our checked common bag for trekking. Debra was already in the dining area having coffee, so I joined her and the others came down shortly after. As promised the food was ready, everyone showed up on time and (somewhat to my surprise) we were loaded, in the van, and moving at 6:18.
Traffic was very light as we made the 15 minute trip to the airport. We drove to the domestic terminal on the north side of the airport and our driver just let us out. He got some nice tips for his help with the luggage, though, especially from Deb and Sue who had three very large bags filled mostly with things they planned to give away during our time in Lamahi.
We walked towards the terminal--whose first line of security seemed to be the many monkeys in the trees and on the power lines at the entrance of the terminal--and found the Buddha Airlines front desk. I asked about our tickets and tried to pull up the PDF versions of each on my mobile phone when one of Dinesh’s helpers showed up, followed shortly thereafter by Dinesh himself, who had paper copies of our tickets and led us through the first screening. It was a short walk from there to the Buddha Airlines check-in and Dinesh handled all of that expertly after getting our passports. Within ten minutes we were headed to the final screening and the terminal.
As usual in Nepal, I set off the metal detector despite having emptied all of my pockets due to my steel hip, but they barely batted an eye, patted me about twice and moved me along.
Frankly, the domestic terminal at Tribhuvan is better than the international terminal. They’ve done rennovations in the bathrooms and there are a few little shops. Wifi was good while we waited and the flow to buses that carried passengeres to their planes seemed to work well. We were in the terminal by 7am and flights for Buddha Air to places like Pokhara were boarding. We waited about a half-hour for our flight to be called with most of us sitting around checking in with wifi, using the clean bathrooms, and perusing the maps on the walls or the trekking maps Hoot bought in Thamel that showed both Bardiya National Park and the Annapurna Region.
At about 7:30am our flight was called and we went through check-in to the bus. I sat next to what I thought was a Nepali family only to find out that they were from Fairfax County, Virginia and the two kids (ages 9 and 13) were born in the US. They were on our flight, visiting relatives in the Lumbini area--where the parents had been born.
The bus arried quickly at the ATR-72 twin engine plane that looked to be very well-maintained. We boarded through the rear entrance and took our seats. Dinesh was kind enough to get us all seats on the right side of the plane so that we’d have good views of the Himalayas as we headed east towards our destination.
The plane was about 80% full at take-off. We climbed quickly out of the KAthmandu Valley and above the hazy inversion. The pilot said we were flying at 12,500 feet, though it seemed higher. Once above the smoky haze, the views of the Himalayas were spectacular and the flight passed quickly as most everyone was crowding to the right side to take cell phone photos. Despite the short duration of the flight, the attendants served water and small bags of peanuts. They were very well-dressed and courteous and I was surprised to see that Buddha Air had its own in-flight magazine and was now even flying internationally to Kolkata, India.
We descended into the haze on our approach to Buddha International Airport and landed headed west. We did a u-turn at the end of the runway and proceeded back up the main runway to park at the terminal. Bags were unloaded and brought to a rather simple baggage claim area--there is only one terminal there--and we quickly got out bags. There was security, though, as Dinesh had to show claim tags for each bag as it was handed over the low concrete wall to us.
The parking lot was dirt and rocks, but we managed to get our bags over to the Tata bus and our driver that awaited us. Two teenage boys were also on the bus for the duration of our travels, friends of the driver who were helping him with the bags as well as with transporting some other goods that we later picked up.
Over the next three-plus hours of driving, we really had a chance to see the southern Nepal countryside. The roads were largely terrible with big potholes that required the driver to come to a near complete stop, interrupted by stretches of good asphalt that allowed for very high speeds. The bus had no air-conditioning or seatbelts, but plenty of rust and reasonably good tires and suspension. Our driver was VERY good and as safe as could be given the rules of the Nepali roads which seem to be: just don’t have a head-on collision; honk frequently to let others know you’re coming; pass other vehicles at every possible opportunity.
Our first stop was the Buddha Birthplace Shrine near Lumbini, a World Heritage Site. We parked off of the main road and walked about a kilometer into the main entrance, accompanied by many pilgrims that looked like they were bused in from India as well as many others. The complex is huge and resembles a nature park with a few large buildings.
I bought my entrance and photography ticket first and then waited adjacent to the ticket office for the others, taking some photos of flowers and plants in the area. A few minutes later, I turned to see Kevin and Mark had joined me and we started walking north to what we thought was the main destination, a large golden Buddha statue about a quarter mile up the wide walkway that was filled with pilgrims and others. We didn’t see the rest of the group.
We continued walking to the Buddha, took some pictures and, along the way, Mark and Kevin said that the others must be well ahead of us since they (Mark and Kevin) were last in line for tickets.
We walked another quarter mile or so and followed the pilgrims to the large Chinese shrine to Buddha, took photos and bought some water. We still didn’t see the others. By this point we were getting worried, so I checked email and found that the others were on their way back of the bus despite Dinesh telling us that we would be here for two hours--at this point we hadn’t been there for an hour yet.
We realized that we had gone the wrong way and that the main attractions (Buddha’s birthplace and temple) were actually BEHIND the ticket office--we’d passed it coming in--and that we were a good half-mile away.
We started walking quickly and communicated with the group that had to already be back at the bus and frustrated with our absence--and their wait in the heat. We did a quick loop through the shrine to see the birthplace and went back as quickly as we could. We probably should’ve taken one of the rickshaws or tuck-tucks to make it an even quicker trip, in retrospect.
Finally, we made it back to the bus (just over 1:45 after we’d left) and met up with the group. Dinesh was very happy to see us, not wanting to lose members of his group on the very first full day. We boarded the bus after many apologies and headed towards lunch and then Lamahi.
We passed through a broad valley covered with rice fields, occasional home and small villages. The roads had plenty of bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, large transport trucks, and a few passenger cars on them, as well as goats, dogs, and cows. We passed through one forested area from which many bicyclists were bringing bundles of firewood to villages and to small stands at which they sold the wood for cooking. The forest looked healthy and not overharvested, the wood being sold mostly being branches, not full logs.
We stopped for lunch at a small hotel called Pauwa and relaxed on the couches with cold water and the food we now know is not just typical, but standard for just about every meal in Nepal: a mound of rice, a bowl of daal, and then small surrounding bowls of spinach, mustard greens, fish or chicken in sauce, a smaller bowl of some spicey sauce, and then either soft roti or a very thin, crispy and peppery cracker bread--all very good and pretty much all you can eat.
We boarded the bus and drove the remaining 79 kilometers to Lamahi, a trip that took almost two hours. The most harrowing part of this segment was going over a mountain pass with many twists, turns, and narrow bridges. We miraculously avoided about a dozen head-on collisions with large trucks, motorcycles, and cows as we and others continually passed other vehicles on blind curves and hair-pin turns depending upon the brakes of oncoming vehicles, last-second swerving, and other evasive maneuvers.
We finally arrived in Lamahi shortly after 3pm and checked into the Hotel Classic. We’re apparently the only people staying here in the family run establishment that has eight rooms on two levels. Mike and Grace share a room as do Deb and Sue, and Kevin and Hoot. Mark, Dinesh, Hal, and I are in single rooms. The air conditioning works well in each room, wifi is pretty good on the first level where our rooms are (but very weak, strangely, in the lobby), and there’s really nowhere to put clothes other than a coat rack in each room. The carpet is like low-pile astroturf and the beds range from soft to plywood in firmness. The bath/shower is exactly that--a toilet room with a shower head coming out of the wall. It’s tiled to about a meter up from the floor with two floor drains. Hot water is merely an aspiration. We have a couple of plugs that seem to work well. The curtains don’t block out much light.
After checking in and getting the rooming arrangements set, we were told to meet for dinner at 7pm. Several of us decided to go for a walk and I used WhatsApp to announce the activity as well as to pass along the room numbers of the whole team.
We walked the mostly dirt streets of Lamahi for about an hour: Debra, Deb, Sue, Kevin, Mark, Hoot, Grace, and I. We asked about the price of the 650ml beer bottles in the shops (ranging from 270 NPR to 450 NPR), scouted any potential restaurants, and managed to get some cash out of an ATM on our second try. The locals seemed curious by our presence as this is clearly not a tourist town and we did not see any other non-locals during our walk. The west side of the town, where we’re located, is dominated by a large cricket pitch and we saw some teenagers practicing in batting cages upon our return. We walked through the dusty bus depot and MArk avoided becoming our first serious casualty by stepping out of the way of a bus that was turning (careening?) from the main highway into the gravely bus staging area. Along the way, we also saw plenty of water buffalo walking the streets on what looked like a regular evening stroll back to their home, a couple of rather large and impressive multi-story building construction sites, and plenty of agricultural machinery. The primary means of paid transportation in town seems to be tuck-tucks and we discussed taking a larger tour of the area via tuck-tuck on a future evening.
We were back at the hotel shortly after 5:30pm and everyone relaxed before dinner. Mark, Hoot, and I asked about beer in the lobby and were told that it was 500 NPR for Tuborg and 550 NPR for Carlsberg per bottle. They also had “Dragon” high alcohol beer for 400 NPR but we passed on that.
We ordered two bottles, three glasses and sat down to cool off. Shortly thereafter, Hal joined us and the so did Dinesh. We ordered more beer as Dinesh said that they would just run a group tab for the beer and charge us at the end of our stay--I can’t wait to see how big that bill is.
Deepah, one of the local reps stopped by to say “hi” but couldn’t stay. Sam and Hemaj introduced themselves as the construction experts for our trip and I opened up photos from my Cambodia latrine building trip to compare notes and better understand what we’d be doing over the next two weeks. They explained that the latrines would be similar to what we’d done near Kep, Cambodia, but that we wouldn’t be making brick walls. Instead, we would be adding rebar and other structural supports vertically from the poured foundation and then constructing steel walls in each latrine along with a corrugated steel roof. That should make the whole process go much quicker.
Dinner arrived shortly after 7pm and it was the standard plate, much like we’d had at lunch. The beer continued to flow, too. We finally adjourned at about 8:30 pm with the plan for the next day to have coffee and tea available starting at 6:30am, breakfast served at about 7:30am and then a departure at or near 8:20. I returned to my room, took a quick shower, plugged in things that needed recharging, inserted by earplugs, put on my eye mask and went to sleep.
13 Oct 2019
I slept reasonably well again, waking up a few times before getting up at about 5:30am and making some tea. I also did sink laundry with underwear and two T-shirts to stay ahead of the game, then turned on the Air Force - Fresno State football game back in Colorado Springs via internet radio and started writing in the blog.
Air Force ending up winning the game 43-25, which was nice. Mark Kijowski arrived on time without incident and we all filtered through breakfast downstairs in the hotel. Hoot left early for the Monkey Temple and a chance to get in some stairs which I knew he would enjoy.
We told everyone to start meeting up in the lobby starting at about 9am, about the time that Dinesh arrived. He arranged for the hotel van (a 15-passenger vehicle) to take us to Creating Possibilities Nepal (CNP) and we left at about 9:45 after talking in the lobby and answering some questions. Several also went for cash at a nearby ATM.
The trip to CNP was longer than expected because the visit of President Xi of China was still on-going. We appeared to be redirected on one street towards roads with more security, possibly because of the size of our van. The main street heading towards the large government buildings were lined with police.
We pulled down a very narrow alley and Dinesh got out to open the gate to the CNP compound that is also his immediate family’s home. The driver edged his way into the parking area of the very well-kept home and we were greeted by several young ladies that were resident students at the home.
Dinesh directed us into the first-level living room and we all took off our shoes and entered. We all formed a circle on the couches. We were introduced to Nura as well as Dinesh’s wife (whose name I now forget). His two sons were there, ages 5 and 13 were there and the older one was quite sharp--excellent English and very inquisitive.
Dinesh went over the general background of CNP and the NGO environment in Nepal. He told us that there are nearly 10,000 NGOs operating in the country, many of which are very small and many others that are of questionable integrity and purpose.
Creating Possibilities Nepal is a group dedicated to “empower vulnerable girls, youth and women through education and income creation ending the cycle of poverty in their communities.” They’ve done this by providing school scholarships (5,000 per year), building homes, community centers, and schools, providing literacy classes, helping women build their own homes and buy land, providing bicycles to children and mothers, rescuing boys and girls from domestic slavery, and providing sickle cell anemia screenings. They strive to be very open and honest about their programs and impacts. I won’t go into any more details, as the links to their websites cover the information much better.
We then went into a discussion of the mission of our trip and our objectives. I went over Developing World Connections policies for the trip as well as expectations for myself and the team. Everyone seemed to receive all of this quite well and their enthusiasm was clearly building.
Some of the kids at CNP then took us on tours of the building/home showing us all of the rooms, kitchen, chores lists, roof-top, etc. I was impressed with their openness and lack of any pretense or sense that our visit was staged in any way. The young lady that showed me around is 17 and has two more years to complete her high school diploma. She then wants to go to university and study to be a radiologist.
We had lunch in the courtyard with all of those currently at the CNP facilites (about two dozen), enjoying chicken Mo-Mos and talking more about CNP and the project.
By 1:30, we were ready to go and returned via three taxis to the Eco Hotel. I paid the taxis and we then split up with some of us walking around Thamel--Mike and Grace needed to buy gaiters for our later trekking in Annapurna and Debra was with them some of the time. I did street photography for about 90 minutes covering as much ground as I could.
After we returned to the hotel, Hoot and Mike then brought over their trekking gear that they didn’t want to bring to Lamahi and we consolidated our gear into my one large REI duffle bag.
At 7pm, we met in the lobby for dinner and walked to the Satkar Restaurant on Amrit Marg. The restaurant has a set menu and a small stage with some dancing. Dinesh and Nura had arranged for the meal as the big kickoff for the trip. There was one other large party there, coincidentally a group with Intrepid Travel, an organization with which Becky and I have done several international small group trips.
The food was very good and the beer and wine were flowing pretty freely. They started the meal with a shot of their “rice wine” which was not nearly as bad as the hooch we had the day before at the Thamel House. We enjoyed the first two dancing set--the first done by two women and the second done by a man and woman. But then, about an hour into the meal, we lost all power. Naturally, the dancing ended as music and lights were inoperable. The staff brought out candles, though, and the meal went ahead as planned. At the end, Dinesh and I went to the front counter and paid the bill after I collected from everyone for the wine and beer.
We walked back to the hotel slowly, passing by a very large brick-lined rectangular area that serves as a communal hand laundry spot as well as the many open bars and shops one finds in Thamel.
Upon arrival at the hotel, we all got together one last time to reiterate that the hotel would have coffee ready by 5:50am, breakfast by 6am and that everyone should bring their bags down in the lobby by 6am as well.
12 Oct 2019
I woke up at about 4:45 and decided to get some things done--uploading photos, checking email and writing my blog for 11 Oct. We then assembled in the lobby a little before 6:30 in the morning to go to the Monkey Temple, though Hal and Debra decided to sleep in.
We asked the hotel security guy in the front to get us two taxis to take us to the base of the mountain on which the temple sits and when I asked the first driver how much the fare would be for each cab he said, “One Thousands Rupees!” I laughed at him, offering him exactly what the guy at the hotel counter said should be the cost this time of the morning, 300 NPRs. I offered him 300 and he countered with 500. I said, “No, we’d rather walk,” and he said “Okay, 400!” I said, “No, we’re walking” and told the others to follow me. We walked about 20 meters before two taxis pulled up beside us and said, “Okay, 300!” (That’s about $2.80 for the 2.2 km ride)
We jumped into the two taxis and they made it quite clear that, in return for the bargaining, we were going to get exciting rides. My driver led and he drove like a bat out of hell, with the other taxi giving chase. It was the fastest I’ve ridden on the streets of Nepal. He came to a screeching halt in front of the temple steps and I handed him the money and thanked him. The second taxi was close behind and Mike described a similar ride during the chase.
We walked up the steps in the cool, comfortable, but somewhat humid air and immediately began to sweat during the 300 feet of climbing on the rock steps. Hal took his time, while we went up a little quicker, still stopping occasionally to take photos or check out all of the dogs (favorites of Grace), monkeys, and families along the way.
The top was not very crowded, but there were many still celebrating the festival of Dahain and a small band and some singers were performing in one temple. Along the south wall, some worshippers had started small fires in the triangular wall top slots overlooking the city. Others walked clockwise around the large stupa, and some lit candles, spun prayer wheels, or or made offerings.
We stayed at the top for about an hour, just walking around, watching all of the people, monkeys, and dogs and enjoying the cool air and views. Most were very quiet as they worshipped and it was a very peaceful morning. I met one German tourist who had the exact same camera and lens that I did. He told me that he had just bought it used and was trying it out. He asked about a few features and details and I helped him with the autofocus points and some exposure issues. I gave him my photo website and he seemed pleased with not only his new knowledge and contact, but with his decision to buy a seven-year-old used camera.
We walked slowly down the steps and then back to the hotel without incident. We loaded Hal into a taxi, though, and he went back for 500 NPR. I bought one liter plastic water bottles along the way for 20 NPR apiece, or about $0.18. Once back in the lobby at 8:30 (only two hours for the whole trip) we enjoyed breakfast and then relaxed for a little while. I kept in contact with Hoot as he had landed and was on his way to the hotel and at about 9:15am, Deb’s and Sue’s flight landed. The hotel was helpful in contacting me once their shuttle made contact with each.
We sat around deciding what to do for the day with Grace discussing going to other towns in the outskirts of Kathmandu. Bimal, Dinesh’s friend and apparently a hotel employee or associate of some type, arrived to ask us what we wanted to do. After a while, we decided to go to Kirtipur and a few other areas on the southwest side of the city, avoiding anything near or passing by the airport with the upcoming arrival of the Chinese president.
Bimal said that he could arrange another van for us and I went around to our group to find who was interested in going with us. In the end, it was decided that Grace, Mike, Hoot, and Debra would join me when a van was scheduled to arrive at 10:30. Bimal was evasive when we talked about the cost of the day, but said that since it was later in the day, it would probably be about $75 and no more than $100.
We waited until about 10:45 and still no van. Meanwhile, Bimal had disappeared. The hotel management and security guy then told us that our van couldn’t get in due to traffic and they led us about two blocks away to a main street where, with a little looking around, we found a gold Mitsubishi SUV with five seats and a very young driver named Nikas.
I tried to communicate with Nikas as we got into the vehicle, but his English was not good at all. I pointed to Kirtipur on the map and he seemed confused. He called someone at his office and we finally left when, I think, he realized where he was going.
The trip to Kirtipur did not go well. Nikas stopped three times along the way asking for directions and was pulled over by a pedestrian traffic cop for driving on the wrong side of some temporary traffic cones.
We finally arrived at Kirtipur after paying a 100 NPR per person entry fee. We descended the vehicle and started walking around, first into a large temple in the center of town. Nikas then seemed to disappear and we starting looking for some of the other sites in town based upon the tourist flyer we were given--that didn’t have a map. We talked with a few locals and found several of the sights.
It was nice that this was not a touristy area and we felt like we were walking through a more authentic, quiet village.
We walked back to the vehicle and tried for several minutes to find Nikas. When we did, he suddenly became a tour guide and starting leading us around without many verbal clues. We eventually made our way to a relatively distant Buddhist Monastery before turning back to the car.
Once in the car, we talked about going to Khokana, but Nikas said that he didn’t know how to get there. He called for directions, but also suggested that we go to Sanga. We told him that we’d already been to Sanga the day before--Sanga is Nikas’s hometown. We asked about Bungamati also, but he said he’d never been there.
Once we started driving--thinking we were going to Khokana--Nikas showed me his gas gauge and said he was almost out of gas, so we stopped for gas. It now became apparent that this was not Nikas’s car. He didn’t know how to release the door to the gas cap and then, once found by the guy at the gas station, couldn’t get the gas cap off without help.
When he came back to the car, he said that he didn’t know how to get to Khokana and that he’d never been there. We, by that point, had lost patience, so we decided to tell him that we just wanted to go back to the hotel. This confused him and he called “The Office” to ask them what he should do. A minute later, he handed me the phone and someone at “the office,” asked if there was a problem. I explained that there was a problem and that we wanted to go back to the hotel. He asked if it was a problem with the driver and I said that I would explain it when we got back to the hotel. I reiterated that several times before hanging up.
On the return to the hotel, our driver became lost and didn’t know how to get back to the hotel. We had to pull up Google Maps and direct him. He finally made it to the Eco Hotel and I gave him $5 USD as a tip and then went inside. One of the managers at the hotel asked if there was a problem and I explained the whole story to us. We did not and have not paid anything for the aborted trip. Bimal hasn’t contacted me.
With that debacle over, we walked down the road a little (with Kevin joining us) to the Thamel House Restaurant for a light lunch that was very enjoyable in an outdoor courtyard. The meal was capped with some small complementary shots of Nepali “rice wine” that was really just moonshine. After a short excursion to the ATM farm down Thamel Marg to get cash, we relaxed a little in the hotel as everyone went to their rooms. We agreed to meet at 6:15 to go to dinner. I checked with the front desk and they confirmed that Deb and Sue hand gone to the Fairfield by Marriott to meet a friend and that they’d be back by the time we left for dinner.
I used the remaining time to process photos and clean-up a little. Nothing was said again about our earlier trip.
I met Deb, Sue, and Debra in the lobby at 6pm and the others joined soon after. Mike and Grace begged off to have more time to chill. Deb and Sue seemed to be in good spirits despite arriving just a few hours earlier after a 12-hour layover in Delhi after a red-eye from Toronto. We walked down Thamel Marg and found the Yala Cafe without any trouble about 500 meters away.
The Yala cafe was very nice and open, as well as friendly. We all got along very well right way and everyone was talking constantly. Sue and Deb tried to order a bottle of wine, but the only read was a sweet Nepali wine that had no appeal. They ultimately settled on an available Jacob’s Creek Aurstalian white after Deb looked at the selection in the back room. The rest of us had water or beer (or Fanta) and we ordered from the menu. The food was excellent and our waitress was very nice and charming.
Deb asked us all to tell the story of how we decided to do this trip or deal with DWC and most agreed that they wanted to step outside of their comfort zone, make real, objective contributions to a local community, and see another culture.
During the walk back to the hotel, Deb was leading when a moped suddenly veered in front of her to cut into a back alley. The right-side exhaust pipe grazed her leg and that, coupled with the shock and surprise, cause her to tumble awkwardly into the gutter and curb. The driver stopped when I yelled at him, but he didn’t say much. Deb was clearly shaken but there were no cuts or serious injuries. Her left elbow seemed to swell a bit and was bruised--the largest injury. She was quite shaken psychologically--as anyone would be in the first hours of their time in a new country like Nepal.
We were able to walk back to the hotel from there without incident, keeping plenty of space (as much as we could) between the traffic and the others. Once inside the hotel, others went to their rooms while Deb, Sue, and I went to the bar. Deb got some ice from the bartender and applied it to her elbow while She and Sue ordered some “real red wine.”
We spent the next hour or so talking about our trip, politics, Canada, the US, and many other topics before calling it a night at about 10pm. I went up to my room, entered by spending and receipts for the day, and gave Becky a call before going to sleep.
11 Oct
I woke up only two times during the night--shortly after midnight and again at about 2am--but went back to sleep until a little after 4am when barking dogs and realizing that I’d slept for eight hours told me that it was time to just get up, write in the blog and upload photos. That done, I went downstairs to make a call home to check on things and reassure my wife, Becky, that all was well. I then went to breakfast and was quite pleased with the service and food that included porridge, sauteed beans and carrots, potatoes, fresh fruit, small omelets, breads, juices, and yogurt.
After eating, I completed some more work in the room and then went outside for a short walk around the neighborhood with my camera to see the city starting to wake up.
By about 8:45 everyone was in the lobby or eating breakfast. Debra Powell was incoming today, so I reconfirmed her pickup at the airport and sent her messages with additional contact info and some reassurance.
We’d arranged for a driver to pick us up at 9am, but he didn’t arrive until almost 9:30. Lama pulled up in a small silver van that seated six and had air conditioning, I sat in the front passenger seat with the others behind and we decided on the day’s itinerary with a phone call to Lama’s boss, Bimal. It was decided that we would start by driving out of the city to Sanga, followed by visits to Bakhtapur Durbar Square and then back to Kathmandu and the Buddha Stupa or Buddhanath.
We drove through heavy traffic, once again on the obvious route that would be taken the following day by the Presidents of China and Nepal for their summit as indicated by all of the portrait photos along the way, banners, clean-up, and armed security. In the city, the quality of the roads is generally better than I expected or remembered, but there are some rather incongruous patches where they go from perfectly fine to about 50-100 meters of just pen gravel and potholes.
It took us about 45 minutes to get to Sanga, the site of the world’s largest Shiva statue. It’s kind of like Rio’s “Christ the Redeemer Statue” or the Virgin Mary statue about Beirut except without the massive crowds. The statue stands 43 meters high and has some dimple temples around it and great views looking west towards Bakhtapur and Kathmandu. They would be even better views if the air wasn’t so hazy from vehicle and other exhaust causing an inversion layer that limited visibility to about 10 miles. Occasionally, during the drive, we could catch glimpses of the snow-capped Himalayan peaks to our north.
We spent about 45 minutes at the Shiva statue taking photos and relaxin. The air was noticeable cooler in the higher altitude and it felt very good. We then rejoined Lama for the torturous drive down from the site, sliding past narrow streets and sleeping dogs down to the busy highway that connected Nepal with the Tibetan border about 150 kilometers away.
Next we drove back to the west and then veered north toward the temple complex and ancient city of Bakhtapur. Lama parked outside the gate and, as we descended the van, we were immediately accosted by local guides that wanted to show us around for two hours--only 10,000 NPW or about $9US. We decided that we just wanted to walk around, so we avoided them all, paid our normal 1500 NPR entry fee and walked in unescorted. We’d made an arrangement to meet back at the van with Lama at 2pm and it was now 11:30am.
I was both impressed and disappointed with the condition of Bakhtapur. Some of the most famous temples were barely piles of rubble still five years after the earthquake, but a surprising number were still in good shape. Very few looked to be in any serious process of rebuilding, though. In Pottery Square, the damage seemed to be quite severe.
We walked around for about 90 minutes just soaking in the sights and taking photos. The crowds weren’t bad, but we did notice that there were few if any Americans or English speakers of any kind. Most of the tourists seemed to be southern or eastern European or East Asian, though many were local or visiting Nepalese.
After enjoying the sites, we did a big loop of the complex and settled into a small garden cafe for lunch, ordering cold drinks and some local style food. As usual, Grace was served last, some drinks were forgotten, several ordered items weren’t available, but we enjoyed the meal anyway. It was shady, cool, and the break felt good. Time passed quicker than we thought and by the time we paid the bill, we barely had time to walk back to the van to meet Lama.
It took us another ten minutes to get out of the parking lot because a taxi was blocking our van and he refused to move until he saw Lama’s paid parking ticket. From there, we braved the crushing afternoon traffic to go to the giant Buddha Stupa in the northeast corner of town. This involved driving past the airport and a few other sites and some back-tracking from earlier travels. We saw more “Xi signs”, too. Lama finally got off of the crawling main highway and took us through shortcut to end one block away from the entrance. He gave us directions on which way to walk and we made it there easily in two minutes, crossing one major road that had been reduced to dust and gravel from disrepair.
The rest of the group was getting better at crossing roads as they adapted to Nepalese driving and we managed the traverse without incident. The entry fee was 500 NPR, so we paid and went inside to see the huge white stupa with the golden top and eerily observant eyes painted on the tower. Flag ropes fluttered in the breeze as hundred of locals, tourist--some devout, some just enjoying the weather circulated around the monument always clockwise, turning the hundred of prayer wheels on the outside, surrounded by a real tourist shopping mall experience on the exterior complete with multiple coffee shops and the usual souvenir stands. A walk around the outside was about 200 meters and maybe 120 meters on the elevated level on the inside. Everyone was stopping to take photos, staged and selfies with the flags an stupa in the near-perfect weather conditions. Many families with little children and grandparents were there as well.
We toured the facility and then went into Himilayan Espresso for an afternoon snack. Grace was served last again. We retrieved Kevin, who’d become separated and he joined us. MEanwhile, I went out for a last few photos after downing my double espresso and using the shop’s wifi to check on Debra’s status and make sure she had landed and had transpo back to the hotel.
Lama returned us to the hotel about 4:20 and we agreed to meet again in the lobby at 5:45 to go to dinner.
I use the time to post-process all of the day’s photos again and began to upload them. Meanwhile, I was comforted to see that Debra was en route, Hoot had landed in Doha, and both Deb and Sue seemed to be on track with their flights.
I met Debra in the lobby and we got acquainted quickly just before dinner departure. I introduced her to the rest of the team except for Kevin who’d decided to stay in. The hotel staff then tried to arrange for a pair of taxis to take us to a restaurant, but that didn’t work very well and caused us about 20 minutes in delays.
By the time we got to the restaurant, chosen by my friend Utsav--brother of the bride in a wedding I photographed in Kathmandu five years earlier and brother-in-law to one of my US Air Force friends--it was almost 8:30. Utsav was waiting for us outside of the unexpectedly closed restaurant, but he assured us that other restaurants were nearby and that we could walk to them.
Indeed he was right. Just around the corner, we found a nicely upscale place serving local food called Nilgiri Thakali Delights. We decided to let Utsav order everything for us and we would pay. I was surprised that he brought a gift--a bottle of Nepalese “Old Drubar” Whiskey and thanked him profusely. He read to me a very nice note just received from his sister by email and we settled down to dinner.
The conversation was even better than the excellent food as we learned about Utsav and his job. A civil engineer with a MS in environmental engineering, he worked on water and power projects in Nepal, attempting to coordinate water storage, preservation, and distribution improvements throughout the country. He likened the water infrastructure to the cable/telephone/power infrastructure with its thousands of unknown, hanging, exterior wires--in an undocumented pattern unknown to all and completelboth insufficient and undocumented. We also talked a lot about the history and current politics of Nepal, really enjoying the chance to learn more about this fascinating but challenged country.
The food he ordered was great, too. We tried the dried mutton (really goat) that was like a salad with crunchy jerk, the roti (fried bread), a pasty blob made of millet that you made into balls and dipped into sauces, the standard mo-mos, fresh vegetables with dipping spices and sauces, yogurt, etc. All was very good.
We agreed to pick up the tab for our host, took a few photos, and said our goodbyes after a very memorable evening. Hal took a taxi back, while Debra, Mike, Grace, and I walked the 2.2 km in the dark back to Thamel and the Eco Hotel.
The walk was uneventful as traffic was light by almost 9:30pm. Hal was waiting for us in the lobby. We made plans for the next morning (6:30 am departure for the Monkey Temple, emailed that new to Kevin, and then sat down in the lobby for more chat and a wee nip of the Old Durbar.
The whisky wasn’t bad at all. Not exactly McCallum 25, but drinkable. We were confident it would enhance the rest of the trip--especially the many upcoming evening discussion in Lamahi.
I went up to my room, checked emails on WhatsApp one more time and settled in just after 10pm. Tonight, I put in ear-plugs to defeat the dogs and the music coming from the beer bar across the street and was quite successful, sleeping almost straight through to 4:30am so that I could get up and write in the blog.
9-10 Oct 2019
The flight to Istanbul was uneventful, but long. I managed about four hours of sleep, spending the rest of the time either reading or watching Toy Story 4. We arrived at Istanbul ahead of schedule and, after taxiing for quite some time, made it to the terminal.
The new airport in Istanbul is huge and beautiful, but it has the most ungainly and inefficient wifi system around, allowing only one hour of free access per person. Luckily, in that time, I was able to locate Mike and Grace and we decided to set up a small camp and wait out the next 3.5 hours until our flight to Nepal would board. We couldn’t locate Kevin, but eventually met up with him at the departure gate--which wasn’t announced until about an hour before departure.
We spent most of our time relaxing or walking around the new facility, marveling at the luxury goods retailers and duty free shops, as well as the amazing diversity one sees in a city like Istanbul--especially at its airport. Turkish Airlines claims to fly to more countries that any airline in the world, and that seemed obvious from what we saw.
We bought a couple of snacks, but not too much food. Mike picked up a big Tobelerone chocolate and some drinks. I had to have an authentic Turkish coffee. We also bought a bottle of Laphroaig whiskey just to have something a little stronger during the trip. I bought a new wireless mouse, too, as I quickly discovered something that I’d forgotten on the trip.
Before boarding, we met up with Kevin who seemed to have weathered his first flight quite well. It was good catching up with him and he seemed to be enthusiastic about the trip as well as meeting Grace and Mike. We boarded on time in the usual gaggle fashion, but I was happily surprised to get an unexpected upgrade to seat 1B in business class. That made the next leg of the trip so much more comfortable with my lay-flat seat and great food and drink.
The guy sitting next to me was a 30-is German tea dealer, educated in Scotland, who was visiting Nepal for the first time. Interesting guy with a fascinating accent when he spoke English. The flight departed the gate on time but had to return to the gate for about 10 minutes due to some minor mechanical issue. We left almost an hour late--more extensive taxiiing--and landed about 40 minutes late into Kathmandu.
I didn’t sleep very much on the flight--maybe an hour or so--occupied as I was with watching Gary Oldham in “Darkest Hour,” the great service, and the free wifi that I used to catch up. It was also fascinating to watch live TV coverage on TRT (the Turkish CNN) of the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria and to get their slant on these events.
The approach into Kathmandu at dawn was spectacular with the Himalayas out the left-side windows and the twisting, turning, final track into Tribhuvan International Airport. We departed the plane--what looked like the only flyable aircraft then on any tarmac or runway and walked to a shuttle bus that took us no more than 100 meters to the entry gate to immigration.
I was literally the first person off of the bus and into immigration, finding myself one of their electronic kiosks with which to process my visa--something that took no more than five minutes. From there, I only had to pay my $50 fee, get my passport stamped and then go through a security scan before arriving at baggage claim.
Mike and Grace were just a few minutes behind me but Kevin was one of the last to clear immigration as he had a couple of false-steps due to some poor advice. Nonetheless, we were all glad to claim our bags and head out together to the curb to meet our driver. I’d been conversing with Dinesh, our Creating Possibilities Nepal Team Lead, via WhatsApp so we knew they were ready to pick us up. I was also quite pleased to see that my cell phone (Pixel 3 on the Google Fi network) wrokedin Nepal since the Google Fi webpage reported that Nepal was not one of the 180-plus countries in which service was available. They must’ve just fixed that because I had a clear signal and Google Fi VPN right away. That saved me--so far at least--from buying a new SIM card for my extra phone.
We saw a guy holding a sign with our names at the curb and walked out to him. He directed us to another location and a van came to get us quickly. Our big bags were loaded atop the van in a small cage--not strapped down or covered--and we headed to the Creating Possibilities Nepal (CPN) site to pick up Dinesh.
Dinesh jumped into the van and gave us lots of info right away. We arrived at the Kathmandu Eco Hotel within 20 minutes (in the heart of the Thamel district) and checked in without any issues. Hal Rhoads met us in the lobby and we all relaxed for a few minutes over some coffee and tea.
The next 30 minutes were spent chatting with Dinesh about the trip, hotel, Kathmandu, etc. I told the others my plan to relax for about an hour and get unpacked--as well as shower and plug things in--followed by as much walking around the city as possible before crashing for the night. This has always been my plan when recovering from overnight flights. All agreed, though Kevin said he might do only a half day with us.
Dinesh introduced us to his friend, Bimal (sp?) who worked with the hotel as a guide. He informed us that the Chinese President, Xi, was coming to Kathmandu on Saturday, 12 Ot, and that if we were going to visit anywhere outside of Kathmandu (e.g., Bakhtapur) we needed to do that on Friday since road closures and traffic would be an issue. He offered to get us a driver to pick us up at 9am the next morning and drive us around all day to the outer sites of Kathmandu and we readily accepted. We would hit the loser in sites like the Monkey Temple on the 12th when our need for transpo and crossing the city (or going anywhere near the airport) wouldn’t be an issue. Bimal also warned us that the flights of those coming in on Saturday were likely to be disrupted (Hoot, Sue, Deb), but that there was nothing we could do about that.
The group reassembled in the lobby at 10:30am and we began our walk, maps in hand, through Thamel south to the Kathmandu Durbar Square area. I was immediately struck by how little had changed since my last visit almost five years prior, though as we got closer to the square we seemed to see more damage from the April 2015 earthquake in the form of unrepaired buildings, vacant lots where collapsed buildings had stood, and lots of bracing and scaffolding around unstable buildings or those in some state of repair.
We all successfully navigated use of an ATM, each getting out 10,000 Nepalese Rupees (about $90 US). A few blocks later, a young man seemed to glom onto us, asking about us and showing us around. We couldn’t get rid of him. He said he was just a student who wanted to practice his English and be nice to foreigners, but we knew it was more.
He was a nice guy, but we couldn’t distance ourselves. We finally found a place for lunch and he followed us in. I offered to buy him lunch, but he said he only wanted tea. We ate a light lunch of local food (daal, chicken, mo-mos, etc) in a small hotel restaurant and then went into Durbar Square. By this time, our “guide” was getting pushy and asked if we could each give him 1,000 rupees for his services. I kind of lost it and told him that we never asked for or agreed to his help, that we’d asked him to leave us alone several times, and that he wouldn’t get any money from us. He stomped off in a huff, quite miffed that he’d wasted so much time on us.
We spent about an hour walking around the Durbar Square area, much changed from my previous visit. Almost all of the buildings were closed to access and several were barely more than heaps of bricks, The largest building on the site, a nine-story, 17th Century structure was completely cordoned off with huge signs proclaiming the restoration work underway funded by the Chineses. We each paid 1,000 rupees for entry, but really shouldn’t have bothered as there was open access everywhere. We justified the expenditure to ourselves by saying that we were supporting the restoration of the site, too, but it wasn’t clear that the money was well-spent!
From Durbar, we meandered out way back towards the hotel through the twisting, dirty backstreets of Kathmandu, stopping at about 3pm at the “Garden of Dreams” to relax and get a coffee or drink. This beautiful little spot looks like the perfect wedding shoot location with manicured laws, ponds with lily pads, a classical building, sculptures, and walkways. It’s the nicest kept area in Kathmandu with no trash on the ground. Several hundred were in the park with their families taking photos and enjoying the peace and quiet.
I took several photos of families with their cameras and enjoyed interacting with the locals as usual--and also taking photos with my own camera. There’s a huge swing their supported by 25-foot tall bamboo beams that’s always a treat and people stand in line for five or six swings on the giant pendulum, each smiling for the cameras that are clicking away. I took shot of several including Mike pushing Grace to start her turn.
We walked the last 800 meters back to the hotel and agreed to meet up at 5:45 to walk to the Fusion Himalaya Restaurant about 300 meters away for dinner. Kevin, who left us just after lunch and skillfully made his way back to the hotel solo, sent me a note that he was fine and would join us for dinner.
We joined up a few minutes late--I was late as I had become engrossed in photo post-processing--and started out walk, led by Google Maps. We found the place easily, dodging cars, motor bikes, and huge potholes in equal measure along the way in the falling dusk.
We walked into the restaurant and the owner immediately greeted me by name. I’d been in touch with him asking for a reservation and he’d seen my WhatsApp profile. The other tourists turned and looked at us a little bit surprised. I found his place because it was somehow rated #3 of over 600 restaurants in Kathmandu despite having no more than 30 seats at its narrow, back alley location.
The owner was very helpful, but also explained that he was short-handed that evening and missing one of his cooks so he’d have to run back and forth between us and the kitchen to help the staff. We thanked him, ordered beers and relaxed.
The place was filled with western tourists and every seat seemed taken. The beer was cold and the appetizers were excellent. We ordered currys and chow mein and watched the action. Hal drank two large bottles of cold beer a little too quickly and was having a great time. Grace was starting to crash, as was I. We left the restaurant at 7:45 and all hoped to be in bed by 8:00pm.
I almost made that goal. I had to shift all of my stuff to another room earlier in the afternoon because my air conditioning wasn’t working, so that cost me some set-tup time, but by 8:30 I was sound asleep.