Lunch Time Kathmandu

Lunch Time Kathmandu
Originally uploaded by Bill Shields

Kathmandu, Nepal; April 2009

The Dusty Road

The Dusty Road
Originally uploaded by Bill Shields

Along the Bagmati River, Kathmandu, Nepal, April 2009

Hindu Cremation at Pashupati Temple

Hindu Cremation at Pashupati Temple on the Bagmati River in Katmandu Nepal 2-13-2008.

An Afternoon at Durbar Square, Katmandu

Music in the Park - Katmandu

Once again it is time for an addition to the Notebook. Today I am featuring a Nepalese Rock concert. Well, it probably isn’t an actual rock concert; rather it is the Nepalese equivalent of the rock concert in the park. It’s a short video clip, just to give you the favor of the event. It took place in Ratna Park in the center of the old district of Katmandu.

Ratna Park is not what we in the west would consider a park – it is a dirt field, not a blade of grass grows, the edges are covered with litter. It does have a band shell, but they were not using it for this performance. Despite the lack of the manicured lawns of the west the kids were the same. They loved the music as much as any crowd in the west.

The Streets of Thamel in Katmandu

Finally I am back and I have a lot of things to add to the blog. I recently returned from a trip to Bangkok and Katmandu. Today I have added a short video showing the Thamel neighborhood in Katmandu. Over the next few weeks I will be adding a video of a Hindu Cremation at the Hindu Pashupati Temple on the Bagmati River in Katmandu, a video of a rock concert in Ratna Park in central Katmandu, the story of my experience with Blastocystis hominis, photos from Monkey Mountain in Katmandu and experiences I had in Bangkok and Katmandu. As always comments are very much appreciated.

Why Cigars are More Than Just Big Cigarettes

Everyone has their vices, mine is cigars; and what better place to enjoy a vice than in the French Quarter in New Orleans? Just to give you a little background, about 12 years, 55 days and two hours ago I quit smoking. I gave it up completely. I didn’t just up and quit. I attempted to quit at least seven times over the years. Up until then the only result was a significant increase in weight, but finally with the help of Zaban (Wellbutrin) I was able to quit. So you will understand my vow to refrain from cigars for five years. The time came and went but I was afraid that if I had a cigar I’d start smoking again; so for twelve years I resisted, that is until New Orleans.

It was a beautiful day; I had a few spare hours so I was out exploring the French quarter. While strolling down Decatur on my way to the Café du Monde for a coffee and a beignet; I came across a place called the Cigar Factory, the double doors were open and a great Cuban beat lured me in, not to mention the sweet smell of cigars. It was a great place; they had several rollers, a walk in humidor, and tables to sit and enjoy a cigar. It looked like it had been there fifty years, the walls were covered with photos of visiting celebrities, Cuban flags, and others types of memorabilia, all stained with years of cigar smoke. I resisted but I knew I’d be back. before I left New Orleans, and the next day I was, this time with a colleague.

Calvin was a veteran cigar smoker; he knew cigars and how to smoke them. I think he had even been to the Cigar Factory before. We came prepared, I had a double brandy, and a double espresso, and he had a double scotch. The French quarter is one of the few places in the world where it is not only acceptable to enter a store with a drink in your hand but even to walk the streets drinking.



Maria Dominguez rolls a cigar at the Cigar Factory on Decatur Street in the French Quarter

We picked our cigars from the walk-in humidor, mine a Vieux Carre Rothchild with a Cameroon wrapper, Calvin’s a Vieux Carre Double Corona. The clerk cut the end and started the burn. As I took my first draw on the cigar my fears of tobacco faded, I was home.

A few feet away from our table a woman in her mid thirties, Maria Dominguez, was rolling cigars; she was fast, but relaxed. Her hands stained with tobacco, my hands hurt just at the thought of eight hours of rolling. I struck up a conversation, she was Cuban, and had been in the United States for about a year; Her English was halting, she told me that she could speak a bit but she had trouble understanding so we spoke Spanish. She told me about rolling and how cigars were made.

What a perfect male fantasy, drawing on a cigar while sipping brandy and espresso as the sun goes down over the Mississippi all to the sound of Latin music; it brought me back to Spain, Hemingway and Fundador. We sat talked cigars, and just let time pass.

After about an hour our cigars done and drinks empty we were on our way, it had been a long day; I was tired, smelled of cigars and brandy, and was hungry, so it’s back to the hotel; tomorrow would be another day.

Top Photograph: Maria Dominguez at the Cigar Factory

Second Photograph: Cafe & beignet at Cafe Du Monde

Love those Hippies at Lonely Planet

A few years ago when I first started traveling, I bought my first Travel book – Fodor’s Guatemala. It came in handy, it made my trip much easier. At the time I knew almost nothing about Guatemala; it told me where to go. A few months later, as a Christmas present my family gave me Fodor’s South America – a big thick and heavy book. A few months later on a trip to Santiago Chile, I lugged it along, once again it proved helpful; I know that if I didn’t have it I wouldn’t have visited Viña del Mar. Viña, rememeber it from Missing, the the home base for the CIA and Chilean military as they plotted the coup against Allende.

After Chile, travel books and I were off and running. Now travel books are expensive but I was lucky. I few blocks away is the Wheaton Regional Library which housed the Friends of the Library – the used book donation and selling arm of the library. And what do you know they had a great travel section – one of the advantages of living in the Washington DC area. The Friends of the Library had shelves and shelves of travel books. Fodros’, Moons’, Rick Stevens’, and Lonely Planets’. I knew I’d be traveling a bit in the next few years so I started to keep my eye out for countries of interest. I got Fodor’s Spain and France – I bought those because I wanted to follow La Vuelta de España and Le Tour de France. Hell, they were only a dollar or two a piece; how could I go wrong. I started looking for a country here or a country there; you know, places I thought there was a chance that I might travel. I mostly collected books on developing countries; the developed world was not much of an interest to me , nor was classic tourism – Paris and London were of little interest, but Africa, Central America, and India were exciting, and with my work possible destinations.

And again, the area proved to be a boom – the Friend’s bookstore was brimming with books on the developing world, but they weren’t Fodor’s or Moon’s – they were published by Lonely Planet, so I picked-up a few. Around the same time I came across a program on PBS – Globe Trekker. If you haven’t seen it, it’s one of the many travel shows on television these days, but with a twist; they’re trekkers, they go by bus, they stay in hostels, they eat in the local markets. In short, they avoid the tourist hotels, the guided tours, the places that generally sponsor the travel shows. The host are youngish, not, “Hey, man, this is so cool!’ early twenties, but rather a little wore thirtyish; the woman are attractive but certainly not model want-a-bees. The one man host, Ian Wright, has a face for radio, and a voice that should never be recorded; but they all have personality, and they all can speak without clichés. They give a bit of the feel of aging hippies, but in the good sense, not the flower child stereotype.

The Globe Trekker series was originally called Lonely Planet and inspired by the Lonely Planet travel book series, but I think that’s the extent of the connection. Today they are both independent. The TV series has become more commercial – it has a ten minute segment on shopping at the end of each show, but it is easily avoided.

Over time I began to collect more and more books, I started going to the store just to see if they had new Lonely Plant guides available. It became a minor obsession. Today I have over 50 different countries. I have my obsession under control, yet I still go to the library outlet looking for new ones. I’m more selective; I’m back to only collecting editions of countries that I think I might travel to at some point in the future, nevertheless if you see a newly slim bald guy in the travel section of the Friends of the Library Store in Wheaton, get out of his way; he is still a man obsessed.

El Parque Nacional Tikal

I have finally gotten around to editing some of the photographs that I have taken during my trip last October to Tikal, the Mayan ruins in the center of El Petén in Guatemala. If you recall at the beginning of the year I wrote a long piece on the bus ride to El Flores - the jump off city for El Parque Nacional Tikal. You can find it in the archive, it is entitled ‘Guatemalan Nights’ and is from January 22, 2007.

Two things in particular struck me during my visit, one was that it was a park; it’s set up and designed for tourist. I guess I was thinking that it would be more primitive. Why I thought it would be otherwise I don’t know it seems obvious. And aside form the tourist park aspect of it; it is still primitive, much of it has not been excavated yet. There are many temples and pyramids that are still completed covered by jungle, if it were not for their symmetrical shape you’d completely miss them.

The other unexpected impression was the distance, it’s large; it can take fifteen or twenty minutes to walk between temples, and there are a lot of temples. Again, if I have given it any thought, I would have realized; it’s a city after all, as big as or bigger than many small cities in the United States.

I have only included a few of the photographs on my Notebook site. However, if you enjoy these photographs you can see a larger selection on my Flickr site in the set entitled Tikal. If you are interested in Mayan ruins you might also want to view the set from Chichén Itzá, the Mayan ruins in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. For a modern day view of the Mayan of Guatemala I have a set from the Mayan village of Chichicastenango in the Guatemala highlands

Above you will find an audio comment I recorded during my visit. You can listen by pressing the play arrow on the audio player icon below.

So enjoy, and if you ever get a chance to visit take plenty of water, insect repellent, the energy for climbing, a change of clothes – the humidity will have you dripping, and sturdy hiking boots.

Thanks for viewing and listening. And please comment, even negative comments are enjoyed and welcome.

Legends

Top Photograph: Veiw from the Top - Temple IV

2nd Photograph: Concealed Pyramid

3rd Photograph: Temple Raising Out of the Jungle

4th Photograph: Steps to Temple IV

The Bataan Death March or the Baltimore Annapolis Trail

Yesterday was October 7^th 2007, and it was over 90 degrees F. with no breeze; yet we all know that global warming is a myth created by the tree hugger's lobby. Will somebody please send a note to the Enterprise Institute informing them that 90 deg. F. is Washington in August not October?

Yet at 8:00 am yesterday morning it was beautiful, around seventy-two degrees, dry, the sun was shinning – it was a perfect day for a ride. The plan was to meet Howard, a friend of mine from Georgetown, and ride the Baltimore Annapolis Trail, a rail-to-trail paved path between Annapolis and the Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI). So I was up at five and on the road to Annapolis by seven.

Howard and I were friends from our days at Georgetown. He was raised in the suburbs of Pittsburgh; I was raised on the slopes of Mount Washington, so as ex-Pittsburghers we had a natural affinity. He joined Georgetown after retiring from the Navy, and stayed on until his second retirement. Although I left Georgetown almost ten years ago we remained friends and get together occasionally.

In the early nineties he bought a house on the water in Annapolis, the home of the US Naval Academy. Annapolis sits at the mouth of the Severn River on the Chesapeake Bay – it’s a sailing town that also happens to be the capitol of Maryland. It’s a small tight town with the favor of a resort. It has narrow streets, shops, restaurants and harbor all jammed into a few streets around the crowded harbor. Parking is always impossible. The entrance to the Naval Academy is only a couple of blocks from the center of town, on weekends the streets are decorated with midshipmen all spit and polish. The State capitol is also crowded into the ten block radius.

Yet once you are out on the water the space expands, still crowded but not claustrophobic, the water is broad, you can see for miles. Populated by sail boats, power boats, cabin cruises, and even its fair share of ugly boats; the air is fresh - a playground for the rich.

My cycling companion, Howard, is in his mid sixties, about ten years older than I; he is slim, a sailor, and in good shape. A few months ago we rode the southern end of the trail – the first seven miles to Earleigh Heights Station. The trail is beautiful but not very challenging, for the most part it is straight, flat, shaded and quiet, bucolic even; yet it is only a few blocks off Route 2, a running strip mall between Annapolis and Baltimore. Still 14 miles is a pretty long ride for a novice.

Being our second ride, we planned on going a few miles further up the trial. At the time I thought the trail ran all the way into Baltimore but it ends a few miles from BWI.

I was on my Bianchi Volpe touring bike; he was riding a street version of a mountain bike. The different bikes make riding together a challenge; I had smooth thin tires and he had notched balloon tires, so I glided, and he pedaled. For the first half of the ride we pretty much stayed together. I might get ahead a bit, but when I lost sight of him I’d slow up.

Yesterday we reached Earleigh Heights Station feeling good, so we pressed on. We rode through Severn and Gen Burrie. We only intended to go a few miles past Ealeigh Heights but before we knew it we were at the trail head at Dorsey Road. We could see the planes making their approach to BWI. Howard suggested that since we were close we take the BWI trail for a while – the airport couldn’t be too far. It was a nice trail; it had the feel of riding through a city park. After a couple of miles we arrived at the Tom Dixon Jr. Airport Observation Area. The ‘airport observation area’ is a couple of porta-potties, a parking lot, and a small playground; but it’s at the end of a runway, you can see the airport tower in the distance, so an ‘airport observation area it is. How this place slipped by Homeland Security I’ll never know; I thought sitting around in a isolated area watching planes take off and land would be consider at least as much of a security threat as a pair of nail clippers, but not being a national security expert I will defer to the professionals.

By now it was close to 11 in the morning, the sun was hot and high in the sky; shade was scarce. The BWI trail circles the airport. We still felt pretty good; we were 16 point something miles out. I thought we might circle the airport and then head back to Annapolis; a quick check of the map dissuaded us. The BWI trail was 12.5 miles, we had only covered the first two or so, and we still had the 13.5 miles back on the Baltimore Annapolis Trail. So we traced our steps back to the Dorsey Road trail head, it was a nice glide, I think ninety percent of the way back was down hill.

I got to Dorsey Road a few minutes before Howard, and stopped to wait and take a few photos. Within a minute or two he was back and ahead of me. I wanted to push my legs a little. I was bored riding slow so away I went. I guess I got a little carried away; before I knew it I was at Earleigh Heights Station. I estimated that Howard would be about ten minutes behind me, certainly no more than twenty – it was only about four miles back that I had pushed ahead of him. I stretched, collected some maps and waited in the shade. At fifteen minutes I began to wonder if he had passed while I was in the Station picking up the maps. Now I knew I was an idiot, I didn’t know whether he was ahead or behind me, I didn’t even know if he had his mobile with him. At twenty five minutes I decided I better head back toward Dorsey Road, at least a few miles and see if I could find him. Just as I was about to leave, I saw him coming up the trail.

Well, as it turns out he bonked – the term cyclist use to describe what happens to you when your muscles run out of nutrients, it is also know as lactic acid poisoning. Long distance runners call it ‘hitting the wall.’ It can be dangerous, and after it happens to you once, that’s it, you make sure that it doesn’t happen to you again. I guess it happened a few miles from the Station; he walked part of the way, that was it for Howard for the day. It was still over seven miles to the car, so I took off and was back to pick him up in about an hour.

He was feeling better by the time I got back; he thought at that point he could have finished on his bike, but I’ve bonked and I know it takes longer than an hour; it takes a couple of good meals and a long rest to recover. I never should have left him so far behind. I made the mistake of judging his condition by how I was feeling. The temperature went was ninety that afternoon, and he was riding for over four hours. I screwed up, and he paid for it.

Despite our misadventure it was a good ride - it always is went you see something new Enjoy the Baltimore Annapolis Trail it's a great trail for a leisurely glide even if it is behind the strip mall; just go early and bring a couple bottles of water.

Photographs: First. Baltimore Annapolis Trail
Second. Baltimore Annapolis Trail II
Third. Dorsey Road Trail Head, BA Trail
Fourth. Tom Dixon Jr airport Observation Area, BWI Trail
Fifth. Earleigh Heights Station, Baltimore Annapolis Trail