One World Insight Blog | Douglas "Las" Wengell

Behold, 60th National Day Parade

First day in China, and it’s going to be a big one. The Communist Party is throwing itself a huge and meticulously choreographed anniversary today, just a few kilometers from our hostel, sixty years since Mao founded the People’s Republic.

“Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation,” he said. “We have stood up.” From the displays of advanced weaponry and legions of troops to the celebration floats highlighting Shanghai’s forest of skyscrapers and the pink army, the unmistakable message from ground zero is that Mao was right. The Party is carrying China to prosperity. Look out world, we’ve arrived.

The sky is blue. Someone tells me that Beijing manipulates the weather depending on the occasion. I’m not sure to believe him. (It’s true.) 

Oddly no one – I mean no one – knows anything about the parade at noon. Where do you go to watch it? Do you need a ticket? We take a taxi toward Tiananmen Square, and quickly realize that the entire town is being locked down by the military. No spectators. No uninvited guests. No watching. If you are on the parade route, I later find out, the Government has passed out flyers indicating that you are to close the blinds and not look out the window, or else.

The Western in me thought that a parade meant something like July 4^th in Washington, or Thanksgiving in New York. But this is China and everything is tightly controlled by the central government. I later discover that the Government encouraged Beijing residents to stay home. The spectacle is a stage performance, as was its brilliant Olympic opening from National Stadium. It’s as much to flame national pride and unity in its citizens as to flaunt its emerging status as a global superpower.

That I am two miles from the event is irrelevant. I could just as well be anywhere. Not exactly. We find a shopping area just before the military police, wielding machine guns and imposing gun trucks, close off the main street, and volunteers take their place every ten feet or so. Yet the parade isn’t on this street. Confusion. We watch along with other Chinese on a large LCD screen. In the space between the passing helicopters and military jets, it’s dead silence. Downtown Beijing is locked down.
It’s not what I expected but it impresses. When the parade is over, Chinese tanks rumble past, back to base. We don’t do that in America. The military conceals its power. This could be the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

It’s difficult to articulate the grandeur, the exhilaration, hope and fear of the new China.

Land Beijing, China, The Last Great Empire

On approach. The captain indicates “light mist/haze.” Flaps extend and landing gear comes down. But it’s as white as snow. Alas, a runway, and we land. Little do I know that this will be a metaphor of China: it’s a hard place to peer into, to navigate, to understand.

The airport is as ultra-modern Hong Kong.  In fact, it’s gorgeous. Grand, ceiling, floating in the white mist (or is it haze) outside. The flow of the passengers is methodically considered, orderly and efficient. These airports make JFK a developing nation. Why isn’t Washington investing in our infrastructure, I wonder and will continue to wonder as I marvel, awe struck, at China’s epic size, infrastructure and growth.

From the Great Wall to Shanghai, trains to airports, shipping centers to massive construction projects, everything is big. There’s a speedy train downtown, where I will be meeting up with Nathen before he head’s back to the States.

I am struck with how, after years of traveling abroad, and knowing something about China, how little I know about this lost empire. The energy is palpable. The land is more civilized than India but more foreign. When I arrive on a Beijing street, I find myself completely and utterly lost. In a way I have never felt before. It’s an bustling, modern urban center. But everything about it is different. Mandarin characters pervade and I soon discover the taxi drivers don’t speak a word of English, nor do they care about helping me find my hotel.

In a testimony to humility, it takes me some time to figure out how to find the right underground subway to cross the street. Add a thick haze obscuring buildings above the sixth floor, and one block in each direction, I am beside myself.

A Day in New Delhi

 Flight for China leaves tonight. In the meantime, I have the opportunity to see a business partner and head to the capital’s Red Fort, where the Prime Minister gives his speeches and services as the symbol of the nation’s independence. The city is, as Thomas Friedman would say, hot, flat and crowded.

Julie Roberts is New Delhi today, a few miles away in Mirzapur, shooting her new film Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s book about rediscovering passion in life through travel. The India media has been covering Ms. Roberts’s every move since arriving with her children a few weeks ago. You can’t miss the headlines. America is cool.

As for democracy in India, it’s messy – so much bureaucracy, corruption, factions at a stalemate. India is loosing the race with China and they are against the wall with Pakistan. The security guards at the surprisingly small international airport, for a capital, look tired and defeated.

Varanasi > Delhi > Hong Kong > Beijing

5 pm, need to make overnight train to New Delhi (AC sleeper car, $25), to catch a plane to Beijing via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific, in the hope of catching the People Republic of China’s Communist Party 60th Anniversary, making headlines around the one world. The frenetic pace – Varanasi, rickshaw, train, Delhi capital, taxi, Hong Kong airport, onward China, metro, Beijing downtown  – stirs both imagination and adrenaline. I am grateful to be able to globetrot from one capital to the next. The question is, can you pull off the scheduling, not to mention the exogenous events you have no control over. Zen may be just a concept in the West; on the road, in Asia, you live it, or suffer.

On heading from the hotel with backback in toe to find a three-wheel motorbike to take me to the train station, I serendipitously encounter the end of Naviratri on the main streets, where all the many makeshift idols –  Durga and Rama and Hunnamum– are placed on carts and paraded about Varanasi, before the Durgas are submerged in the Ganges in symbolic end. Music and dancing kids fill the streets. It’s packed with joyful Indians. Despite the heavy pack, I become so immersed in the emotional spectacle, the blessing on this place, in this moment, I forget about the train.

When I do find a bicycle rickshaw, the people traffic is gnarly. Mini parades crisscross the streets. The dark Indian, poor and humble, exerts muscle and dizzying acumen to circumnavigate the faithful. Never a dull moment. At the bustling station, five minutes to spare. I limp to the station, darkness descending, but which entrance, which platform, which carriage (there are a staggering twenty-three from front to end)? Welcome to the blissful mania of India on the fly.

I settle into my birth as the train lurches into syncopation, and glides out of the station. You can’t help but feel victory at these little moments. I am next to a Japanese student heading back to his studies in New Delhi. We begin talking about Japan’s new prime minister, and his hope that he will be able to jump-start its twenty-year economic malaise. I haven’t seen an American in what feels like weeks. Resting my head on the overnight birth, I revel in the pleasure of being a global citizen.

The Challenges before India

As I near the end of my time in India, through observation, reading and mostly talking to natives, I begin to comprehend India’s greatest challenges. Here’s the hit parade penciled in my worn notebook. Maybe this is why Aldous Huxley wrote back in the 1960s: “India is almost infinitely depressing, for there seems to be no solution to its problems in any way that any of us in the West regard as acceptable.”

Government Deadlock – India is not a nation; it’s an idea. The country’s borders and states were set-up by the British. The reality is more messy. India is made up of what could be hundreds of ethnic groups—Hindus, Muslims, Sikh, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews—political factions, religions and twenty two languages, poor and rich. Regional separatism pulls at the federal cohesion. Church and state are separate only in theory. Consensus is next to impossible.  As one Indian said simply: “New Delhi can’t get anything done.”

Caste Injustice  –  This one really stands out. You’re born in your station. Its next to impossible to change it. Without a meritocracy, India’s best and brightest are unable to rise and benefit the nation. It’s outdated and an affront its democracy. However you can’t under Planet India without understanding its long religious traditions. When I was in Varanasi, one of the young men showing me around pointed out how the Indians washing the bodies in the Ganges and preparing them for cremation are from one of the lowest castes in India. So low that they are not permitted to touch Indians of high status. Yet at the time of death it’s they who care for Indians of all castes.

Secular vs. Religious – On one hand is a place like Bangalore, modern, high-tech, research and science oriented. On the other is India as the spiritual heartland of the world, with an age old belief that if things don’t work out this life time it will the next. The traditions are so ingrained and the pride around it so deep, religion I have come to believe is an obstacle to India’s ambitions. China, on the other hand, possesses Confucianism. But that’s not a religion, it’s a moral code of behavior, and it prizes hard work and ambition. China’s religion, at one level, is making money, and in a global capital world, it’s paying off at the material level. India’s riches are intangibles.

Corruption – Nothing new about corruption in an emerging economy. What’s disconcerting is how, despite a British legal system, the largest democracy in the world, the support of the United States, it is believed that as much as 80 percent of a transaction goes to paying off officials, compared to 40 percent in India.

Treatment of women – The Western women I met had plenty of unkind things to say about Indian men. The patriarchy is arcane and runs deep. Only 45 percent of Indian women can read, compared to 87 percent in China. As you travel about the country, it always seems like the women are working, or home, caring for kids, while lots of men mill about. Like the caste systems, these relics inhibit India’s ability to prosper.

Abject Poverty – About 60 percent of Indians, or 800 million folks, less on less than two dollars a day. The Indian economy is benefiting those who are educated, speak English and can work in an office. That’s not even close to the majority.

Baby India – In country with over a billion people, Fifty percent of Indians are under the age of twenty-five. By 2015, there will be 550 millions teenagers. The challenges to find work for them will be more pressing than in China.

Environment – Clean air, clean water, and basic electricity. During my visit, there is a drought in the plains. Tens of millions of substance Indians are affected. Wars of the this century will be over natural resource and energy. India needs both badly.

Rural to Urban – Today, about one third of GDP is created by agriculture, yet 70 percent of Indians (850 million, twice the size of the USA) live in rural areas. Not only is there a lack of employment but the land is strained.

Infrastructure – Ailing or non-existent outside the major urban centers. A prerequisite for manufacturing and global trade.

An unforgettable night at Vishwanath Temple, Varanasi, Banaras University

My last night in Varanasi coincides with the largest event of the festival, with make-shift temples places around the city, music, lights and packed crowds of Indians. It’s about celebration and shopping, much like Christmas. (The poorer Nepalese, in contrast, slaughter a goat and celebrate with a rare feast.)

The city is pulsating, as I work may way to the Cathedral-like Vishwanath Temple on the nearby campus of Banaras Hindu University. The temple is alive with activity, Brahman’s performing cleansing pujas, bells being rung by visitors (to let the Gods know you're there, of course).

:Listen in!

Download 9_26_2009 7_59 PM_veranasi template_sounds only

Download 9_26_2009 8_07 PM_veranasi template_braham prayers

Download 9_26_2009 7_52 PM._veranasi template

Quotes from sacred texts are etched along the Temple walls. No wonder, the temple was designed by the founder of the university, himself a scholar. I wrote down a few:

“Take refuge in God with a pure heart”

“He is one in the many
Released from all fetters
Selfless devotion”

”Oh lord from untruth lead me to light and knowledge, from death lead me 
to immortality -- Brihadarayaka Upanishad 1-3-28”
 "To seers whose sins have been washed away, whose doubts have been dispelled by knowledge, whose mind is firmly established in God, and who are actively engaged in promoting the welfare of all beings, attain Brahma, who is all peace. Gita 6/25."

”Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest, the atman soul 
in the heart of the living being. He who is free from grief, 
behold by the grace of the creator that glory of the Atman”

Festival Lights on Wheels

Take delight in riding richshaw later in the night during festival.

Buddha’s first Sermon

In nearby Sarnith today, Buddha began his venerated preaching career.The long history, the wisdom traditions, so long ago, you can feel it.

Top Down Beijing vs. Bottom Up Delhi and Washington

China and India. They have roughly the same number of 1 billion people. Their middle class is exploding. They both are in need of massive infrastructure that the Western world built a century ago.

Beijing dictates what is built, by whom, and how long it is going to take. China has plenty of inefficiencies and corruption.  But the system does not require consensus. When Beijing says its going to prepare for the 2008 Olympics or the Shanghai World Expo,  it gets moving.

Delhi, a fumbling by internal power struggles, attempts to be more modern democracy and as in America everything moves slowly, or doesn’t get done. Corruption and bureaucracy stifles oven modest projects. Just consider its attempt to prepare for the 2010 Commonwealth Games – the rail line link I am passing on the way to the train station is far behind where it needs to be. The Chinese complete projects ahead of schedule.

There is an obvious down-side to not having checks and balances, to excluding multiple voices, or so I have been led to believe. Surely this fact will catch up with China.

Sunrise on the Ganges

Woke up at dark and took a boat down Ganges at dawn. At port, meet an English-speaking Sadhu, and a very cool dude.

 

Navratri Autumn Festival, Varanasi, India

I am fortunate enough to arrive during Dasara, the same holiday going on in Nepal, except it’s called Navratri and no animals will be sacrificed. The Hindu autumn harvest celebration (think Thanksgiving), the largest festival in Nepal and one of the largest in India, which says something.

On the last day, statues of the Goddess Durga will be submerged in the river. Durga is the consort of Shiva and represents the two forms of female energy – one protective and the other destructive. Durga has ten hands, rides a lion, and defeats the evil Mahishasur. The holiday is a celebration of good over evil. It is woven into the fabric of the culture. It makes headlines. And it’s not put on for tourists.

What’s most striking about Varanasi in general and Navratri in particular is that its aspects are living myths, full of color, character and unmistakable passion. A boring Sunday service it is not.

General Electric in India: Innovate or Die

India is producing cheap mobile phones and designing cars under $5,000 dollars. It is making low-cost computers and setting up small-scale power plants. Most people in the world cannot afford Westerners goods, much less million dollar CAT scan. GE seems to know something. CEO Jeff Immelt calls it a 50% solution for 15% price. Scale down and keep it simple. India has the potential to make (or knock off) GE products at prices the rest of the world can afford. So fortune companies like Motorola and GE are racing to set try something new: Country specific innovation centers who can get there before the locals.

Riding a rickshaw through Indian streets

Practical and cheap. Just hold on tight.

 

Varanasi, India

Varanasi is India’s spiritual heartland, where Hindu of all stripes converge along the sacred Ganges River. I’ll hang out here before I head to Beijing for its October 1st National Day celebration.

The city exists on the edge of the river. The old town is a winding maze of pedestrian walkways. Along the two main bridges are a series of gat, access points to boats and the river, where locals bath, wash clothes and hawk visitors. It’s a chaotic medley of spirituality, custom and commerce.

Varanasi is one of the oldest cities in the world. By legend, it was founded by Lord Shiva around 5,000 years ago, making it one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in India. It was a commercial and industrial center famous for its silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture. 

Over the next few days I befriend a few locals, who are gracious enough to show me around during the day as I explore during the night. One of them is trying to attain an American visit to visit his grandfather – but the U.S. government doesn’t belief he will return to India.

This kind of local fraternity pleases me immensely. I am become a bit jaded by tourist-trade people who want your money (which I can understand) and fellow travelers who are content with a few tour book photographs before a beer, romanticize place and people, and are surprisingly ignorant of the harsh facts and contradictions all around them. One example of many is the horrific treatment of women in India, where an ancient patriarchy reigns.

But on the surface of things you’d never know.  We hang out among the cows and Sadhus, on narrow streets, as I learn about their lives, and frequent a local restaurant nightly.

There is a stench in the air, so many things burning, including loved ones who are put down the river in prayer. The Ganges is a repository of ash and sewage and anything else you can think; unlike Rishikesh, I wouldn’t dream of bathing in it. It’s brown, alright, and very polluted. Yet Indians worship it and outside failed government initiates to clean it up, don’t seem to mind. That or they are too busy trying to survive.

The view from the $10/night hotel is on the water and looks over the main gait.

Nepal Update: Chaos in Kathmandu

November. History repeats itself and the earth shakes. Peace is the absence of war. In China I learn that violence has erupted again. “In Kathmandu, traffic halts at every turn as hundreds march and chant. Tensions exploded on December 4th after thousands of landless laborers in the far west, backed by the Maoists, claimed tracts of government-owned forest for themselves.  Stalemate between the government and the Maoist party, comprising former rebels, has grown violent. Meanwhile, Nepalis are still waiting for a peace dividend. Some fifty-five percent live in poverty, their plight worsened this year by a late and sporadic monsoon. Strikes and shortages have done nothing to help.”

 

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065897

Enroute Varanasi

On way from New Delhi airport to the train station for rail to Varanasi. The traffic winds slowly through the street. A street girl comes to the window, in a hand to mouth gesture, so sullen. What to do?

Construction of the airport to downtown subway is behind schedule for the 2010 World Games, reports the day’s newspaper. The construction is visible.

Arrive Varanasi train station to a huge cow lying inside the lobby; machismo men relieve themselves on public streets; and piles of refuge burn in the gutters. Back in India. Leave luggage at a friendly restaurant in search for a gat (river)-facing accommodation.

The streets are a maze. The map is useless.

Parting thoughts on Nepal, way to airport

On a bus from Dunagal to Kathmandu, looking for the single jet runway from the roadside, hidden away in this high mountain valley, so I can get jump off the bus and walk to the small terminal.

I am sitting next to a British occupational therapist. Her parents are doctors, and she spent many years in Nepal growing up. Back after a decade, she is horrified by the backward progress, the economic malaise and corruption, the deterioration of conditions and health. “It’s far worse than when I left. The government keeps foreign aid for themselves.

The people suffer. It would take 20 years to begin to make a difference here,” she sighs. And that exacerbation exemplifies what I have seen during these short weeks here. Behind the veneer and the gracious smiles, past the high mountains that belie deforestation and melting glaciers, beneath the romanticized version too many Westerns I met crow, oblivious of the nation’s cycle of cruel history, the Nepalese are defeated and tired. “We’ll see,” said a Nepali guesthouse owner, about the lack of business. “I expect nothing.”

The exhaust of the bus spills into my face, leaving me and my luggage on the two lane road, a few kilometers outside Kathmandu. Traffic creeps past. Dust and dirt fill the oven air. A man is selling brown oranges. Here?

A towering jetliner is on final approach. It passes a few hundred feet above, engines screeching with the carbon that power the modern world. I can see facing outside the window. That plane and and my coveted passport are my bridge out of here, to the developed world outside Nepal’s borders.

I grab my pack, wipe the perspiration from my brow and walk to the jetliner, leaving behind those Kathmandu students who just want a ticket to somewhere.

Nagarkot, Nepal

From the hotel shower back in Kathmandu, CNN International reports that Ramadan is ending in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Time spent on story: about 15 seconds. I ponder the experience I had in the Kashmir Mosques, and the gulf between East and West.

A commercial is promoting Prince Charles environmental campaign, Save the Rainforest. Attuned to people and place and the challenges of our day like never before, the thread of urgency is tightening, but it appears to be falling on deaf ears.

http://www.rainforestsos.org/

“Little Lamb, who made thee”

Darshan, Nepal style. The same autumn harvest festival I encounter in Varanasi is taking place here. It’s hallmark is for a family to sacrifice a goat, and celebrate the holiday with a feast. The cute critters are everyone, being bought and sold in preparation for the holiday.

 “On a corner of the trail is a weird shrine where horns of many slaughtered goats are piled in a kind of alter, with red ribbons tied to the branches of the trees. At this time of year, people pay homage to Durga, a dread demonesss of ancient origin” – The Snow Leapard.

Taken from Kathmandu, a Princess:

 

And out of this tube came beer, like a river, which the boys jockey to gulp. (I got some)

Monkeying Around

The Nepal Bus

Institution and pastime, rickety and goofy, the preferred if only mode of transport in Nepal. It’s common for passengers to take a seat on the roof. To the brave and foolhardy, you can too.

Everyone rides the buses. On one trip, the bus is packed. A young mother, holding one and watching another, leans into me and my bag anywhere she can find a grip. Private space is not private. People help each other. Elders and mothers and children get special attention, without the aid of public signs. Everyone is just doing their best to get by. Nothing fancy.

Remote Jomson, Annapurna Range

Take harrowing “hop” flight to Jomson at the north end of the range, wings trailing valleys, and trees not far below. 

Disappointed when discover that the trekking “trail” is now in fact a dirt vehicular road, so we walk against a winds that could lift you off your feet. The valleys to each side are cliffs, and in the distance is Annapurna. Miles pass and there is no one and nothing.

 “I set off ahead, walking alone in the cool breeze of the valley. In the bright September light and mountain shadow—steep foothills are closing in as the valley narrows, and the snow peaks to the north are no longer seen.” – The Snow Leapard.

10 km elapse before giving in to a jeep for the rest of the way to Muktinoth. It’s nearly empty.. I would opt for a trek from the circuit toward the top of one of the mountains, rather than around. But not this trip.

Back in Kathmandu, I serendipitously stumble about an amusing travel article about the circuit. It’s a satisfying feeling to be where others are writing you should visit.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/travel/27personal.html?emc=eta1

The Globalization Conundrum

Back in Pokhara, I read today that the World Health Organization is asking the heath ministers from the South Asian countries to urgently prepare for the protection of citizens due to the adverse affects of climate change. Climate change has prompted over a million deaths globally in the past eight-year period….poor most vulnerable….scarcity of drinking water…coastal flooding…melting glaciers…drought.

Meanwhile, Nepal’s prime minister is opening the first climate change conference of Himalayan nations this fall, in Kathmandu, with a warning about the dangers of melting glaciers, floods and storms. The Prime Minister says cooperation is essential.

Nepal is a loser in the globalization chess game. It’s caught in the development boon of India and China. It receives none of the advantages of globalization and all of the downside. They will have little clout in Copenhagen.

Motorbiking through the countryside

Rent 180cc motorcycle, 40 km Royal Trail mountain and lake circuit trotted by Prince Charles years back, with Annapurna, rice patties, farm animals as the backdrop. The freedom to stop at will and enjoy the scenery. The Nepali in the outback are less familiar with Westerns, so it’s much more of a pleasure than around Pokhara. These school kids appreciate the writing utensils. I am reminded of motoring around the east side of Bali ten years ago.

Another day I ride up to a nearby mountain top, where stands a Buddhist Stumpa, build by a wacky Japanese entrepreneur and mystic, the same one I will later find in Leh. At the top I met two Spanish women, teachers of English, along its ring.

<photo>

We talk about  traveling, politics, the environment, education, the good life. “What is more valuable than a hot shower and washing my messy hair.” So basic.  They give meaning to the saw, Europeans work to live, Americans live to work, as if I need to be reminded. We share water and a cigarette (popular among the traveling set), as the sun begins its decent.

 “The stupa is a monument, shrine and reliquary that traditionally derives from the Buddha’s tomb, but has come to symbolize existence. On a square red base (signifying earth) sits a large white dome (water) with a sort of spire (fire) crowned with a lunar crescent (air) and a solar disc (space); such structures guard the approaches to towns and villages throughout the Buddhist Himalaya.” – The Snow Leapard.

To give or not to give?

We pass Nepali children and farmers always. The kids are all too accustomed to Westerns, for the worse. Some, not all, ask you with the biggest, most innocent smile to take their photo.

If you do, and don’t give them the money that they than demand, they turn outright hostile. One girl got pouncing on my bag because the bill I gave her was worn. I took it back and began to walk away. She grabbed it back and that was that. Megan is a Stanford law student and has been working with an NGO in Kathmandu.

She’s of the opinion to not give money, because it just feeds the cycle. She tells me about the corruption in Nepal, how the World Bank would give loans but they don’t find their rightful place. Or how the hypodroelectric projects get built, but the energy is exported to neighboring countries and the Nepalese are left in the dark.

 “Down by the stream, I persuade two girls to try the gooseberries that grow there. The children are suspicious, tantalized, astonished; in their delight, they stare at each other, then begin to laugh.” – The Snow Leapard.

When I visited Southern India ten years ago, kids would be delighted to accept an American pen or pencil. On this trip I brought many. Sadly, kids in Northern India and Nepal aren’t interested, frown with disgust. This is a microcosmic example of globalization and the commercialization and homogenization of indigenous cultures, the unrealistic expectations seeded by TVs and movies and wealthy tourists flouting their money. The sacred becomes profane and for sale.

A boy in Kathmandu insisted that I buy him homogenized milk. His young sister is Vitamin D deficient. Later I learn that this is used to cut cocaine. Or, more likely, it’s resold for cash.

Nepal, the highest country in the world

Nathen, Paula from Italy, and Megan from America and I hike up 2,000 feet to a nearby vista today, take a taxi down, and enjoy a pleasant dinner, dressed in our finest. Muscles ache, views glorious.

 “As the slopes steepen, I am almost on all fours, knuckles brushing the snow, and this simian stance shifts the weight forward, saving my lacerated shoulders. Three thoughts carry me ahead: the prospect of the northward view over Dolpo to Tibet; the prospect of a free descent across these brilliant snowfields to hot tea and biscuits; and the perception—at this altitude extremely moving— that these two hands I see before me in the sun, bracing the basket straps, hands square and brown and wrinkled with the scars of life, are not different from the old hands of my father. Simultaneously, I am myself, the child I was, the old man I will be.” – The Snow Leapard.

Pokhara, Annapurna Range, Nepal

Verdant, tropical, rice ledges, and a seven hour winding bus along rivers and through lush valleys lands us in Pokhara, the launch pad to some of the most famous trekking in the Himalayas, made famous by Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, heralded as the best travel book of the twentieth century. Pokhara sits before the majestic snow caped Annapurna Range, merely a few thousand feet lower than Everest. You can trek the circuit around the range for 30 days, camping along the way in small accommodations, with a porter, all for US $7 day.

Pokhara is a hip, comfortable, mountain lakeside town. Tourist oriented. Espresso cafes, bars and live music. Unfortunately for the Nepalese, business is slow; prices are negotiable. We’re staying at a well regarded guest house adjacent to the lake. Tables on the water, morning coffee, muesli and yogurt, views of Annapurna and high mountain sun. Accommodation is US $10/night, half that with a travel partner.

This balmy evening, next door are two young chicks from Spain, students mulling their way through Asia, Beijing Olympics participants in field hockey. “Michael Phillips got all the attention,” they complain. “And the Chinese whisked us to and fro, we didn’t see the real China.” Out of India – a tough place for women to travel, of any age, from anywhere, the Indian men hard up and give fresh meaning to patriarchy – I will end up meeting many young women, some traveling solo. (Months later, not one of them will have been an American.)

The peeks are visible from the lake. Oh, joy.

Software Piracy in Asia

Intellectual property. Say what? MS Office 2007 goes for about 100 rupees, or $1.25; Photoshop for about $2.50, a savings of 99 percent! I ask the Kathmandu computer shopkeeper – not street peddler – if the software is remotely legal, does Adobe and Microsoft subsidize it the way big pharm companies provide drugs to poor countries. He looks stone-faced and pauses, gathers a pad and pen, and speaks as if I am an idiot. “In America, average person earns five thousand dollars a month; in Nepal, six. We are a poor people.” OK, good enough.

A week later, I discover that Adobe looses billions in lost sales in Asia, that they will cut prices dramatically in the hope that users will go legal. Seventy percent of all software used in India, by students, individuals and most amazingly businesses, is pirated. It’s likely no different here in Nepal, or China, or Vietnam.

This kind of rampant intellectual property theft tilts the world trading system against a knowledge-based economy, the one we’re so good at. America is not leading the debate.

Flying across the Himalayan Range back to Delhi

After a restful sleep, head to the Leh airport to catch a flight to Katmandu, Nepal via New Delhi. An arduous bus ride would take days and I didn’t want to miss the views and the world-famous, mountain top take-off.

 

 

 

 

Kathmandu, Nepal

Long gone are the days of Kathmandu as Shangri-La, Cat Stevens, acoustics and grass, and the old street that made it famous among 1960 hippies. Today Kathmandu is a bustling urban center, the capital and gateway to Nepal.

We’re staying at Kathmandu Guest House for $7.50/each. Most visitors sleep and meander around the neighborhood of Thamal, not far from the city square filled with gompas, temples and palaces of bygone eras. Unfortunately, Thamal is a Pier 39 tourist mecca. It’s momentarily interesting but quickly repetitive: Tibetan clothing and art; camping and equipment; tourist operators; internet cafes; convenient stores. The touts are aggressive, offing everything legal and not. One late evening, walking back to the hotel, passing me in the damp darkness,  the soft whisper of a pre-pubescent boy, “cocaine?” I shrug. This is just one of many sad indices of a poor country, where its young people have little faith in the future.

One day, I encounter some college kids and a local park. I ask them about life in Nepal who gets to go to university, what they study. They imply that too many go to school. Why, I ask. Because there is nothing for them to do after. Despite a modest education, there are few jobs in Kathmandu, the only game in this small country.  It’s isolated from the world, high and land-locked, and the population thin, so foreign investment is small. The cost of doing business is high and the payoff low.

The government is trying to unify after years of battling Maoist rebels. It’s a tenuous truce. The Maoist will sometimes block the roads into Kathmandu, shutting down commerce, haling incoming visitors, and most hurting the common person.