Shivalia to Bhandar

 May 10th,  1230

Midday rest stop at Deurali allows me to catch up on today's adventure.

We decided to get started earlier than yesterday so we ate breakfast and got on the trail at 0740.

I thought yesterday was a tough climb. Today we got an education.

We went up steps. We went up inclines.  We went up dry creekbeds.  We climbed 3050 feet in five hours. Not much for climbers and marathon runners, but for our party of one old man, two medium old men and one 36 year old office worker, it was a tester. Like climbing from Seattle to the height of Snoqualmie Pass on a stairway. 

We crossed an ancient bridge and passed the occasional old mani walls, but always going up. 

We stopped for lunch here in Deurali and rested our tired bones. I had vegetable and garlic soup and a bowl of vegetable curry. There was a jar of Schezuan pepper (Ramesh called it Nepali pepper)  on the table so added a spoonful to my garlic soup. Tasty and tingly at the same time.  the curry turned out to be a sort of vegetable stew with very little soup. Good but no curry in it. 

Heard some thunder so stepped outside to find the clouds rolling in. We (Ramesh) decided it was time to go so we headed downhill to our teahouse for tonight in Bandara. 

We dropped from 8150 feet to about 7000 on a steep trail cut in several places by the new road they have punched in. 

I was about 100 feet from our teahouse when the first big drops kicked up dust so ran to the teahouse and got out of the downpour just in time. 

The sponge on the bed in Jiri was firm. The one in Shivalia was so soft it was easy to ground out on the plywood base. The one here in Bandara is so firm it's like sleeping on a carpeted floor. Good thing I like a firm bed.

Mike and I share rooms as we go along. The view out our window today is a pastoral scene.  There is a field with a nak (female yak) tethered to a piece of rebar. An  old stone wall runs along our side of the pasture. On this side of the wall are calla  lilies, an apricot tree, a prickly pear tree loaded with fruit and some beautiful red roses. In a garden nearby I saw nasturtiums, snap dragons, chrysanthimums and several kinds of daisies.  An interesting microclimate here in this part of Nepal at 7000 feet. 

This teahouse has a community dining area, toilet, kitchen and shower (cold water only) on the ground floor. Upstairs (45° with 12" risers)  are nine sleeping rooms.  Ours has three beds and a single compact florescent bulb. No electric plugs upstairs since they sell one battery charge for one dollar downstairs. 

The kitchen has an interesting cook stove. Looks like it is made of high temperature mortar hand formed over brick. 

Jiri to Shivalia 2

May 9th, late afternoon

After breakfast and a stroll around town, we broke out walking sticks,  donned our backpacks and started the first day of trekking leaving Jiri at 0930.

Ramesh, Harold, Russ, Jeff, Mike and porter Gidi

Walked a way on gentle trails and then the work began.  For two hours  we climbed, sometimes gently, mostly not so.

We started at about six thousand feet and topped our at about eight thousand on trails like you see.  Needless to say, this old man was huffing and puffing to keep up with the younger guys.

Our guide,  Ramesh, found a nice little wild strawberry patch for us to to take a break and have a snack before heading down the other side of the hill to Shivalia, our destination.

I thought going up was hard but going down was even worse in a way. Not so much of a cardio workout, but tough on the knees and legs.  We used our walking sticks to good advantage here

There were many rhododendron bushes and even small trees along the way but found only one in bloom.

After the tough climb we were eager to check into our teahouse at 1445.

After a cup of coffee, I was hoping to take a shower but decided to work on this blog entry instead.  No internet so made this up as a memo and hope to copy and paste when the power comes on.

Power was off when we checked in and has not come on yet so no WiFi. Hope to have power before too late so I can post this update.

Power, and WiFi came on around 1800 so am gong to give it a go.

Well, WiFi was too slow to post and internet connection was little better so will try again tomorrow.

Jiri to Shivalaya

Wed, May 9th

(A quick note.  I hope you'll excuse the frequent typos and misspellings. Sorry to not catch and correct them all.  I'm posting from my smartphone under marginal conditions and sometimes with tired and blurry eyes.)

Violent thunder and lightning brought heavy rain from 0400-0500 this morning but the skies cleared to partial clouds by 0600. 65°F in our room and 56.6 outside.

I'm sure this room isn't typical, but thought I'd give you an idea of the accommodations.

Furnishings are two beds, a small nightstand, a small wall-mounted TV and five hooks to hang towels or clothing.

There is a small (3.5'x5') bathroom outfitted with a lav, toilet and hand held shower. Clean and neat, it's in the room, which is a plus.  Russ says this is the best we'll see so we should appreciate the luxury.

A sheet of plywood serves as springs on the bed. I was happy with the firm bed.

The soft foam mattress is about three inches thick.

The owner says this hotel was destroyed in the big earthquake.  They did a good job of rebuilding.

Kathmandu to Jiri

Up early again this morning, we finished last minute packing, had breakfast and loaded up the four of us, Ramesh (our guide), two porters and the driver in an Indian-made  Mathindra land-cruiser type

Through Kathmandu we headed east through heavy traffic.

Kathmandu elevation was approx 4200 feet. We got as high as 5500 feet as we crossed a couple of small ranges then headed downhill following the Kochi River until at about 1500 feet we crossed the river and headed back uphill.

 Tire change time slows the line. 

 It was a long drop to the river with nary a guardrail in sight.

After lunch stop got nack back into the sardine can.

The road from Kathmandu was a nice two lane that reduced to a wide one lane and eventually to one partial lane. 

 Open air bus full of kids. 

Glad I wasn't driving. He stopped, we stopped, we backed up and up the bank at a low spot, the truck drive by and we got back on the road.

Driving on roads like this, we went over the pass at 8000 feet then back down to Jiri at 6000 feet. Temps ranged from mid-eighties to 101.5 degrees in the river valley to 74 in Jiri when we got there at 1730.

Checked into our abode, got cleaned up and had dinner.  I had dal baht for lunch with an extra bowl of lentil soup and wasn't too hungry so ordered Tibetan bread with jam and a bowl of onion soup for dinner.

Rest day in Kathmandu

Tuesday,  May 8th

Today was a rest day so we could recover from the flights and adjust to the time change.  We took it easy and let our bodies catch up with the marvels of modern transportation.

After a leisurely breakfast we caught a cab to "the Monkey Temple. " (Swayambhumsth Stupa), climbed a little over a million steps and enjoyed the view and fresh breeze on top.

Mike, Jeff, Harold & Russ

Lots of souvenir vendors, dogs (old strays to cuddly puppies), many monkeys and tourists of all stripes were competing for space and our attention. A friendly young lady from Uruguay took our mandatory photo in front of the stupa. 

Back down the steps, we negotiated another cab and made our way back to our part of town. 

We sorted and packed some, had a pretty dinner and went to bed early. 

Dubai to Kathmandu

Left our hotel at 0600. Saw modern buildings everywhere albeit somewhat obscured by the smog. I was impressed with the orderly Dubai traffic.  Very orderly and laid back.

Checked back through customs and immigration and found our nearby gate so had time for breakfast. Ordered a "snack pack" with the spicy option at KFC. First time I've seen that option.  Turned out to be mildly spicy but good, if you like such fare for breakfast.

We were traveling Emirates subsidiary, Fly Dubai.  Through the gate and onto a bus we went.  Planeside we climbed the portable stairway and settled into our 737-800. Had another window seat but this time we were fully loaded but the seats were comfortable even if having no power jacks or seatback screens.

The view below made me appreciate our pacific northwest rain.  Here I saw no green, only shades of brown as the desert rolled by beneath us.  Somewhere over India the desert was broken four awhile by scattered dry fields before returning back to dessert.  Must be hot and dry waiting for monsoon.

Cabin temp on the flight from Seattle hovered between 67.5 and 68.5. This flight it was between 83 and 85. 'Twas a warm flight.  Fortunately we had a tail wind so landed at 1415 local, a few minutes shy of the scheduled 4 hr 10 min.

Cabin pressure on this flight was maintained at 8350 ft.

Ramesh, or guide, meet us with an Indian-made Land Rover like vehicle. Our big bags went on top, we piled in and headed for the hotel.

Traffic here is more like what I expected.  Right of way depends on vehicle size with motorbikes and pedestrians everywhere. Drivers routinely played chicken but it all seemed to work and there were smiles around.

Our hotel was a cut above what i expected with a toilet, shower and a/c. Two-man rooms were the equiv of $20/Pierson  per night and included a good breakfast.

After we took care of money change and other admin details, we went out for diner.  I had some good pumpkin soup and an excellent daily special of garlicky chicken.

On the way back to the hotel we saw some wiring  that resembled what we saw in Saigon in 2015.

Back at the hotel, jet lag and lack of sleep caught up with me and I crashed early.

Random Thoughts

Several people have asked if it's okay to send my blog link to others. Absolutely, it's a public blog, anyone can read it if they have the link or if they search for it.
The link is: hrodenbergersblog.blogspot.com

I forgot to mention yesterday that my altimeter showed that Emirates pressurizes the cabin, at least of that flight, at around 6,600 feet.  As I recall most flights are pressurized at 10,000 ft so the higher pressure at 6,600 feet is quite a bit more comfortable.

 When we landed last night I noticed the air looked a little thick. This morning when I looked out my hotel window, it is thick.  Don't know if this is an exception to the rule, or if they have an air pollution problem here.

 We stayed in a hotel-type Howard Johnson's last night, courtesy of the airline. It's a pretty nice room. What we would call a suite in the States. I'd include a photo or two but I'm a little gun-shy about leaving this draft to do anything else on my phone. You'll just have to imagine the sitting room with overstuffed furniture, dining area with table and four chairs, windows with heavy drapes on two sides and a nice desk with hot water maker and the usual instant drinks and condiments.

 From what I saw when landing and driving through the city to the hotel, Dubai impressive me as a very modern city.

Seattle to Dubai

Checked my bag at Emirates and headed for the TSA security line.  Was wearing my trekking boots because they are critical to a successful trip and didn't want to chance losing them in checked luggage. They are big and heavy so I expected to remove them even though I usually leave my shoes on since I'm over 75.

There was a new procedure in place at the TSA terminal line. When I finally got to the checkpoint, everyone left their shoes on. There were no totes to put things in and the guy with loudest voice was shouting for everyone to empty their pockets and put everything into their bag. We left our liquids in the bags and didn't remove laptops  (those who had them). Reminded me of the days before 9/11.

I wear a travel vest, so carry my phone and other odds and ends in that. I put it on top of my backpack and sent that stack and my walking umbrella through the scanner.

The new procedure made it much faster but a drug sniffing dog and his handler actually walked through the queu inside the guide pylons. Been awhile since I've seen that.

((What you see, above, is what I wrote while sitting in the plane at the terminal. I saved it as a draft and then later while we were in the air I added to it, several times. In fact, I'm sure I wrote too much. In any case, before we landed I was preparing my phone for sleep and closed  that page. Saved it first, or so said blogger.

We have a layover in Dubai tonight so after we got checked into the hotel I checked into blogger. What you see above is all there was. Lesson learned. I'll be more careful how I handle drafts when not connected to the internet. Now I'll written a condensed version. ))

We pushed back at 1749 , one minute ahead of schedule. Our route was a modified Great Circle route. From Seattle we headed Northeast over British Columbia, Alberta and Ft McMurray.  North of Hudson's Bay we ran into the edge of darkness. This time of year 24-hour daylight creeps South so we flew through Twilight for a couple hours until just west of Greenland we found full daylight again.

Not long after we took off an attendant came through handing out amenity packages consisting of travel socks, toothbrush and paste, ear plugs, and an eye mask. They were all in a stylish zippered fabric pouch with Emirates logo Etc.

Our tasty dinner was served on melamine-like dishes and there was stainless cutlery.

The seats even back in steerage had ample legroom and reclined 12 inches or so. There was a new doily on my headrest and the reading material was in a plastic bag.

I'm impressed with Emirates Airline. They compare favorably with Singapore, Korean, and Japan Airlines. Of course they're a five star Airline so they should treat their customers right.

I was sitting way in the back on the starboard side in a window seat. The young lady sitting next to me talked to the attendant as soon as the door closed and moved to another seat. I think she didn't like being so close to the lavatory. I ended up with a window seat and room to spread out and relax.

I slept for about 4 hours until we got near Norway where it was late morning. Thought I'd better stay awake to prepare for the coming evening in Dubai., so tracked flight on the seatback navigation system

We crossed the upper part of the Scandinavian peninsula, crossed Finland well north of Helsinki, passed just to the west of Petersburg and Moscow, flew over Tbilisi, then into Iran, where we passed a little southwest of Tehran and on  into Dubai, landing at 1915 local time.

Incidentally, it's a pleasure to be using 24-hour time again. I wonder when the United States is going to join the rest of the world and use world time and the metric system?

We are laying over here in Dubai about 12 hours. Time we got unloaded, through customs, arranged our transportation and checked into the hotel we'll be able to catch a few hours sleep before we leave at 0600 in the morning for the airport again.

No photos on this on this entry. Perhaps tomorrow.

Headin' for the Hills

My tests were all good. Blogger has made some good changes so it's easier to post from my phone.

It's been a busy time preparing for the trek while still doing volunteer work for my VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Post and doing some training for the trek. Old legs have to be trained constantly or they quickly lose what little strength they have left at my age. 

One afternoon (outdoors) was dedicated to spraying my trail clothes with permethrin (bug repellent) so the lower altitude flying insects look for more tasty morsels. It might even scare off the leeches (I hope). Permetrin is pretty good stuff. It smells bad when it's sprayed on but when dry it has no smell and will last through six washes or six months, whichever comes first. We used in the summer of 2015 when we toured northern Vietnam and Laos (see my blog for 2015) and I was impressed how well it worked.

I'm heading for the airport this afternoon to catch our flight to Dubai. Fourteen hours and some minutes from SEATAC we arrive in Dubai, layover 14 hours then go on to Kathmandu (five hours and change) where we'll have a rest day then set out for the hills.

Nepal is twelve hours and 45 minutes ahead of PDT so when it's the middle of the day here it is the middle of the night there. We'll adjust to the time change while adjusting to the altitude. That's a double benefit of taking it easy the first few days.

Will post updates whenever I have time and WiFi is available.

Test of Quick Posts

My blog host, Google Blogger, usually does a good job of posting my updates. Sometimes they show up live within 15 minutes but most often it takes twelve to 24 hours for them to go live.

When I was posting from Vietnam in the summer of 2015, WiFi service was available most of the time but a couple times I had to save posts until WiFi popped up. At that time, when I posted two entries within a short time,  the result was garbled posts with pics from one mixed (or completely dropped) with those of the other. Sometimes even the written dialogue was rearranged.

After that experience, I've made it a practice of waiting until a post goes live before posting another. Today I'm going to try posting this one fifteen minutes after I post another.

It might be a problem only when I post from my phone, but that's going to be my medium of choice while in Nepal so I'm trying to work out the bugs in advance. So far I've been impressed with the advances Blogger has made over the past two and one-half years so maybe the quick posting problem doesn't exist anymore. Here's hoping.

I'm going to include some photos just to make it a realistic test.

Moonfruit near our home.

 north side of the curb grows healthy moss. 

A miniature scene in moss.

Kuro's New People

Kuro's new family are taking good care of him and he has made a quick transition to being pampered by them and running with his new friend, Chewy.

Makayla loving two little dogs

Fred has a lap full of Schnauzer

We took Kuro's bed, and toys over so he could have some familiar smells. 

Kuro quickly adjusted to his new family. He enjoys the big yard and the big house. Mostly he enjoys the freedom than he didn't have in the condo.

Mention a walk and they pay close attention!

Spring Fever

Around this time of year my thoughts turn to gardens and plants. I feel a need to dig into the dirt and plant something.

This year is no different. Three or four weeks ago we bought some pots. We added one more last week. Today I decided it was time to plant something.

Ikuko and I went to the nursery and got a couple plants and some potting soil. We also got some drainage rocks and soil fabric.

Back at the condo I broke out my little shovel and started work.

Yard work at the condo

There is a nice breezeway running down the middle of the condo buildings. We catch some afternoon sun in our yard. Some of the people aren't so lucky, depending on where they are.

 Some nice condo gardens

This striking camelia is sheltered from the rain so the blooms don't rust

This maple graces our entryway

Tired out by the strenuous work I cleaned up my yard, washed my hands and took a nap.  Gardening is tiring work.

Finished for now, I'm waiting to pick up some plants from my gardening expert sister,  Darla, before planting the last pot. 

Goodbye, Little Dog

When we moved away from the only house our dog knew, and took up residence with him in a condo, he was shocked but we hoped he would settle in over time.

Moving from his own fenced-in backyard with his special dog door was a big change. He learned not to bark at strange noises outside the door and he learned to walk on a leash wherever we went, but he had to beg for walks and was restricted to 3 or so walks a day. Sometimes those walks were long and exciting but sometimes they were shorter depending on available time.

When we traveled, our son took care of the little dog, but late last summer they moved across the water to the countryside not too far from Sequim. It was a ferry ride plus an hour or so drive each way to deliver and pick him up.

A few weeks ago, a niece and her family, who live in the county not too far east of us, volunteered to watch Kudo while we were on a short trip away from home. Her family has another dog (Chewy) and we weren't sure how the two would get along. They wanted to get another dog to keep Chewy company so we thought it would be good to see if the two dogs could get along.

After our trip I went to pick up Kuro. He had made friends with Chewy and niece reported that they had a good time playing together. 

Kuro was happy to see me but as I prepared to take him home, he was a little reluctant to hop into the car as he usually does. Instead he stopped at the end of the sidewalk and looked back and forth between me and the house.

We took Kuro to visit again last weekend while we were in Vancouver for Ikuko's singing recital.

This time we discussed adoption with our niece.  Her family was in favor and, although we knew we would miss him, we wanted Kuro to have a chance to live a good dog's life with a loving family, a dog buddy and more freedom to run.

Kuro exploring his new yard

New smells and new places, all off leash

Kuro and Chewy playing together. 

When we got ready to leave this time, we could see Kuro had mixed feelings.  He remembered his first family but he was happy with his new family.  As we went out the door, he stayed inside. 

We'll miss him but we want him to have a free and happy life unrestricted by life in a condo. It's nice to know we have visitation privileges and I plan to take both dogs on walks as I have time. 

Meanwhile, goodbye, little dog.  I'll miss you on my walks but wish you well in your new home.