Well, I Found Thick Air

Saturday March 5, 2011

4:23PM

Saturday - the national holiday in Nepal. What better way to start out a holiday than with an early morning run up to the top of the monkey temple? At least, that’s what I thought, until I ventured outside and was nearly choked to death by the nearly tangible smog just down the street from the hotel. I know I’ve complained about the poor air quality before, but today really stood out as being by far the worst to date. Within half a mile or so it actually started to hurt to breathe. The main difference in today’s air was the presence of a high concentration of thick, acrid, nostril-singeing, lung burning, black-snot producing foulness - burning trash. It’s, unfortunately, a fairly common source of heat and cooking power amongst the poor here and you periodically catch strong whiffs of the stuff depending on the direction and strength of the wind. It just seemed like every shanty had a small fire burning as I crossed the river heading toward the temple. I can’t really say exactly why, because it was a pretty warm morning in comparison to the previous week. 

Once I left the river behind, the air cleared just in time to cough a bit, sort-of catch my breath and start up the however-many hundred stairs to the top. As I approached the base, I noticed someone else, a local, starting up the stairs for exercise as well. I was expecting him to speed up and out of site momentarily, but within a couple of minutes, I actually caught and passed the guy. Obviously not a sherpa, because if he had been he would have effortlessly levitated up the stairs while carrying an absurd amount of weight and smoking a cigarette simultaneously. Instead he looked like any 40-something jogger you might encounter at home, dressed in a 90’s style dark blue sweatsuit, the kind with matching tops and bottoms.

Just as on previous mornings I was turned around by the toll collector at the top. The locals get in for free but those not going to worship must pay. There’s just no blending with the local population when you’re wearing a gold hat, bright blue shorts and green shoes. Then it was back down through the asphyxiating haze to a shower and breakfast.

This afternoon a few of us got out of town a bit to the Nagigumba temple within Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park, which provided a bit of a respite from the exhaust, crowds and honking. We hired two taxis to drive the six of us to the park entrance, around 20-30 minutes away. After an hour or so of hiking up to the temple one got a great view of the Kathmandu valley and the surrounding hills. Upon our arrival I checked my altimeter and we were at a little over 6000 feet of elevation, higher than anything on the east coast with the exception of Mt. Washington and Mt. Mitchell.  As it turned out we were only slightly more than half way up the trail which lead another 6 km and 4000 feet to the top. It’s rather humbling to think of something this big as being the “hill” outside of town.

The temple is carved into a series of terraces on the side of the hill and houses Buddhist nuns. I, honestly, wasn’t aware that nuns existed in the Buddhist faith, but we met two. They wear the same shin length, blood-red and gold robes as the men and they also shave their heads just as the monks do. Our hosts were kind enough to provide our thirsty and hungry group with a plate of home-made pretzl-like snacks, two bags of chips and a large thermos of milk tea for the whopping donation of $1.75. While enjoyed our unplanned picnic on the lawn in front of the nunnery, the house BND (Basic Nepali Dog) quickly befriended us upon noticing our readily accessible snacks. She was, however, surprisingly well-mannered and gladly accepted a couple of fallen chips in exchange for her good behavior. Our new companion then escorted us all the way back down to the park gates before loping off back up the hill to her home.

On another note, I finally got the picture thing figured out. It's just a painfully slow direct upload, so may not be able to add too many :(