Author of Madam, Have You Ever Really Been Happy? An Intimate Journey through Africa and Asia

KATHMANDU…STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS….

Just getting to my home-away-from-home was high adventure! Try thirty-two hours and three layovers, and a bus ride from one Toyko airport to another for starters. Then picture me curled up on a bench, in a semi-coma, hugging my pack and hoping someone won’t lift my duffel with all my trekking equipment, and then hoping they will so I won’t have to carry it. I have to say that I’ve never met more hospitable, helpful people than in the grand Tokyo airports or the even grander Bangkok edifice.  It was being completed when I was last there, and the only way I can describe it is to imagine yourself in the belly of a huge glass whale with intersecting ribs and fins shaped like torpedoes.

I had to laugh when the pilot on my first United flight came on the intercom to laud the grand new Boeing 777 with its multiple engines and luxury appointments. All I could do was wonder why such an enormous piece of machinery could decrease the seating space for the tourist class to the point where anyone with knees would soon be an endangered species.  Never before have I so envied first class!  I will say that the food during my flights was awful, until I boarded Thai Airways.  Now that was fabulous…the food as beautiful as the stewardesses.

For three days my daughter, Cary, and her friend, Christy Korrow,  have been staying at the Norbu Sangpo Hotel in the town of Boudha, which is famous for its enormous stupa around which devout  Buddhists do kora morning and evening. There is a much more relaxed pace than in Kathmandu, and nowhere near the smog and dirt that is becoming so prevalent in Asian cities. Temperatures are in the 80’s, since we’re in the Indus Valley, and poinsettias and bougainvillia abound. It’s spring all over again.

Yesterday Chisty and I did a grand tour of Kathmandu, starting at the famous Swayambunath Temple, swinging through Thamel, the student area, and ending up in Durbar Marg with all the Hindu Temples.  Next time I’ll write more about my sentimental return, but right now a car is waiting to take us to the mountains. For two glorious weeks we’ll actually be incommunicado, something I’m looking forward to after the hustle and bustle of the city.

I’m thinking of you as you approach Thanksgiving and will be with friends and family in spirit as you celebrate.

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5 Comments

  1. Dear Meg: Jackie here. We’ve posted our thoughts about you and the house with links to your blog and your book. I love this journal entry and with your imagined approval, I’ll add it to the post if I can figure out how to do it. I feel as though I’m there with you and I wouldn’t have suffered as much because I hardly have any knees – just hips – but I supposed its just as bad being squeezed in sideways as front to back. Love and have a wonderful time, Jackie

  2. Gullvi Eriksson

    Dear Meg! You are something else! Anyhow I hope you are having a wonderful one month in Nepal and I wish I were there with you. Hope to be able to talk to you before I leave for South America January 2nd. I don’t know where to find you if your house is sold so please try to contact me. Do you have a cellophone? I guess not. Love and lots of hugs (and take care) Gullvi

  3. Gullvi Eriksson

    Dear Meg!
    Haven’t heard from you. Hope you are fine and that you had a wonderful trip to Nepal. I am leaving Sweden in 2 days but I will check my mailbox now and then. I have an iternery and if I remember I will send it to you before I leave. Hope you are having a nice new years eve. Happy New Year Meg and lots of Love. Gullvi

  4. This is wonderful to reat Dear Meg,

    I got it through Christy Korrow’s facebook. We were going to meet in Kathmandu. But due to time constrain, it did not happen. Hope we meet one day.

    Best regards,
    Krishna Gurung
    http://www.krmef.org

  5. Gullvi Eriksson

    Meg, back in Ushaia from Antarctica. I will send you an email. Love Gullvi

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