1000 Paper Cranes

千羽鶴, or senbadsuru, is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.
This past March I was beginning a unit on Japan in my World Geography and Cultures class and had decided to do a project wherein small groups of student taught the rest of the class how to do a Japanese art. One of those arts was origami. As Aya and I searched around Shanghai to get enough origami papers for each student to have a few sheets to fold we started talking about how long it would take someone to fold 1000 cranes. I had heard about this before and seen the strings of thousands of cranes for Sadako Sasaki in Hiroshima.

Somehow the obvious then dawned on me for I had been looking for a fundraising project for the students to do. Since the earthquake on March 11th Japan had been on my mind a lot and now I had the perfect opportunity to bring my students, teaching Japan arts, and helping Japan together. Should we fold 1000 cranes it would be our collective wish for Japan to heal from the events of March 11th. As a school and community we could show our support.

By April 7th I had ordered 2000 sheets of origami paper, I assumed some would be lost or discarded in the process of folding (378 were by final count). I then informed my students of the task ahead of them; to sell paper cranes to friends and family. The friends and family could then write a personal message along with their names on the origami paper. The cranes would then be folded and everyones wishes put together. The catch, the students would have to fold all 1000 cranes. I was not going to fold one and they couldn't get help from other grade level students or their parents. Of course I helped out by holding folding sessions and providing snacks while playing Japanese anime everyday during the lunch period for 2 weeks, but I never folded a crane.

As our two week deadline for completing 1000 cranes approached I was beginning to realize that there were much more than that flooding boxes in my classroom. After spending another week of lunch periods stringing them together it became easier to count all the cranes and we came out with 1622. I was amazed and really all those cranes together are very beautiful.

For a week they are hanging in the foyer of our school and then they are being boxed and shipped to Oregon where they will be matched by a 2 dollar donation per crane by the Bezos Foundation. Then I am told they will travel again to Denver to become part of a giant art installation that will hold 500,000 paper cranes.

At the end of the day I am happy that I got to share such a wonderful thing with my students and to help Japan by raising not only about 5,000 dollars but a connection to japan as well.

Fun Facts about Shanghai

Some days I hate living here, some days I love it. Most days Shanghai is out of my mind, I just go to work, come home, and have a normal day. Other days I get pushed on the subway, listen to people hawking and spitting, and breathe the heavy air. Yet other days I think, wow, what a hungry and amazing people I live with. What a city!
Shanghai, and China generally, is terribly crowded. It is something that I don’t really like, but I can see how it has contributed to China’s strength. Shanghai is a symbol of that progression. A jewel at the turn of the century, marred in the communist revolution, aim of ambition when China started to welcome capitalism, today, Shanghai is the largest city in the most populated country on Earth. The sheer size and speed at which the city has expanded is amazing. It’s location in the delta of the Yangtze and on the Yellow River helped the city flourish into a major center of commerce between the east and the west, and in 2005, Shanghai became the world’s largest cargo port. Shanghai has the world's most extensive bus system, but honestly I only take the subway because the buses are too complicated for me.
Shanghai is one of the most populated cities in China. it has a permanent resident population of over 14 million, of which 12 million live in the urban areas. Shanghai population accounts for 1.1% of the Chinese population which in the most populous country on earth is really saying something. The average density of 2059 inhabitants per square kilometers (3854 in the urban areas) is phenomenal. Add on to that a huge population of itinerant workers, probably numbering two million and you have human soup. I feel like I never have a moment alone in this city and when I read numbers like that I can be pretty sure that it’s more than a feeling. (Boston anyone?)
The tallest skyscraper in Shanghai, the Shanghai World Financial Center, is now the third tallest in the world. The second tallest building in the world, which is now under construction, will be the Shanghai Tower. It will come in at a height of 2,073 feet when it’s completed.
I often hear that China aims to make Shanghai a “world city”. The way things are going, I think it already is.

7 Billion

I had seen the January issue of National Geographic for sale a few times around town, but there is a little second hand book store that I go to every month where I can buy the previous month’s issue for a deeply discounted price. However, this time they did not have it available and so I finally relented and bought a copy online to be delivered.
I especially wanted this issue because I knew that they were running a story on the world’s population, something that I am very interested in. To my happiness I found out that this article was just part of a series that the magazine will do this year as the world approaches the birth of the 7 billionth person sometime late this year.
The story itself was interesting, but mainly just confirmed a lot of things that I had already learned from other sources. What it really did was open up a discussion between Aya and I about children. We have talked about having children and we plan to soon, but the issue is really how many and whose? Of course, they will be our children, but there is a question of if we want that to be biologically so or not.
As the world’s population swells it brings a number of environmental questions forward which is really why I am interested in population issues. Obviously more people equals more consumption of goods and more consumption of goods mean more of the planet’s resources must be used to make those goods and more waste is produced as a result.

Food and the resources used to produce it will sky rocket in use. Not only this, but as people become more wealthy their diet often turns to more meat consumption and that means much more water and grains used to produce that meat. Every pound of meat requires many pounds of grain and 600 gallons of water must be used (an average, beef is more, goat is less). Common sense will tell you that grain takes much less. Think of how many more people could be fed off of the grain and water than could be fed with the pound of meat. Now multiply that by a few hundred million.

Thomas Malthus predicted that population growth would vastly outpace food production and at the root he was right, but thanks to the efforts of the Green Revolution and Norman Borlaug the impending train wreck between population and food was averted for a time. However, we are facing it again. Norman’s goal was to produce crops that yielded more food per acre/plant in order to eliminate starvation. It pretty much worked, but could not continue to work. The simple reason is that the world’s population did not stand still. People did not think to reduce growth rates to coincide with food production. When less people starved more people had babies. Somehow the connection gets lost. This means that while crop yields grew so did numbers of people. All this wouldn’t matter too much except for the one factor we can’t improve on greatly. That is our planet, its arable land, its clean water, its natural resources and ecosystems.
As medicine and nutrition have improved life spans have increased dramatically, basically doubling in developed countries within the past few hundred years so that the traditional population pyramid became more top heavy. In developed countries, the number of centenarians is increasing at approximately 7% per year, which means doubling the centenarian population every decade, pushing it from some 455,000 in 2009 to 4.1 million in 2050. Japan is a great example of this.
The neat thing is that once countries became developed their growth rates declined. Most of the countries you can think of as developed nations have a negative growth rate. However, most of the countries you think of as developing nations are not necessarily the environmental plagues of the world. Although human numbers do add strains to environments it is also the habits of those people. Those in the developed world consume far more per capita in terms of goods than those in a developing country. So that begs the question, who is more environmentally irresponsible? Is it the person in the developed nation with 2 kids or the person in the developing country with 5?
These things all lead me to the question of, should I have children? How many? Whose should they be? Now before I pose the next batch of questions lets assume that I desire to have children, which I do, and that I want to be as good to the planet and everyone on it now and in the future, which I do.
The questions tumble out; if I wanted to be environmentally friendly I would have no children? The world will go on after I am gone, why should I add to its problems by having another mouth to feed, cloth, educate, and comfort? Would not my energies be better spent helping the people who are alive now? Would not I be better off helping a child who has already been born, but is not wanted? Should I adopt a child? If I adopt a child thinking environmentally I should adopt one from an area of the world with a similar consumption habit to the one I live in right? Otherwise I will be raising a child who would have consumed less in a lifetime I a developing society to a society in which they would consume more, correct?
However, they would not be my biological child and I have to assume that part of my desire to have children is to have one of my own. Yes, there is a degree of selfishness in all of this. Despite all my concerns for the future of our species as a whole I also have a bit of concern for myself. The fountain of youth is not in the Florida everglades, it is in the genes you pass on to your kids. I should have just as much right as anyone else to do so, but I can’t get past the idea that on an intellectual level I am betraying my principles to quench my emotional desires.
However, I have my other half and it takes two to tango so I am pretty sure that we will have at least one biological child of our own. Not to mention that Japan, a country with a rapidly shrinking population, offers a hefty monetary incentive to have a child. I can’t be certain, but it looks to be in the neighborhood of 8,000 dollars in payments and benefits. Many other countries are doing the same thing in an effort to create a boon of young workers to support their aging society.
As most people in the developing world I think we will stop with one child to ensure that we can devote as much time and money to the upbringing of that child as we can. However, the question of adoption then is still on the table. If we were to adopt a child from a similarly well off country would we be tipping the scales any more than had already occurred? I think the answer is no. I can assume a certain degree of consumption and actually the child might consume less in a household with environmentally conservative parents.
Once the world population creeps past the 7.25 billion mark my child should be entering the population pool. I guess the only real question is, will they be using the buddy system.

India Impressions

What can I say now that I am back from India and Nepal? Many people knew I was going so upon returning I was asked the question many times, “What did you think?”, some curious because they had been there and wanted to know my perspective, some because they were planning to go someday.
I never really wanted to go to India. I always had the impression that it was a crowded, dirty place and that I would not be comfortable. However, Aya wanted to go for our honeymoon and since she deferred to me and let me take us to Australia for our honeymoon I owed her the next trip. So we went to India.
Over the past year I had grown on the idea and actually became somewhat anxious to go. I read a lot about the various places in India and it just so happened that my 6th grade classes studied the area and made history projects about India right before I went. I watched a number of movies as well and finally decided that it might actually be interesting to go. India does in fact have a long history, full of interesting adventures, and really is currently in the midst of another adventure as its population begins to surpass that of China and becomes the highest in the world as well as having one of the fastest growing economies.
When we arrived my first impression was, “dirty”. We arrived at night and the haze was like a blanket. I thought living in Shanghai was bad for air pollution, and if you look at a map of air quality you will see that it is, but its nothing compared to New Delhi. My second impression was, “cheats”. Within the first hour of landing someone had ripped me off. We paid 400 rupees for a driver to get us from the airport (it should have been 250 or so) and when we arrived at the hotel he asked for a tip (he shouldn’t have) and when I gave him a 100 and asked for change he claimed he didn’t have any (I saw later that he did). We were also cheated again right after that by our hotel, but that is another story. My third impression of India was, “damn crowded”. The next day as we began to walk around it became clear just how crowded India is. There are people everywhere.
It was for those reasons that I really didn’t like India. I felt like I was constantly on guard, I could not relax. I had to always watch my bag, be skeptical of anyone who approached me (because people would appear to be helping you when in fact they were trying to cheat you), and always bargain bargain bargain. I hate bargaining. I always lose. Even if I get “a good deal” its not a good deal because the vendor would certainly take less if my skin was a different color. Everyday was more about planning how to see what sites we were interested in while minimizing getting cheated than they were about relaxing and having a good time. There were people everywhere which made it very difficult to enjoy any peace or any moment alone with my wife. It is also the crowded condition that leads to the filth that permeated India. Trash was everywhere, just about everything had a layer of dust on it, and people pissed and shat everywhere along with all manner of beasts on the street. Pollution choked the air and garbage choked the rivers. One thing pictures and movies never convey is the smell which was generally acrid with a tinge something smelted.
This is also why it was a relief to get to Nepal. Nepal shared a lot of those characteristics. It was dirty, touts everywhere, very crowded, but there was something a bit more relaxed about Nepal. When you said no to touts the people backed off. In Indian people grabbed you. People bargained, but there were not as many people trying to cheat us and there were places were you could buy as a local buys. It wasn’t hard to pick out people who were genuinely trying to help us from those who were just out to get us. There was a lot of filth in Kathmandu, but not as much in the countryside and that was also different.
I also don’t mean to say that we never met people we liked. We met a lot of people we liked. Our tour guide in Nepal was especially nice and the man whose family we had a homestay with was really sweet. We met nice travelers and store owners along the way, had some great conversations on the trains, and some of the best food I ever ate (besides the food that made me ill for a week). There were enjoyable things, but if I were to answer, “What did you think” I would say, “Dirty, crowded, full of cheats. Don’t go there. Your money is better spent seeing somewhere else in the world.”

Agra

Back in India we raced against the clock. Because our flight had been delayed 4 hours catching our train was going to be cutting it close. When we finally landed we literally ran through the terminals to customs, ran to the money changer and ran out the door to the taxi stand. We had about one hour to get across town in rush hour traffic. Keep in mind this was New Delhi we had to cross, not Sturgeon Bay. A few times I have been in these situations and each time I have kept a positive attitude. Like much of life, there is no use fretting, set aside the fretting and get moving to make things better, right?

About half way across town I started to fret as we hit the Delhi wall of traffic. Our driver was quite aggressive; we had explained to him our situation so perhaps he was trying to help us. Then again he could just be another crazy Delhi driver. He was cutting in and out of traffic and making not a few enemies along the way. Our train left the station at 4pm and as we pulled up to the station at 3:56 it was almost certain we would make it as long as we could find what platform our train was on. We jumped out of the taxi, swept through security, and ran to our train, jogging alongside it to find our carriage. Mere moments after we boarded the train began to pull away. We just made it.

Arriving in Agra after dark was not pleasant and we were not happy to have to trust a rickshaw driver to get us there, rightly so. We paid for a pre-paid taxi which as it turned out was two guys who were trying to run a tourist operation doing tours around the area. We listened to 20 minutes of touting and finally got dropped off at the Hotel Clark, this was not our hotel. Our homestay family had told us that they were just behind the Hotel Clark, but left no further instructions. Unfortunately the Hotel Clark was really big, it was dark, and we weren’t sure what direction “behind” referred to. We marched off into the darkness, a rickshaw driver following us asking if we needed a ride. After a few minutes we saw what we thought might be the place and stopped to check. Another rickshaw driver pulled up and asked if we needed a ride. We figured out that it was the wrong building and started off in another direction and were approached by another driver. By this point I was furious with drivers and I yelled at him to get away from us. This upset him, he pointed to a wall nearby with some writing on it, then drove away. Turns out this guy was pointing to our home stay. We felt frustrated.

Arriving at the home stay was a little awkward at first. There was another couple seated at the dinner table when we arrived. We were led to our room then sat down for dinner. We made some quick introductions and then chatted about our India experiences. Nice to know that we weren’t the only ones. We registered with the master of the house, a very nice older Indian man (with a beautiful beard!), and arranged for a driver to come pick us up the next morning early to take us to the Taj Mahal. We woke up early and took the rickshaw that was waiting for us. We arrived at the Taj around 645, which as it turns out was a bit later than we wanted because the sun was already breaking the horizon. As we stood in line the couple from the previous night showed up, a bit upset, apparently we had taken their cab and so they were not able to get to the Taj as early as they wished. We bought tickets for them, so in the grand scheme they did not actually lose any time, but I don’t think they forgave us because they were a bit less than friendly the rest of the time we saw them.

The Taj, even early in the morning, was pretty crowded with people, or so I thought. Later that day we would see the Taj from the other bank of the river and the amount of people there was like ants swarming over a dropped popsicle in the summertime. The Taj itself was beautiful and although it cost 700 rupees each to get in I believe it was worth it. Despite how many times I had seen the structure in photographs seeing the real thing was not diminished in its capacity to awe. As the morning sun began its climb the white marble shone softly at the end of a long pool. There were many people milling about and taking photographs and even a few people who had already made their way to the structure itself, but because of the sheer splendor of the site none of those things could take away from the beauty and power the building exuded.
In order to walk around the Taj itself we had to either removed our shoes or wear protective booties. We opted for the booties, which were free and a lovely bright red. We spent about an hour at the sight and then decided there were only so many times we could look around. Before leaving we went to the bathroom which had a suggested donation to enter. I donated 10 rupees for the both of us and the guy gave me a dirty look. Why suggest a donation when you actually want a payment of more than 10 rupees? I hate it when people pretend to be philanthropists, but are really gold diggers.

We went back to our home stay for some breakfast and then were out again to the red fort. The red fort was nice, but this was getting towards the end of our trip and we had gotten up around 530 to make it to the Taj early so we were dragging our way through the fort. I don’t know how many times we sat down to rest. We decided it would be best to take a rest and went back to the home stay for a nap.Our driver seemed to be hurt that we preferred sleeping to seeing the city he lived in, but willing to take us back all the same. A few hours later we were back up again, this time to get some eats and then to go to the baby taj. The baby taj was beautiful and it was especially nice because we got there right at closing time so not many people were there. However, there was a man handing out "shoe baggies" to wear over your shoes as you walked around the building. We gave him 10 rupees and he scoffed. I hate when people do nothing and expect something.
We snapped a few pictures and then were taken to a place to view the “big” Taj for sunset. It was then that we saw how many people could crowd around it. After we went back to the homestay for a great dinner and conversation with the house master and an early night to bed. The next day we were off at 6 in the morning, heading back for our last night in Delhi and our flight out. We didn’t do much in Delhi besides going to the National Museum, which was pretty good. We were really exhausted and decided to get to the airport early for our flight. We took the subway for as far as we could and then a rickshaw to a bus stand. At the subway station we ran into a German man who shared the rickshaw and bus with us. As we started to get off the free bus the ticket boy demanded 25 rupees each. When I said no he said, ok, 20 each. I still refused. The German guy paid and left and we did not pay and left a minute later. I hate it when people try to cheat you because they assume you won't confront them.

A few hours waiting and we were streaming back to Shanghai, glad to be going "home".

Home

As the world now knows last week at 2:46 on Friday in Japan an earthquake of magnitude 8.9 struck off the coast of Miyagi ken. Though the earthquake was the strongest since records had begun being kept 140 years ago Japan was in better shape than ever to meet such an instance of the earth’s power. In the nations of the world Japan is likely the most quake prepared. From birth Japanese people enter a land of quakes and are drilled and reminded often on what to do in case of a major quake. Building codes ensure that most structures are on the cutting edge of quake resistance technology. On top of that the Japanese people’s strict adherence to rules and deep community concern ensures that when disaster hits order, not chaos, ensues.
When the quake hit I was in Beijing on the subway returning to my hotel. I had taken a group of students to Beijing to participate in the Model United Nations there, BEIMUN. I received a text from my wife, who was in Shanghai, that Japan had been hit by a “big earthquake”. While I knew that it must be quite a powerful quake for my Japanese wife to refer to it as “big” I was not terribly concerned because of the afore mentioned reasons. Certainly things would be shaken up, but Japan was a nation fit to stand such shake ups. Naturally when I got back to my hotel room about 45 minutes later I switched on the TV to see if any of the networks were carrying the story.
They were, all 10 news channels had images of Japan across the screen and I was shocked to learn that the quake was indeed big. That shock soon turned to horror as images of reporters in studios turned to waves of sea, debris, houses, cars, and fire rolled across what was clearly Japanese countryside, eating everything in its path. No doubt people were in that wave and cars attempting to race away from the destruction could clearly be seen in the footage. They likely never got away. I soon learned that a tsunami had followed the quake and the eastern coast of Japan was being hit by a wave that in some places was 10 meters tall (30 feet!) and traveling around 500 mph. I called my wife, to learn that she could not contact her parents in Japan, and the next few hours were spent using whatever means I could to try to contact her parents. A few hours later I received word that she had contacted them and they were ok. Slowly other reports started to trickle in from friends that they too were ok, but as I watched the images on the television the rest of the night I realized that Japan would not be able to stand up from this blow anytime soon.
That’s part of the story that I have to tell and it is probably the one that most of you know about and can see in the news. As I sit here in Shanghai, in my comfortable apartment I don’t have any elaborate story about how this led me to some pearl of wisdom, or how I found something new and interesting, or how the world is a better place. Nor do I really have advice on what to do. I can’t really do anything. You can’t really do anything. We can sit here and feel bad and we can try to donate some money for relief, which is about it, but I can’t help feeling awful all the same.
However, I do have another part of the story to tell. Japan and specifically Fukushima ken is a second home for me. When I think of the happiest moments of my life many of them occurred there. When I moved to Japan 4 years ago I know that my mother was a bit worried about me and to be honest I was a bit worried myself. Traveling in a foreign country can be a bit nerve racking let alone moving to one, but I soon found that I was not only ok, I was coddled. Over a few years I came to really love where I was living.

While my mom worried and wondered I was secure in my community. I know also that when she visited me a few years later she was relieved to see that I was in a country that was safe and filled with friendly and polite people. In a recent email about Japan she said,

“The reporter (on TV) said she knew something was wrong when she heard screaming, because Japanese people are very polite and self controlled. It reminded me of the subways when I was there too. No pushing and shoving; even though tons of people and of course I had to hang on to your sleeve!”

So our cup runneth over; I married a Japanese girl, learned Japanese, and became engrained in “Japan”. I am forever connected. When I think about the disaster all I get are alternate images of matchstick houses and Japanese smiles. I see my in laws laughing and buildings on fire. I see a roomful of teachers and students bowing to each other in unison and then see a 30 foot wall of water. I see my home and then I see… my home, but I know that everything will be ok. Besides being very polite and friendly the Japanese are incredibly hard working and resilient. When I first heard the news that the quake happened I was sure Japan could weather the storm, looking at Japan now amid the rubble I am sure that Japan will recover and eventually thrive again.

Kathmandu in the Daylight

As we entered Kathmandu we hit the rush hour wall of traffic and it took a very long time for us to get to a point where we could be dropped off. When we finally did get off there was a swarm of taxi drivers waiting. We quickly got our bags and started walking south with no real idea of where we were, just that Thamel was south of where we were and that it must be somewhat close. Needless to say we had to ask about 5 different people to get where we were going, but we finally arrived at the Kathmandu Guest House. Ariel and Johnny had recommended the place so we thought we could give it a try. When we arrived we were quite impressed with the outside and lobby of the building. The front gate was large and guarded (though we walked right in) and outside the front door was a very nice café and bar. Inside there was marble and dark wood. It seemed promising. I asked about a room and was shown a list of options and prices, about 10 in all. I chose the cheapest room with a television and made sure that the room did indeed have a television as it had been a week or so since I watched and in China the TV shows are terrible so I like watching TV when I am abroad. Content with the knowledge that I would have a TV, and heater, we proceeded to our room. This was around 6pm. The room was nice enough; a bit disappointing for what we paid, but not so much that we were mad about it. I turned on the TV to make sure it worked and then we headed out for dinner.
About an hour later we returned, me with beer in hand, for a quiet evening watching news shows and movies on the television. Some of you may empathize with my disappointment when I realized that the power in Kathmandu had gone out, as it does every 6 hours or so, and neither the TV nor the heater was able to be turned on. I went to the front desk to inquire as to when the power would be back on. After consulting a schedule the desk man, the same who checked me in, told me 1am. Crestfallen I asked when I might expect it to go off again and he informed me sometime around 7am. I was upset that basically the only time the power would be on, and hence I could watch TV, would be when I and any normal person would be sleeping. When I explained that to him he was unmoved. I asked to then change rooms, since I had no use for a room with a TV and heater that would not function. He was unmoved. In fact he said, “You asked for a room with a television, it has a television.” Which didn’t work! He could have easily told me that when I checked in, but failed to do so. I felt cheated.

The next day we got up late, enjoyed a very warm shower and headed back to our original hotel, the Shangri-La, where we had stayed earlier. After staying at the Guest House we figure Shangri-La was reasonably priced for what we got. We checked in and then headed over to Pilgrims Bookstore/café for breakfast. While there I noticed that the bar had a locally brewed traditional beer. I was looking forward to coming back that night to try it, but unfortunately it was out of stock. Afterwards we moved around to a few bookstores, lazed around at the hotel and then went to the Swayambhunath Temple (monkey temple). It has a magnificent stupa crowning the hill. There were quite a few monkeys and I must admit that the temples were beautiful. It was a very unique place despite the hordes of people that were there and the touts. Afterwards we thought we would use the fact that we were away from Thamel to go to Durbar Square. When we arrived we tried to walk into Durbar Square only to be stopped by a guard. He wanted 300 rupees each for us to enter. We decided it was too expensive. In retrospect maybe it wasn’t since that is about 4 US dollars each, but we were pretty sick of being jerked around and decided that rather than pay to go in we would go to the rooftop restaurant nearby and get a good view of the square while having lunch, no charge for entry. It was pretty nice. By this point we thought we were pretty far from Thamel. On the map it seemed awfully far so we flagged down a bicycle taxi to bring us back. As I was flagging down one guy a really scrawny looking guy cut in front of him and swooped over to us. We figured, why not and away we went. Turns out we grossly overpaid because it took our driver about 10 minutes to get back to Thamel and we easily could have walked, but there you have it. We felt so bad for our driver that we gave him an apple and a bag of chips along with our fee and then I took a picture of his feet. I wanted a keepsake of the scrawniest man who carried us in his rickshaw. By this time it was getting a bit late so we decided to have some dinner at a local Italian place and then pack it in for the night in order to enjoy the electricity that on until 9pm.

Our last full day in Kathmandu we woke late and went to find a laundry service. We were at the end of our fresh undies and I hadn’t washed my pants in about 10 days so I was ready to get those cleaned. Unfortunately I only had shorts and long underwear as an alternative so while our clothes were being laundered I wore those around town. After we had gotten our laundry we set off to the National Museum. Since yesterday’s rickshaw ride proved much shorter than we expected we took a glance at the map and decided the museum was close enough to walk to. After about 1 ½ hours we arrived at the museum.
It was interesting to say the least. The grounds and buildings were fairly well dilapidated. We entered the main building of historical items containing mounted animals, coins, panoramas, paintings, and memorabilia. Some items were quite interesting, but the general feeling of the museum was that Nepal did not have enough items to fill a museum and any thing was put in a display case to fill up the building. It was funny, but also sad and really I felt bad for the Nepalese people who certainly had an interesting and rich history, but could not afford to upkeep a museum of national quality. We visited a few more buildings on the grounds and then began our walk back. Eventually we flagged down a taxi and got back into Thamel around evening. We had dinner at a lovely little place that served Nepalese cuisine and went back early to pack and get ready for an early flight the next day.
We got up at the crack of dawn and took a taxi to the airport where we again waited for hours as our flight was delayed due to haze. After a security guard made sure I wasn’t able to stab anyone with my nail clippers by taking it away we were off into the blue skies and back to India. While I was disappointed to be leaving Nepal I was very excited to finally be seeing the Himalayas albeit from an airplane window.

Chitwan National Park

Arriving at the hotel, Jungle Lodge, was great. We were seated in an outdoor area, given tea and coffee, and given a run down of what the next couple of days would entail. We could clearly see from an adjoining table that there was only one other couple at the hotel. Perfect after our time in India.
We were given a short time to get our bags in our rooms and rest and then we were off for a tour around a traditional village. The tour was very short really as we looked at one traditional house only although our guide was great. He was very relaxed and informative. He said we may have some time to walk by the river for sunset so we followed him. As we headed towards the river we passed an elephant breeding center. We stayed to check out the elephants and feed a few. It was pretty cool, but the smoke of elephant dung hung heavy in the air. All that shit has to go somewhere. We walked on towards the river and the fading light. After walking for a few minutes our guide told us to stop talking and move faster. We crested a small rise by the river and through the reeds could see a rhino drinking from a pool on the other side. It was not but 30 feet away from us, but we felt safe enough since the river separated us. After watching for a few minutes the rhino entered the river, took a quick pee, and then started to come over to our side. Of course we quickly moved away and the rhino kept coming slowly. After a few times playing this game we decided that was enough for the day and headed back towards the village, stopping off on the way at a riverside café to watch the sunset. It was beautiful. We enjoyed a beer with the other couple, Ariel and Johnny, and watched the sun go down into the jungle. After eating dinner at the hotel we were escorted to the Tharu Cultural center. Here we were to watch a traditional dance by the native people, the Tharu. I thought that this would be cheesy, but in fact it was quite good. The dancers had obviously worked really hard and their dances were interesting. So much in fact that the next night we asked if we could go again, but it was a sold out night. After the show we went out for more beers on a rooftop restaurant and then called it a night.

The next morning we were up just after sunrise and jumped into the back of an open jeep to get to the park for an elephant ride through the jungle. There were a few other people with us. The elephant ride was great. We shared an elephant with Ariel and Johnny and away we went. Although the elephant appeared to be going slow, as we looked around the jungle we could tell how fast we were really going. Its amazing how big elephants really are. As I dodged tree trunks and spider webs we went deeper and deeper into the jungle. In the silence of the early morning we saw lots of animals such as monkeys, deer, sleeping boars, and birds. It was great. We spent about 1 ½ hours in the jungle before coming back to the base. We waited for a bit, the rest of our group came back, and we loaded back up. Johnny and Ariel are both ethnic Chinese, but Johnny is English and Ariel is from Hong Kong. I never thought about it before moving to China, but you can certainly tell the difference between Chinese mainlanders and those from other parts, like Hong Kong and Taiwan. As the jeep pulled away one of the kids threw a piece of trash over the side of the jeep (in a national park!) and his parents jabbered away saying nothing to him. I kind of felt like throwing him over the side of the jeep.
After arriving back at our hotel Ariel said something like, you would never believe what they were talking about in the jeep. Apparently the Chinese group had said something to the affect of, “that was so fake, they must drive the animals out into the jungle in the morning so we could see them. Where do you think they keep them? If our nature hike today is the same thing lets not go.” Ungrateful! I couldn’t believe it, but wasn’t surprised. It has been my experience that mainland Chinese have some of the most ridiculous notions of what is real or reasonable. Why in the world would the Nepalese need to fake having a jungle full of wild animals and why would anyone suspect otherwise? Because in China, that’s what people would do. That is why Chinese people think that way.
We headed back to the hotel for lunch and a nap and in the afternoon went down to the river to get into a punt and head down the river. Our guide was very helpful identifying birds along the river, especially the bald headed northern European we saw bathing itself along the banks. Haha. It was a really nice ride down the river and in 45 minutes we were getting out on the banks a few kilometers south, but not before seeing an alligator basking itself on the bank, clearly placed there by park officials. We then took a hike around the grassland and up into the jungle towards the elephant breeding center. We didn’t see too much wildlife along the way, just some monkeys that must have been driven out of their cages for our benefit. We also saw some rhino tracks by a watering hole that were sooo fake. (Did you read my sarcasm?)

The elephant breeding center was cool. There was a small museum with good explanations of the center and an elephant skull which was roughly the size of an...elephant skull. It was big. Outside there were about 20 elephants on the grounds. There were lots of mommas and babies, but no males. When we asked about this our guide explained that wild elephants come by every so often to “have some fun”. Haha. We headed back to the river for sunset and then had a nice meal at our hotel. Because it had been a long day we packed it in early. At 9 the next morning we were on a bus back to Kathmandu sorry to be leaving Chitwan behind.

Chitwan National Park

Kathmandu

Landing in Kathmandu was an experience. On the flight in I was hoping to look out the windows and see the Himalayas, but there was too much cloud cover. From some of the readings that I did about Nepal I learned that this is a long standing condition and flights are never guaranteed to leave when they are supposed to, just as ours did from Delhi about 4 hours behind schedule.
However, within an hour of leaving Delhi we were breaking through the cloud cover and descending into the Kathmandu Valley. I must admit it was beautiful. Steep mountains and terraced farms surround the outer limits of the city and because of the availability of space the plane descends rapidly adding to the experience. Unlike many other flights I have taken I could not see the airport or the runways until we were almost on the ground. Very exciting.

Planes stop on the tarmac and then buses are sent to fetch passengers. The terminals themselves are very small and the airport in general seemed more fitting of a city of 100,000 rather than 1 million. Again, I imagine this is because of space considerations as the valley is slightly smaller than the country of Singapore. Thankfully we got through customs very quickly. Aya and I had both packed for our trip with bags just small enough to be considered carry on luggage. We never had to check our rucksacks and so never had to risk losing them or having to wait for them upon arriving and of course it was much easier to carry them around than large bulky luggage. Of course this means that what we had in our bags was limited, but we never wanted for anything and to keep our clothes clean we paid for laundry service every 5 days or so. It is one of those things that I have learned in traveling, pack light, move fast.
A man from our hotel and a driver were waiting for us and soon enough we were off into the city. We soon learned that our guide, Ram, was actually the tour operator for the hotel we were staying at and he had learned that we were interested in a trip to Chitwan National Park south west of Kathmandu. We were and within the hour we were checked in and at Ram’s office talking over details of the trip. Unlike a lot of the tour operators we met in India Ram and his associates seemed to run an honest business. We booked for a few days in Chitwan and then planned to return to Kathmandu for a few more to see the sights of the city.
By this time it was late in the afternoon and we decided to walk around a bit, get some dinner, then head back for showers before bed. We had to be up pretty early the next day to get our bus to Chitwan and we assumed the hotel’s solar heated showers would be best in the early evening after a day of charging. They were ok, but because of the night chill in Kathmandu it was still a bit of a dance to shower and get dressed as quickly as possible. We learned that night that Kathmandu has periodic power outages and so the main power would go off at different times of the day throughout all of Kathmandu with private businesses and households running small generators of their own to keep essentials going. Assuming that we would not have anything more than our flashlights and some candles to pack the next morning we made sure to pack before going to sleep.
Early the next morning we left our hotel in darkness and arrived at a nearby bus stop in the neighborhood of Thamel. We put our bags in the back of the bus, I stood outside until the bus was ready to go, and we were off to Chitwan.
The ride itself was long, grueling, beautiful, and scary all at the same time. The seats were not comfortable and for the first hour or so we stopped at places around the city picking up another person or two. Once we finally left the city we entered unto a narrow two lane highway that wound its way around steep precipices almost the entire time. This time around, driving in the left lane further away from the ledge was not as nerve racking, but we could see a few cars and trucks along the way that had tipped off the edge, I can’t imagine what happened to the people inside. Another hour into the trip and we had made our way out of the suburbs of Kathmandu and started following the Trisuli river, which was a beautiful shade of turquoise adding to the already beautiful landscape of the valley with its occasional narrow rope bridge crossing.
After a few stops along the way for food and bathroom breaks the mountains began to recede and we entered into a flat area, the Terai. It is here that Chitwan National Park was located and here that royalty and big game hunters used to come to bag tigers. The tigers are still there, but are no longer hunted. As the bus pulled into a parking lot outside of the town of Sauhara we were met by two gentlemen from our hotel and escorted to it nearby.

Through Delhi

Leaving Jaipur in the late afternoon got us to Delhi around 1030pm. We had a flight to Kathmandu at 745 the next morning so we had arranged for a hotel very near to the New Delhi train station where we could sleep for a few hours before getting up to take a taxi to the airport, also arranged.
On the map the hotel appeared to be reasonably close by, less than a kilometer, and just down a street that ran straight away from the station. We decided we would walk. Of course coming out of the station there are hundreds of rickshaw and taxi drivers just waiting for customers and about 20 no thank you’s later we were out on the street. We found what appeared to be the correct street, but there are no street signs on many roads in India, so who could tell?
We walked for a couple hundred meters before deciding that it was too dark and the road did not appear like it did on the map, so we must be heading in the wrong direction. We made our way back to the prepaid taxi stand outside of the station to get a good rate. I shouldn’t fail to mention here that in the 30 minutes or so that we were walking around trying to find the correct road we were approached no less than 8 times by rickshaw drivers asking if we needed a ride somewhere, and every time we swapped 5 or 6 guys were standing around us in a matter of minutes, not comforting. A few times we said yes, and showed them on our map where we were going. None of the drivers knew where it was, but assured us they would get us there for 200 rupees. No thank you.
So we got back to the prepaid taxi stand where drivers were grouped like flies on …something flies really like. Even as we stood in line drivers would be asking us where we were going and quoting a price (still no one could tell us they knew the hotel, but that didn’t stop them). Since it was dark and there was only one street lamp near the taxi stand we would move a few feet away from the drivers surrounding us so that we could see our map. This would work for a minute until all the drivers re-swarmed asking for the 10th time where we were going. It was awful. Finally we got to the front of the line and got a prepaid taxi, 86 rupees thank you, and headed off to our hotel. Apparently it was on the opposite side of the station and if we had exited from the other side we may have walked to our hotel.
When we were dropped off by our driver he just made some faint motions and that was it, our hotel was not actually in sight, but we knew it was close from the map we had. We did find the hotel, but I must point out that the map was not correct (Rough Guide). The Kuldeep Guest house was not where it was supposed to be and there were a few roads which were missing too. So we arrived at the Kuldeep Guest House, now around 1130. We are immediately escorted next door to another hotel; I don’t remember the name, because Kuldeep was apparently full. This is a scam people pull and the second time we had encountered it in Delhi of the 2 nights we had spent in Delhi. It makes me wonder if anyone actually ever sleeps in the hotel they book or if there is a massive shuffle each night. You pay for one hotel; they put you up in the cheaper one next door, but charge you for the full price and keep another full priced room available at their hotel. However, it was 1130 and we were in a very dark neighborhood so the idea of searching for a new place was out. After seeing our room we agreed to spend the night there and started filling out forms. Meanwhile a girl was pounding on her room door and screaming for her roommate to open it. Apparently they had a 430am flight and her roommate had passed out with the door locked and was not responding. By the time we got back up to our own room she was still at it and it was after 12. We had about 5 hours to sleep, but I was really wary of the place we were in and vowed to stay awake. It just seemed shady.

5 hours later I awoke well rested, so much for staying awake, and headed to the front lobby where we met a man who was taking us to our airport taxi. We followed him out into the street and he approached a car where a man was sleeping, then he tapped on the glass and woke him. We threw our bags in the back, I waited for Aya to get in and kept an eye on our bags, and then the guy who brought us there asked for a tip. Aya laughed and said, “You didn’t do anything”. I said no and got in. I wonder if people actually tip him for walking 20ft.
We had a fairly quick ride to the airport, it was 530am, and the driver let us off with no fuss and didn’t ask for a tip, though he might have deserved it for getting up at 530 to drive us. There were only two times on the whole trip when we tipped someone, more on that later. So we arrived at around 6am and entered the airport. The Delhi airport is actually kind of nice, besides the smog you can see in the terminal building. There are plenty of restaurants and shops, free internet, reclined chairs to sleep in, and there is even a service located in the departure gates where you can rent a cube for 7 dollars an hour or less depending on the time of day. These cubes have a single bed, TV, table, a refrigerator and were extremely clean. I thought it might come in handy on the way out of Delhi next time, but that did not turn out to be true. We waited for our flight, which was delayed, then delayed again, finally getting off the ground at 1130.

Jaipur Tale

Upon arriving in Jaipur we had some time before sunset. We had not arranged with our hotel for a driver to meet us so we waded into the sea of drivers in front of the station and picked a guy that we thought looked trustworthy. Usually we picked old dudes for two reasons. First, they have lost that fire of youth and have much less energy to argue about prices, so it seems. Second, old dudes don’t drive as fast or take as big of risks as the younger guys. So we picked an old dude and went with him. As we got into his rickshaw a young dude approached and they switched places. We briefly considered getting out, but hey, the price was agreed to and this guy said he knew our hotel so we went with it and he actually turned out to be pretty friendly. He asked us where we were from and then said, “you look, see, Indian, Japanese, American, we are like different vegetables, very good for you, vegetable curry” He then asked our names and told us his name was Ari, “aka Handsome Boy” Yes, he actually said that and when I called him “handsome man” he corrected me and said, “boy”. We warmed up to him a bit and when he dropped us off we arranged for him to come back in an hour and pick us up so that we could have some time to eat and take a shower before we tried to take in some sights before dark.

An hour later he was back and he had some grand ideas of going to about three different locations before bringing us back to our hotel, but it was already almost 5 and the sun would go down around 530. Despite telling him many times that we only wanted to go to one place and call it an early night he couldn’t get the idea out of his head that we would go to three places. We also said we wanted to go to a book store to buy a guide book for India, but he refused and told us, “No Lonely Planet book sold in Jaipur, you wait until you are in Delhi” Which struck us as rather odd considering that in Jaisalmer, a town hundreds of kilometers in the desert and with a fraction of the population of Jaipur, there were guide books being sold everywhere. Fishy. In addition every time we arrived somewhere and frequently while on the way to somewhere, our driver would stop the rickshaw, turn around, and give us a story or a warning about where we were. At first I thought, great, information from a local, this might be good. However, it soon became apparent that he was making stuff up, which is probably why he continued to refuse to take us to a book store or admit to the existence of guide books for sale in Jaipur.

First stop was Galwh Bagh, otherwise known as the monkey temple. Yes, there are lots of monkeys there, but also lots of goats. Why not call it the goat temple? I guess it doesn’t have the same ring to it. We ascended the stairs leading up to the temple where we sat watching the sunset and discussing our strange driver. There were a few other tourists straggling about as well. When we had entered the grounds right away three boys ran up to us and said something like, “Monkeys very angry, you need protection?” Of course we said no, little buggers, but it appears some people bought their story. Just a few minutes up the hill we saw a French couple (I know they were French because we had sat near them on the train) being “protected” by a small boy. While their backs were turned he approached a monkey sitting on a ledge and held out his thumb. When the monkey did nothing the boy bit his own finger, then yelled and ran back to the couple saying, “Look, the monkey bit me! I protect you.” The monkeys were everywhere, but they were not aggressive at all except to each other.
After satisfying ourselves that there was no more to be seen we headed back to our driver and insisted on going back to the hotel. Reluctantly he agreed and brought us back. Before we left though we asked again about a book store and got the same reply about no guide books in Jaipur. Weird guy. When we reached the hotel our driver gave us a speech about the next day, would we like a driver for a full day or half day? He could drive us around? So Aya and I had a quick conversation in Japanese about whether it was worth it and did we really want this guy driving us around. We decided he was weird, but harmless and he did actually listen to us even if it took a few times, so we agreed to meet him outside the hotel the next morning.
He was prim and ready, but when we said first we had to change money and then we wanted to go to a bookstore he became upset, I think because he had some grand plan in mind. He brought us to the shadiest looking money changer in the city, but despite that the guy spoke really good English and he and I were having a chat about India and America. Unknown to me Aya was having an argument with our driver in the corner. He continued to insist that there were no guide books and he didn’t know any book stores and she continued to insist there were and that he bring us there (we actually had photocopied some pages of a Lonely Planet guide beforehand and so she was pointing to the exact location of several bookstores on a map of Jaipur while he denied their existence). As we were leaving he appealed to me, I don’t know why, to get Aya to calm down and of course I told him to bring us straight to a bookstore. Finally he relented. Weird.
On the way he stopped at a gas station and gave us his final appeal to not go to the bookstore. He claimed he couldn’t drive in that area of the city because he had forgotten to bring his uniform and if the police saw him without it he would be fined. Now, I am not sure if this was true or not. I saw almost every driver wearing a blue short sleeved shirt, which our driver did have the day before, but claimed was being washed today. None the less, we told him to just drop us close and we would walk. He brought us there anyways and actually walked up to the bookstore with us, which had a full display in the front window with about 20 Lonely Planet guide books in it. We didn’t even buy a book, deciding it would be better to get one in Delhi (hahaha) and he mumbled something about buying it in Delhi on the way back to the rickshaw.
We were then off to the City Palace which had some cool objects, but overall wasn’t very exciting. There were some amazing gates in the complex, which we took pictures of, but most of the other rooms contained textiles and weapons the most of which we had see similar things before. However, there is on premises the two largest silver objects in the world, but they were much smaller than I thought they would be.
After this we crossed the street to the Jantar Mantar, an observatory build in the 1700’s. This complex is a huge outdoor area in which giant observation instrument were built. It was very interesting and the plaques that went with each object were more than adequate in explaining its meaning. It is amazing how much progress humans have made in just a few hundred years. From the grounds we could see the Hawa Mahal. This is a huge 5 story red stone structure that was built so that the royal ladies could view the goings on of the city without being seen. That wouldn’t be very lady like.
When we returned to our driver and told him we wanted to go there he seemed upset and at first tried to say somewhere else, but we insisted because, really it was right there(we said pointing to it) He relented and in 2 minutes we were standing in front of the building. Unfortunately it was closed so we only got to snap a few photos and then we were off again. As we bumped along our driver was explaining to us a market place in which we could see the traditional styles of weaving and some traditional wares. Would we like to go there? Sure, seems like a reasonable thing to do. Of course we were running out of time and this would be our last stop before having to head back to the hotel to gather our bags, but it seemed like it might be worth it. As we got out of the rickshaw we didn’t see any market, but instead a drab concrete building. There was a man waiting for us who showed us inside while our driver went off for prayers (He was Muslim, it was Friday, even though later her tried to get us to see his guru). We accompanied the man down a set of stairs and he showed us where the fabrics were made. I must admit it was interesting. There was a room with 6 or 7 very large pieces of cloth laid out on tables and various workers working on dying them, stamping patterns on them, and stitching on beads. The work was beautiful and obviously took a long time. After viewing the area he brought us upstairs to his shop and here we got wary. We were the only ones in the shop and the owner and his assistant went through a very long process of showing us various clothes and quoting prices all of which were way too high for us. Eventually we expressed interest in one piece and he quoted a price. It was much too high for me to even consider paying. I told him I was sorry, but we had to go. He said name a price, so I did, at half the price he quoted. He told me he would come down a little; I told him that I seriously could not pay more than that. He said he couldn’t do it. I thanked him and starting heading for the door when he angrily said, ok, I could have my price. We then looked at a couple of Punjabi for Aya’s mom and the whole situation started over again with pricing. This time he laughed and told us we should just go if we couldn’t pay that much. What an asshole. We didn’t ask to come to his shop; we told him we had no money. Our driver and this guy were obviously in some kind of cahoots and when our driver came back we insisted on going back to the hotel. When we finally arrived I gave our driver his money, slightly less than what we had agreed on, and he began to argue with us. Aya took most of the conversation; we had agreed she would do so on the drive back to the hotel. While it was infuriating at the same time it was comical. She told him we would not pay full price because he had wasted our time by bringing us to his friends shop, lying about places, not bringing us to a bookshop, arguing with us, etc. He then appealed to me and said something like, “what is she saying, I don’t understand her, I didn’t lie to you, she misunderstood because her English is bad”. I told him he was wrong, and then Aya told him her English was fine, it was his that was bad and we got out.
When we entered the hotel the manager, who had been watching the whole time, said, “That guy, there is always trouble” Which made me wonder, if there is always trouble why don’t you warn people?! But I didn’t say anything; I was too riled up already and just happy to be done with it all. We gathered our bags after a few minutes, headed to the train station, and said goodbye to Jaipur, but unfortunately not goodbye to bad service and scams.

Gates of the Jaipur City Palace