NEPAL (October 1991)
The bus from Gorakhpur to the Nepali border at Sonauli was disgusting. Very local, there was no other option. Even if I had come to love India, I was thoroughly sick of the hassles by the time we left. We had been there for nearly a month. That last bus ride was just a final kick in the pants.
We had the correct visa for Nepal and the border crossing was unremarkable. Once in Nepal it looked terribly like India and we steeled ourselves for a lot more hassle. We easily found transport to Lumbini (it wasn't far from the main road). Another Buddhist holy place awaited....
LUMBINI
We found a small guest house in Lumbini. The site was surprisingly developed compared to Kushinagar. As it turns out, the place the historical Buddha was born was a lot more famous and important to Buddhists than where he died. All the major Buddhist countries had viharas there and the government of Japan had underwritten much of the cost of maintaining the whole area.
The place was truly underwhelming, but we got a kick out of it. Even Brian who rolled his eyes at my request to go to Buddhist holy places thought our stop was worth it just to say we had been there. Kushinagar, India felt a lot more real. We really believed Gautama Buddha had died and been cremated in that spot. Was Lumbini, on the other hand, really his birthplace? Nothing around indicated there had ever been a city or a palace in the area. South Asia was filled with ancient cities and ruins, yet the birthplace of the Buddha, a palace in a city, was somehow erased by time. Possible, sure - but we were dubious.
We were happy we only spent the afternoon there. The next morning we headed back to the main road by the border - we were off to Pokhara in the Himalayas.
Lumbini
POKHARA
Another guidebook in hand, LP Nepal proclaimed Pokhara to be a lovely place to hang out. I only remember it as being quite small and dusty, but in a lovely setting on Lake Phewa with dramatic views of Mt Machapuchare (fish-tail), a peak visible from town. We had one goal in Pokhara and that was getting our trekking permit and everything we needed for our 10 day journey in the Himalayas. We were stoked - it was the part of the trip we were most excited about and prepared for. There was an entire industry in Pokhara not only about getting equipped to go trekking or mountaineering, but also for acquiring all the necessary paperwork and permits. Paperwork was required for a visa to enter Nepal, but there was an even more complicated set of documents needed to walk into the roof of the world. I can't say as I blamed the Nepalis - too many tourists had come and died and the locals had to deal with the consequences. Most of the forms were just about the police keeping track of clueless visitors. Even that many years ago we had to sign waivers that if we needed medical evacuation we would bear the cost. Fair enough - why should a poor country like Nepal devote any resources to stupid, unprepared travelers who then demanded to be airlifted out of the country (or at least to the capital) for medical reasons when it could barely care for its own people? We spent the next few days getting all our papers together and in the "in between" we saw a little bit of Pokhara (not that there was much to see). We took a boat ride on the lake and it was lovely. We arrived on the far shore where there was a small hotel and restaurant. We met a German there who looked terribly unhealthy. He was in the late stages of hepatitis and insisted that the natural medicines in Nepal were far better than anything he could get back in Germany. Brian and I just looked at each other and wondered if the man we were speaking to was actually dying or not. It was a very sad and strange moment. The initial step of our plan (which was ill-advised by the LP Bible, but we literally had no choice) had us flying to Jomsom and then trekking a little higher and turning back for the long walk back to Pokhara. The cardinal rule to avoid altitude sickness was to gradually increase elevation and then fly back from the highest point. We were unable to do that (all the flights were booked in our narrow travel window) , so we did the unthinkable. We flew to "high" and took our chances. On our send off, early in the morning going to the airport, a bunch of street kids joined us and desperately wanted to hold our hands. They were filthy, yet declining a small child's request to hold hands seemed an even greater sin sure to incur bad karma before our trip. We held all the kids' hands and walked toward the airport. I was certain God would protect us from any errant germs and on our upcoming trek as well.
Take note: we didn't get sick for the entire trek!
Phewa Lake, Pokhara
TREKKING
Our trek began with the flight to Jomson. We were in a small prop plane with two other passengers (from here on known as "The Germans"). The plane basically flew up the valley along which we would track BACK to Pokhara. It was the most beautiful plane ride of my life, not even surpassed by the flight to Milford Sound years later in New Zealand [see: Flight to Milford Sound]. We were not flying over the Himalayas, we were flying through them. Mt Annapurna towered to the right of the plane like some Empress God set amongst the other peaks. Wow, wow, wow. I was in the Himalayas for real!
We landed in Jomsom which turned out to be a little bit of a place and deplaned. Our first goal was to get to Kagbeni, north of Jomsom. It was only a few hours trek and we were prepared. However, we immediately hit our first roadblock - an Indian film crew was using the only bridge over the river that we had to cross. Naively we thought surely another bridge would present itself, so we struck forward on the path on the opposite side of the river toward Kagbeni.
the Germans
I don't even remember their names, but I remember THEM. Brian and I had planned MONTHS for this trek. These guys looked like they woke up one day in Hamburg and said "Let's trek in Nepal", put on their sneakers, and bought tickets to Pokhara. They had ZERO preparation. At first we felt a little sorry for them, actually.
We walked north and the trail started to disintegrate. What to do? The river really wasn't all that deep, more of a creek. Would we lose time (we didn't want to trek at night) and go back to the bridge and hope it was open? On the insistence of the Germans (and against Brian and my better judgement) we forded the creek. It very nearly swept us away with our heavy backpacks. Had we toppled, we would have drowned most certainly. I look back on that decision as one of the most idiotic of my life. By the grace of God we made it across and Brian and I decided that from that moment on the Germans would no longer be allowed to make suggestions.
We trekked northward to Kagbeni.
The Germans on the Trek
Kagbeni
Due to our delay, we arrived "late" and sleeping spots were few and far between. One of the first lessons we learned trekking was to rise early and arrive at the next location early or pay the consequences and possibly have to sleep outdoors! We ended up in a terrible homestay in a crowded room with other trekkers. It was a total disappointment - I wondered if the whole trek was going to be like this? The food was also very basic. Kagbeni, both photogenic and "non-modern", was just the kind of place we wanted to see while trekking. Staying in towns like Kagbeni, however, seemed like it was not going to be a pleasant experience. Very dirty, very muddy, and very poor, Kagbeni looked its best from a distance!
Kagbeni
Kagbeni
the holy flame below the Thorong La Pass
During the permit gathering in Pokhara we met other would-be trekkers and learned that there were actually three treks in the region. The safe and easy trek, aka "The Apple Pie Trek", because Peace Corps workers in the past taught the locals how to make apple pie and sell it to trekkers to earn extra cash, was the Jomsom Trek. The Annapurna Sanctuary Trek, which required pitching a tent (and carrying it) right below that lofty peak, was supposedly amazing. And finally, the grandest of them all, the "the Annapurna Circuit" which was a long trek all around the Annapurna Massif that included the 5,400m Thorong La Pass which just skirted the range of where one needed oxygen. To young guys searching for adventure, it was a siren call, but Brian and I simply had no time for the Circuit and didn't feel like carrying and pitching a tent for the Sanctuary. We stuck with the Apple Pie Trek (and the Germans) and felt we might just have underestimated ourselves a bit.
That first night in Kagbeni I had altitude sickness. The only description for me that comes close to describing the feeling was that I was suddenly transported into the movie Alien and something was about to burst out of my abdomen. I was wracked with pain and barely slept all night. Brian, on the other hand, was absolutely fine and told me to "stop whinging". I honestly felt like shit, but I didn't want to ruin the trek either. For me, too, this place was going to be the best part of the whole round-the-world trip. I toughed it out, but wow.... I felt awful.
Our goal was the sacred flame in Muktinath at 3,800m. I felt good enough to walk in the morning and we were doing a day trip anyway. Up to Muktinath and then back to shitty Kagbeni before we started our walk to Pokhara. The walk up to Muktinath was steep. Previously we were walking along a river valley and it was relatively flat, but now we were actually climbing up. In the thin air it was exhausting. Finally we made it and saw the old temple with its holy, natural gas flame that has supposedly never been extinguished. The temple was underwhelming, but the views were insane. We were right under Annapurna. All of that, however, is not my strongest memory of Muktinath - it was the other trekkers.
In the restaurant there we met people who had just come down from "the pass". The stories were harrowing. We saw people with frostbite. People's guides had abandoned them. Story after story - all grim. Basically, hiking the circuit required going across one mountain pass that really required some basic knowledge of mountaineering and was NOT for lightweight trekkers like me and Brian (or the Germans!) We were aghast and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. After that, the Apple Pie Trek didn't seem like such a bad choice after all!
We walked back down to Kagbeni and got ready for the next day. The alien was in my stomach again that night. I just wanted to get down to a lower altitude.
Muktinath
Muktinath
apples and Germans
We left Kagbeni after another sleepless night for me. I really needed to start to feel better soon. Thank God I was young. The Germans were either with us, ahead of us setting a blistering pace, or behind us slowing us up. They had no idea how to walk slowly and steadily. Additionally, they came to rely on us for drinking water (we brought our own hand-pump filtration system). Their lack of preparation and just general annoyance factor was growing by the hour. They got blisters, too. Brian and I spent more time fussing after them than enjoying our trek. We simply were being too kind. It took us a full day, but we made it to lovely, whitewashed Marfa. Here was the center of the Apple Pie Trek. A cleaned up village that was the centerpiece of the Jomsom Trek, after grotty villages like Kagbeni, it was quite welcome. Marfa tried just a little more than the other places along the way and we were greatly appreciative. They had interesting food items like pizza (roti with dal and cheese) and burritos (roti rolled up with dal). The thing to eat in Marfa was, of course, apple pie! We laughed a lot, but enjoyed the ridiculousness of it all. In lovely little Marfa, we hatched our plan. We were going to ditch the Germans. Since we had at least agreed with our two clueless trekking mates that we need not hike together the whole day, in the morning we decided which town we would make it to later that day. Whoever got there first would hold beds for the four of us. Brian and I lied and told them one town, but made a big push and hiked to the next. That way it was doubtful they would catch up with us. Hence, we escaped their utter lack of preparation and cluelessness. From that point on, the trek got better (plus we were descending and my altitude sickness went away). Brian said he saw one of them a couple weeks later on the street in Kathmandu and he looked awful - he was limping. I didn't even feel guilty. At any rate, we had enjoyed the pleasures of Marfa as they were and also escaped the Germans. We were finally on our own to trek and enjoy the scenery.
Marfa
trekking life
What was trekking like when we were finally on our own? Mostly humbling and a lot of the time we felt plain foolish. Much smaller, thinner Nepali guys who worked as porters were zooming past us on the trail wearing only flip flops carrying heavier loads. We had state-of-the-art everything including expensive hiking boots. We were cowed - I am not sure we were ready for flip flops, but our OTT hiking boots had been a total waste of money. Of all the "essential" stuff we brought, only the water purifier was useful since carrying water was heavy and bottled water was not always guaranteed at each stop (it was frequently sold out).
A normal day meant to rise early, take breakfast, and walk as far as possible; stop somewhere for lunch and rest a bit; and then try to push on another couple of hours, but definitely be at the destination by 3pm to make sure a bed was available. Finding a bed in the destination town was absolutely crucial, especially since we were dead tired by day's end. We met other travelers walking in the opposite direction and they gave good tips on where to sleep and eat. That was the biggest advantage of hiking in the opposite direction to most people - flow of information.
We passed by towns with names like Tatopani and Ghorepani. We detoured to the Poon Hill lookout for a spectacular view of the area we had trekked in. There were hanging bridges and beautiful waterfalls. We met many Nepalis along the way who were always kind with us. Sometimes when we rested trailside, a porter would stop by, join us for a moment, and offer us a snack. It was an extremely humbling experience to have someone exponentially poorer share their limited food so freely. I learned many lessons of generosity on that trek and came to love Nepali people.
We met one porter who spoke a little English. He asked us where we were from (many people did and we even found some who were not quite sure where America was...wow). We said "America" and he said, "America is a great country". I asked, "why do you think so?" He replied, "Your president James Carter trekked on this path and he carried his own bag. Only a truly great leader of a good country would do that". Wow... his words stopped me in my tracks. Coming from a place with a royal family and constitutional monarchy (at that time), I guessed very few rich people did ANYTHING for themselves. Brian and I agreed if we ever trekked again, we would retain porters. First of all, it was a legitimate job in Nepal and we would be paying people at higher than the normal rate (no problem, they needed the money). A porter could take the bags ahead to that day's destination and book a bed. Then there was no worry about what time a trekker arrived. Meanwhile, rather than schlepping a huge load along the uneven path, one could casually stroll and take in more of the scenery. One of the downsides of the trek was constantly looking down at my feet and missing the views. We had to remind ourselves to stop and look up sometimes. With a heavy pack, there was little choice but to mind our steps on the very uneven trail.
We enjoyed ourselves immensely, but it was tiring and the endless varieties of bread, dal, and rice combinations got monotonous. We were losing weight due to heavy exertion and a lack of calories. We were happy that Pokhara was getting closer.
away in a manger
And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7
We reached the penultimate destination, Nayapul. At that time, it was the end of the road and we could "cheat" and catch a bus down to Pokhara. Brian had developed a bad knee and we wanted to finish the trek as soon as possible (even though we had loved it). Shades of our arrival in Bombay, there was some religious festival and there were no buses to Pokhara. Ok, no problem, one more overnight wouldn't kill us. Well, due to our late arrival and the holiday there was not a room to be had in the whole town. We finally hit the wall with accommodation. We were tired, Brian's knee was giving out, and we had nowhere to sleep. Luckily, one of the guest houses had space in their manger (literally) and we were desperate. We slept with the chickens and goats that night (and didn't care). That became a running joke with us for years after. At the time, we were just happy to have a place for the night.
The next day there were still no buses and we desperately wanted to get back to Pokhara, so we walked on the surfaced road the last few kilometers into town. Brian was limping badly, we had lost a lot of weight, and I am pretty sure we smelled awful. As luck would have it, as we limped down the main street of Pokhara, Jo and Jamie found us and Jo ran up to us almost crying.
"Oh my God, Jamie, they're dying!" (she was serious). We had lost a lot of weight, were dirty, and looked bedraggled.
It is true we looked awful, but other than Brian's bum knee, neither of us ever felt more alive than we did at that moment. It was one of the best travel experiences of my entire life!
On the trek
On the trek
Annapurna
ADVENTURES ON THE PRITHVI HIGHWAY
We caught up with Jo and Jamie and told them all about our trek. It still amazes me that we kept managing to find each other without email nor even regular postal service. I believe they left a day or two ahead of us for Kathmandu because they had found a very nice hotel that we very gratefully joined them in for our time in that city. After a long string of shitty hotels trekking and in Pohkara, that place in Kathmandu seemed heavenly.
We did have to get to Kathmandu first and that meant a bus ride. It took most of a day on the Prithvi Highway that was literally blasted out of the mountainside valleys on the way to the capital. The bus was awful and the seats were uncomfortable. The road was in terrible condition and sometimes scary, and we passed by scenes of horrific accidents or landslides. We were unfazed. This was our grand adventure. So grand in fact, that we did something we had witnessed all over India and Nepal - we rode on the roof of the bus for a time. It was illegal, of course, but also nothing the police would ever crack down on. Bumping along that highway on the roof of an old bus, treated to a panorama of the Himalayas or the deep valley of the Trisuli River was another highpoint of the time in Nepal. Like tandem parasailing in New Zealand, it is something now I look back upon and think "Did I actually do that?"
We arrived into the cacophony that was Kathmandu and somehow made it to "Thamel", the part of town with all the guest houses and restaurants. We found Jo and Jamie and their lovely hotel.
We were in Kathmandu.
Our bus to Kathmandu
KATHMANDU VALLEY
Kathmandu in 1991 was backpacker central. Nothing like any place we had visited thus far, the city was a frontal assault on all the senses. The main sites were the medieval city center and the tourist hub of Thamel which hosted all sorts of travel agencies with tours packaged for young adventurers. The restaurants there did their best to approximate Western food. Then there was the bustling, dirty city of Kathmandu itself - like a piece of India transplanted to Nepal, thronged with masses of people. In the midst of it all, Jo & Jamie and Brian & I were there to enjoy ourselves and discover the city.
A strong, yet strange memory of Kathmandu was of one of the cleaners at the hotel. He had hurt his hand which then became infected and swollen. Jo & Jamie to the rescue! They found salt and hot water and plunged the poor guy's hand into it several times a day. After a couple of days, the swelling went down and he was on the road to recovery. I am sure if you asked him even unto this day what the best country is on earth, he would reply "New Zealand". For me it was a huge window onto how much passive knowledge we had about even basic things like hygiene that many people in the world didn't know. I was happy the guy got some help yet saddened that so many more people existed like him not knowing even the basics of first aid.
We hung out in travelers' restaurants and traded tales. We met people who had been to amazing places and wished we had more time in the region. Luckily for us, our side trip to the Rann of Kutch put us firmly in the "interesting traveler" category. A huge topic of discussion, even over lunch or dinner, was diarrhea (from which we all suffered) and when to seek medical help. Jo & Jamie joined us frequently for shandy in the evening with Jamie protesting every time that it was a "ladies drink". In all my travels, I think that week we spent in Kathmandu was some of the most fun I've ever had.
Kathmandu City
We learned that Kathmandu sat in a valley and held several "royal" cities of the past. Kathmandu just happened to be the current capital. The center of each important city was the Durbar Square which held a palace, a large square, and several temples. Kathmandu's was the largest and the oldest buildings dated back to the 16th century. Differing from India where old things were often no longer in use, Durbar Square Kathmandu was still very busy and the spiritual heart of the city. I was saddened to hear the 2015 earthquake severely damaged many of those old buildings.
In a long-standing tradition there was a young girl chosen as a "goddess" who lived her pre-pubescent years in the Kathmandu palace. It was apparently quite the honor to be chosen, yet the poor girl then led a very strangely scripted life that some have described as unnecessarily cruel. The young woman was basically deprived of her childhood. We all learned about this goddess, waited for her appearance, and shook our heads in both sadness and disbelief when we saw her appear on a balcony made up like a little doll. Nepal was even more "other" than Japan.
Kathmandu Durbar Square
Pashupatinath Temple
Besides Durbar Square another main sight to see in Kathmandu City was Pashupatinath. We were told it was the Varanasi of Nepal as it was located along the locally holy Bagmati River where people were cremated and their ashes thrown into the river. The place was sprawling, dirty, and dilapidated. The burning ghats (none in use) were morbidly fascinating since it was the first time we had seen anything like them. There were a few sadhus around (Hindu holy men) which added to the exotic feel.
The exact date of the temple's construction is uncertain, but the current form of the temple was constructed in 1692 CE. Over time, many more temples have been erected around the two-storied temple, including the Vaishnava temple complex with a Rama temple from the 14th century and the Guhyeshwari Temple mentioned in an 11th-century manuscript. Pashupatinath Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. It is not known for certain when Pashupatinath Temple was built. But according to Nepal Mahatmaya and Himvatkhanda, the deity here gained great fame there as Pashupati. Pashupatinath Temple's existence is recorded as early as 400 CE. The ornamented pagoda houses the linga of Shiva.
We walked around the whole complex unrestricted and took many photos. No one cared at all. Apparently the trend in religious holy places being only open to devotees has caught up with Pashupatinath:
The temple courtyard has four entrances in the cardinal directions. The western entrance is the main entrance to the temple courtyard and the remaining three entrances are open only during festivals. The temple security (Armed Police Force Nepal) and the Pashupatinath area development trust are selective regarding who is allowed entry into the inner courtyard. Practising Hindus of South Asian diaspora and Buddhists of Nepali and Tibetan diaspora are only allowed into the temple courtyard. Practising Hindus of Western descent are not allowed into the temple complex and must go no further than other non-Hindu visitors. An exception is granted to Sikhs and Jains: if they are of Indian ancestry they may enter the temple complex. Others can look at the main temple from the adjacent side of the river and pay 1,000 Nepali rupees to visit the small temples located in the external premises of the temple complex.
(Wikipedia)
I feel lucky that we visited before the temple trustees clamped down on visitors. The fact that "practising Hindus of Western descent" are not allowed in the inner courtyard certainly gives me pause. We walked around the whole complex and no one gave us a second look. Honestly, after Durbar Square we just found the whole place dirty and uninteresting. Although it was badly affected by the 2015 earthquake, perhaps since 1991 it was cleaned up and now presents itself better to outsiders (who no longer can roam about freely anyway).
Burning ghats, Pashupatinath
Saddhu, Pashupatinath
Swayambhunath
After being disappointed by Pashupatinath, our expectations were low for Swayambhunath. It was a major religious site in Nepal:
For the Buddhist Newars, in whose mythological history and origin myth as well as day-to-day religious practice Swayambhunath occupies a central position, it is probably the most sacred among Buddhist pilgrimage sites. For Tibetans and followers of Tibetan Buddhism, it is second only to Boudha. Swayambhunath is the Hindu name.
The location was on top of a ridge with a fine view over the Kathmandu Valley. The stupa was whitewashed and the temple precinct, immaculate. The whole neighborhood was busy with both Hindu and Buddhist devotees:
Although the site is considered Buddhist, the place is revered by both Buddhists and Hindus. Numerous Hindu monarch followers are known to have paid their homage to the temple, including Pratap Malla, the powerful king of Kathmandu, who is responsible for the construction of the eastern stairway in the 17th century.
In addition to the very photogenic nature of the stupa with a pair of "all-seeing" eyes painted onto it and its prayer-wheeled perimeter, the adjacent market was filled with activity. Worshippers were buying what was needed to make their prayer or puja. It made for fascinating people watching. In the whole of the Kathmandu Valley, it was the busiest religious site we visited and apparently one of the oldest:
Swayambhu is among the oldest religious sites in Nepal. According to the Gopālarājavaṃśāvalī, it was founded by the great-grandfather of King Mānadeva (464-505 CE), King Vṛsadeva, about the beginning of the 5th century CE. This seems to be confirmed by a damaged stone inscription found at the site, which indicates that King Vrsadeva ordered work done in 640 CE. However, Emperor Ashoka is said to have visited the site in the third century BCE and built a temple on the hill which was later destroyed.
(Wikipedia)
I remember feeling conflicted about photography in the market. We saw so many scenes that just begged to be captured on film, yet these were people preparing for religious rituals and it felt wrong. I also recall seeing tourists there with far fewer scruples than me literally shoving their lenses in people's faces. It was quite embarrassing and made me understand more why many religious sites have closed their doors to tourists. Jo & Jamie and Brian & I just shook our heads watching the other tourists.
In the end, we were buoyed by having seen one more interesting place in the capital and full of hope that there was more to discover....and there WAS.
Swayambunath
Swayambunath
Swayambunath
Patan
Perhaps the LP Bible recommended it, but however we decided, we rented bikes and rode out to Patan and Bhaktapur. I suppose these days with many more vehicles it is not even an option, but in 1991 it was a lot of fun and much better than taking an auto rickshaw. Jo & Jamie and Brian & I were traveling together again.
Patan's Durbar Square was flat out amazing. I had been impressed by the one in Kathmandu, but it had nothing on Patan. Patan itself was known for supplying Nepal with most of its artisans, so it only made sense it would have an over the top main square. The buildings around it mostly dated from the 17th century although Patan itself was far older. Lalitpur is its alternate name..
Lalitpur is said to have been founded by King Veer Deva in 299 AD, but there is unanimity among scholars that Patan was a well established and developed town since ancient times. Several historical records including many other legends indicate that Patan is the oldest of all the cities of Kathmandu Valley. According to a very old Kirat chronicle, Patan was founded by Kirat rulers long before the Licchavi rulers came into the political scene in Kathmandu Valley. (Wikipedia)
For me Patan was another moment that made me love Nepal even more. Rajasthan, India had been amazing, but these old temples surrounded by mountains in the Kathmandu Valley were like nothing I had ever experienced. They even topped anything I had seen in Japan, Korea, Thailand, and China. Japan's Kyoto and Nara could not even compete with it. I could not believe more people were not flocking to this country. Patan was hit especially hard by the 1995 earthquake and the historical center was severely damaged. I hope with its UNESCO World Heritage Status funds were available to bring it back to the splendor I saw it in.
We weren't finished with our tour. We pushed on toward Bhaktapur.
Patan
Durbar Square, Patan
Patan
Bhaktapur We left Patan for the next royal city in the Kathmandu Valley. I had been amazed by Patan and then we arrived in Bhaktapur. Wow! It not only had a Durbar Square that was gorgeous, but it also had several other squares in the historic center surrounded by old buildings. We were there at the end of harvest and many of the open spaces were covered in rice waiting to be stored or processed. The city was flat out gorgeous - like something from a storybook.
Bhaktapur was founded in the 12th century by King Ananda Deva and served as the capital of Nepal during the first half of Malla Dynasty until the kingdom split into three in the 15th century. Bhaktapur was a wealthy independent Newar kingdom under the Malla kings who ruled Bhaktapur from the 15th century to late 18th century before it was annexed into the Gorkha Kingdom. The Malla era was a golden one for Bhaktapur as it was during their reign that art and architecture flourished in Bhaktapur. After its annexation however, development of arts and architecture in the city halted and Bhaktapur remained isolated from the now capital city of Kathmandu and Patan with minimal migration of people from other ethnic groups allowing it to preserve its medieval ambience and remain a homogeneous Newar city. (Wikipedia) Basically, Bhaktapur, even though very close to Kathmandu, remained something of an "outlier" and hence preserved its unique character. The city looked similar to Patan and Kathmandu, but there was a larger old quarter to it (even though Bhaktapur was actually quite small). Standing in the center of Bhaktapur was truly experiencing a time machine more than any other city in Nepal. We all took a lot of photos and just gloried in the beauty of the place. Although the internet now says it is quite popular with tourists, on our visit we were some of the few people walking around with most tourists opting for Kathmandu and Patan. It seems the place finally was discovered. Most unfortunately, it was heavily damaged by the 2015 earthquake as well, but according to their local website, much of the old city has been rebuilt. Ironically, there were also large earthquakes in 1833 and 1934 that nearly leveled the city and each time it was rebuilt, but with fewer buildings. Apparently after the 2015 earthquake not everything was slated to be rebuilt as well. Death by attrition. Sad, but understandable. We pedalled back to Kathmandu satisfied with our very full day in Patan and Bhaktapur, two of my favorite cities of the entire trip!
Jo and Jamie, Bhaktapur
Bhaktapur
Bhaktapur
Bhaktapur
unhappy brush with celebrity (twice)
One evening we planned to have dinner some place that required us taking a ferry to the restaurant. I recall this as happening while in Kathmandu, but it may well have been in Pokhara. Whatever the case, we were patiently queuing to get on the small boat to take us to an island (or across a river?) when an entourage arrived. We were all pushed aside and an Indian film star was put on a boat. Jo was livid. and just when said "star" was in earshot she shouted out, "oh we have to wait. Apparently someone important has shown up. They said she's famous". Oh, I nearly died laughing. I think there probably are fewer insults more ravaging to a famous person than to say "never heard of you"...
We were having a splendid time with Jo and Jamie and I believe we were planning on moving on together from Kathmandu. Fate had other plans. In our other brush with fame, we came back to the hotel to find the New Zealand High Commission had desperately been trying to reach Jamie. In the days before mobile phones and the internet, it was a BIG deal knowing your embassy was looking for you. The caller tried again - it was the New Zealand Foreign Office, Sir Edmund Hillary himself was on the other line (due to his service as Ambassador to Nepal in the recent past). Jamie's grandfather had died. In spite of having spoken to a living legend, the news eclipsed all. Jo deferred to Jamie's wishes - and he wished to go home. Brian and I did not comment although we both agreed privately that since his grandfather had passed (rather than was very ill), was there a need to rush back and cut short their holiday? All people deal with grief in different ways. Our merry band broke up on quite the sour note. I remember Jo was furious with the airlines for not recognizing the situation as bereavement and charging them an extortionate amount of money to change their ticket to leave immediately. Their trip ended bitterly and we were so sad to see them dealing with the logistics and emotion of it all.
So we bid farewell to our travel mates of nearly 6 weeks. We were saddened, but promised we would do our best to visit them in New Zealand (and we did).
We had one more adventure left in the mountains of Nepal - white water rafting.
White Water Rafting
One last experience awaited us before going down to the Terai, the flat bit of Nepal on the border with India, rafting on the Trisuli River. When we researched it more, we realized that the ending point of the raft trip was halfway to our next destination and it made little sense to come the whole way back to Kathmandu. We found an agent who arranged a rafting trip that would let us continue down the river through the mountains on the Trisuli which became the Seti Gandaki and later the Narayani. Not only that, but they would bring all our bags (which we didn't want with us in the raft in case we flipped) to the take out point and then deliver us to Chitwan National Park, our next destination.
We put in with the others on the churning Trisuli River (maybe 2 or 3 others plus our guide) and had a mild whitewater experience. It was fun - we were rafting in the Himalayas. We looked up at the road we had taken from Pokhara and it looked even more dubious from the water as we watched buses creeping along its path. We even commented we hoped a bus or truck wouldn't come careening down on us in the river. The river calmed down and it felt amazing floating lazily on the river in the mountains. We passed by the usual take out point and zig zagged down toward the plains. At each turn in the river we wondered if it was the last and we would finally break out onto the plains. The ride went on forever and honestly our amazement turned to tedium even though the scenery was gorgeous. One more bend and the mountains dramatically ended. Finally we arrived at Naryangarh and a van was waiting with our stuff to take us to what was then called Royal Chitwan National Park.
Maybe too movie-inspired, but I had fulfilled a dream. I floated out of the Himalayas onto the Gangetic Plain on a raft. Less dramatic than I had hoped for, but then again, in my life I never met another person who had done it.
CHITWAN NATIONAL PARK
Rhinos and bears and trees...
We got to the park and stayed in lodging there. Compared to the nice hotel we had in Kathmandu, the new room was a huge letdown. It felt like we were back in India, but we didn't care - we were there to see wildlife. The first thing we did was take a walking tour (which included a boat ride) to take in the "other" wildlife (birds, small mammals, etc.) in the park. Ironically, the main attractions of the park were to be avoided at all cost. In fact, we were given specific instructions about which kind of tree to climb if we were charged by a rhino and which kind to look for if attacked by a bear. I remember looking at Brian and thinking, "why do we even want to do this?" However, we also realized that if tourists were regularly attacked, they would not be giving these walkabouts so routinely and casually. Anyway, "if a rhino charges, climb a thick, big tree and if a bear attacks climb a small thin tree". It's funny that I remember it even now. It just seemed stupid and ridiculous.
Our tour with 10+ people trampling through the bush yielded very little of interest except some killer views of the snow capped Himalayas. The bush walk remains memorable due to its absurdity. The main attraction followed. We were going rhino hunting on elephantback. Apparently the rhinos simply ignored the elephants, so from high above the already tall "elephant grass" we could peer down on wildlife below. It was my first elephant ride and I immediately disliked it - not comfortable, not much to hold onto, and very high up. However, I was excited to go crashing through the jungle and tall-grass meadows in search of rhinos. We also passed through a few spider webs with large spiders included which added a degree of sheer terror to the ride. We did finally spot some rhinos and came right up next to them. That was an amazing experience to say the least. Given their very small numbers, it felt quite the privilege to view them so close up and watch them graze so peacefully. I was happy for the ride to end, but it was worth my sore buttocks to have seen Asian rhinos close up. That elephant ride was my first true "safari".
We were ready to leave the Terai and head back to India, but it was a long way off. Our ride out of Nepal would be memorable.
Chitwan
Rhino hunting on elephant-back, Chitwan
The long ride back to India
We were taken to the nearest town (I don't remember the name) and got a ticket for the bus to Darjeeling. I think one bus went the whole way or we might have had to change near the border for the final bus ride to that tea city. Since the road crossed the Terai, it was mostly flat, but also was in absolutely shocking condition. We had seats in the back which made us rocket out of them each time we hit a bump. We were literally airborne repeatedly. I reflected on high school bus rides when I was a kid and the coveted back seat that might bump someone in the air a little. That was such a thrill. Now I was on a bus that literally rocketed us out of the seat and we were afraid to sleep lest we be thrown to the ceiling to break our necks. I did have a good internal chuckle about it though. So we bumped our way across the plains of Nepal to the border, bid that country farewell at immigration, and steeled ourselves once more.
We were back in India.
INDIA (part II) (November 1991)
DARJEELING, WEST BENGAL
looking for tea
Darjeeling - one of my favorite teas. I was so excited to visit the place, yet when we arrived my first impression was just a bunch of ramshackle buildings tumbling down steep slopes with patches of tea growing in between. "Beautiful" did not describe Darjeeling, but the views were excellent. We found a place to stay (unmemorable) and planned our time there before we headed down out of the mountains to Calcutta. We were immediately disappointed to find that the train was not in service to Siliguri on the plains. One of the highlights of any visit to that city was the train ride out of the hills and down to the plains. Oh well....
Darjeeling, West Bengal
The train was running out as far as Tiger Hill which was THE viewpoint in the local area. There we saw Kanchenjunga far away on the Chinese border - third highest mountain in the world. They said you could even see Everest in extremely clear weather, but I think that required binoculars because even Kangchenjunga was just a blip on the horizon. The real thrill, however, was the train ride on a tiny old steam locomotive that the British used to bring their precious tea crop down out of the Himalayan Foothills. That historical train was one of the best of its type I had ever come across and the setting high in the mountains was dramatic.
Somehow back at the Darjeeling hotel we met a guy (can't remember his name nor even his nationality) who lived in Calcutta and offered his flat up to us so we had a decent place to stay. Brian and I agreed - why not at least have a look at the place? If we liked it, we would stay and if not, no harm done. We did end up liking it and were grateful for the generosity of a relative stranger!
It was time to leave rather disappointing Darjeeling and head down to the capital of British India - Calcutta.
Tiger Hill, Darjeeling, West Bengal
Darjeeling Toy Train
Darjeeling Toy Train
THAT BUS RIDE
It was time to leave somewhat disappointing Darjeeling and head down to the steaming plains of West Bengal. As the toy train was out of commission, it meant taking the bus (ugh). We booked a seat on a very local bus yet again and soon were careening out of the Himalayan foothills. At least the roads in India were better surfaced than in Nepal. The thing that made the busride memorable was that one passenger had extreme motion sickness and literally vomited out the window the entire journey. What made it even more disgusting/hilarious was that she did it as we passed by crowds of people while the bus was travelling quickly. Those unfortunate roadside souls (and cars and auto rickshaws) were showered with vomit. There were screams of disgust as we flew down out of the mountains. Brian and I were in convulsions of laughter. Then we stopped for a break and said passenger went right to the front of the queue for food. Brian and I were aghast. He said, "well, she's fillin' up the puke tank again". Never a truer word was spoken. Five minutes after getting on the bus, she was hurling ... It was also Diwali and as we passed through Siliguri, the first town on the plains, it was lit up very festively. That was my first exposure to a huge festival I knew nothing about at the time. Those Hindus sure were a festive lot. As when we arrived in India and traveled from airport to downtown Bombay, it also took a long time to pass through all the ex-urbs and suburbs that ended in downtown Calcutta. The last part of the bus ride took hours. Finally we were in the seat of the British Raj, the place Mother Teresa started her work, and a city famous for its extreme poverty.
CALCUTTA, WEST BENGAL
How we ever found that guy we met in Darjeeling's room is beyond me. We did though and were thrilled when we entered a very nice hotel only to be disappointed that he lived in a substandard room on the roof. It was clean though and it was free. We weren't going to complain considering the sketchy places we had stayed until that point during the trip. We set off to explore Calcutta.
Victoria Memorial If the Mughals left their mark on India with forts, mosques, and tombs, the Brits left behind massive open spaces and avenues with huge governmental buildings. Later in Delhi we would see the same thing, but Calcutta was really our first experience with the British trying to "make something" out of India. Bombay had its quaint Gateway to India and the massive Victoria Terminus, but there were no big avenues or grassy open spaces that seemed so out of place in a crowded Asian city. Calcutta's maidan was just this poorly tended huge open space in the center of a super-densely populated city. It wasn't even very well used. A creation of people who didn't even seem to understand where they were, the maidan looked out of place. Maybe that can be said of all colonial overlords and their legacy buildings. So, the first place we visited in Calcutta was that huge parklike area which was the heart of the British Raj when Calcutta was the capital. At one end of it, glistening white and totally out of place was the massive Victoria Memorial. Brian and I both agreed it just looked stupid. We didn't even go inside because by that time we had our fill of British colonial prestige in India. We had constantly met Brits who bemoaned how India had "gone to shit in spite of all we had left them". Not that Americans would ever be guiltless of colonial escapades, we just were sick to death of Brits in India. The Victoria Memorial seemed to represent all of them and their anachronistic views.
The Victoria Memorial is a large marble building on the Maidan in Central Kolkata, built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, Empress of India from 1876 to 1901. The largest monument to a monarch anywhere in the world, it stands in 64 acres of gardens and is now a museum under the control of the Ministry of Culture. (Wikipedia) Upon the passing of Queen Victoria, Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India said: "Let us, therefore, have a building, stately, spacious, monumental and grand, to which every newcomer in Calcutta will turn, to which all the resident population, European and Native, will flock, where all classes will learn the lessons of history and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the past." We were sufficiently unimpressed with the memorial, the maidan, and the vestiges of the Raj. I am not sure why I so disdained the place since until that time I rather liked the colonial splashes of Britain in India. What we saw in Calcutta was just so out of place and so ridiculous. Perhaps one could say the same of the Taj Mahal? One day people might even swoon over the Victoria Memorial as they do the Taj. We went in search of something more local.
Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, West Bengal
One of the recommended activities in the LP Bible in Calcutta was to take high tea or dinner at a certain colonial era hotel gem as a throwback to that age. The description in the guidebook far exceeded the actual event since everyone there was a young Western traveler who had read the description in the same guidebook. In fact, it was one of the stupidest things we did in India. I don't even recall the name of the hotel, Windemere, perhaps. My searching on the internet came up with no results that matched the description given in 1991. That pretty much sealed the fate for British Calcutta - we wanted to see the Indian side of the city.
Kalighat Temple (not)
This temple was so famous that apparently Calcutta (Kolkata)'s name was a derivation of it. Of course we had to see it. The place was locally famous and a true religious pilgrimage site. We arrived and as with all temples, needed to remove our shoes. But wait... the "holy precinct" started much farther out than most other temples, so we had to walk a long distance on FILTHY surfaces to reach the inner sanctum to see the religious icon. All I could think as we queued was that the soles of my shoes were cleaner than what we were walking on. It was disgusting. Finally, we got inside and the place was windowless and claustrophobic. I swear there was a lack of oxygen. We passed by the icon and left. Well, we did it, but had no idea what we had seen. Afterward I didn't want to put my shoes back on lest I transferred the temple dirt inside them! Yuck!
It gets better. We actually visited the Dakshineswar Kali Temple which was built fairly recently (for India) and were TOLD it was the namesake temple of Calcutta. Apparently, the temple we visited along the Hooghly was built by a wealthy man who had a religious vision.
The Dakshineswar Kali Temple was founded around the middle of the 19th century by Rani Rashmoni. Rani Rashmoni was a Mahishya by caste and was well known for her philanthropic activities. In the year 1847, Rashmoni prepared to go upon a long pilgrimage to the sacred Hindu city of Kashi to express her devotions to the Divine Mother. Rani was to travel in twenty-four boats, carrying relatives, servants, and supplies. According to traditional accounts, the night before the pilgrimage began, Rashmoni had a vision of the Divine Mother goddess Kali in a dream and reportedly said,
"There is no need to go to Banaras. Install my statue in a beautiful temple on the banks of the Ganges river and arrange for my worship there. Then I shall manifest myself in the image and accept worship at that place."
Profoundly affected by the dream, Rani immediately looked for and purchased a 30,000-acre plot in the village of Dakshineswar. The large temple complex was built between 1847 and 1855
(Wikipedia)
As it turns out the temple we were supposed to visit was massively important in Hinduism. The story goes like this:
Eons ago Sati fell in love with Shiva and married him against her father's wishes (Shiva was a dread-locked ascetic). Her father threw a grand party (gods also knew how to have a good time, apparently) and dissed Shiva and Sati by not including them on the guest list. Sati showed up uninvited and her father totally humiliated her in front of the guests for marrying such a "loser" as Shiva. Sati was infuriated and burned herself alive in front of the guests. Shiva then lost it and started his infamous dance of world destruction, the Rudra Tandava. Only with the intervention of other gods did he stop and then he carried his dead bride across the world and bits of her body and raiments dropped here and there (in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Tibet) each of which became one of the 51 Shakti Peethas, some of the holiest temples in Hinduism which basically created the homeland of that religion. Fascinating!
The toes of Sati's right foot landed in what would become Calcutta and a temple was established there (even though it is a Kali temple).
I wish I had known the backstory when we visited the WRONG temple (alas no Google in 1991 and I am not sure how much information on the temple was correct in the LP Bible in that edition). Knowing how important the temple was I might have at least ensured we visited the correct location.. My lasting memory of that entire experience was unfortunately just "ewwwwwww - I can't believe I had to walk across all that filth and I sure hope I didn't pick up some weird skin disease!" (and then it wasn't even the right place!)
Kali Temple, Kolkata, West Bengal
Bally Bridge
The Hooghly River is actually a former main channel of the Ganges that later shifted east to pass through what is now Bangladesh. The delta of the Ganges/Brahmaputra rivers is ever-changing. Even the famed Kalighat Temple used to be on the main branch of the Ganges and is now on nothing more than a side canal. Nevertheless, the Hooghly is a big river and it basically cuts off Calcutta from the rest of India to the west. The British had to build road and rail (and pedestrian) bridges if Calcutta were ever to become a real unifying capital of the colony.
This railway bridge is also important in the annals of history of railways in India because the railway for the first time crossed over River Hooghly and reached Calcutta at Sealdah Terminus thus connecting the East and West banks of the river. ... The bridge was by far the most expensive and the most difficult of the railway bridges to be constructed in India up to that time.
(Wikipedia)
The Howrah Bridge was, of course, the most famous of Calcutta's bridges, but going through the photos, this was what stood out as the most photogenic. A good photo to end with as well - we were about to take the train out of West Bengal and into Bihar. We were on the Buddhist holy path yet again.
Bally Bridge, Kolkata, West Bengal
train experts
For the first part of our journey in India, we had IndRail Passes which overall did make riding the rails easierw, but as we learned the system, we realized said pass was expensive and unnecessary. We were insiders by the time we reached Calcutta.
We promptly marched into Howrah Station and set to work.
Howrah railway station, also known as Howrah Junction, is a railway station located in the city of Howrah, West Bengal, India. It is the oldest and largest existing railway complex in India. It is one of the busiest train stations in the world.
(Wikipedia)
We knew now that queueing at a ticket window was waste of time (especially in crowded and frantic Howrah Station) and bound to be filled with frustration. We boldly went to the information window and demanded (yes DEMANDED) to see the Station Master! We were whisked up into the upper floors of the building to a chaotic suite of offices. We were not actually meeting the Station Master of Howrah, but we met a high-ranking subordinate. We waited in an anteroom and soon were shown into an office with a man carrying on business with three others, answering his constantly ringing phone, and looking at a computer screen. He was quite friendly with us immediately.
"Sir, we are tourists in your city and are completely confused about the ticket purchasing process. We need a ticket to Gaya, Bihar. Could you assist us?"
The man shouted at his flunkies to bring us tea while we waited and we had a somewhat disjointed conversation about travel in India, Darjeeling and Calcutta while he continued conducting his business as assistants swirled around him. Two 3AC sleeper tickets were produced, we paid our rupees, and thanked whichever supervisor it was who helped us. We had walked in Howrah Station in and less than 30 minutes purchased a ticket for the train we wanted that very evening! Masters of train travel in India we had become.
When I look back on it, I chuckle, but it WAS how the system worked. We played the "foreigner card" because that was our card to play. We often paid jacked up prices for things in India, so we felt it was a reasonable benefit for all the excess money we had paid.
We were on the sleeper train headed west into Bihar.
BODHGAYA, BIHAR
I assume our accommodation in Gaya was unremarkable because I have no memory of it at all. I do remember planning the trip to Gaya (which was easy because it was the number one pilgrimage spot in the Buddhist world). We were very excited after having seen the Buddha's birth and death places.
Upon arrival, we found the Bodhgaya complex not architecturally "wow" at all. Then again, this was Buddhism, so I didn't think it necessarily had to be. The location was not about seeing a building - we were looking for the tree from under which Prince Siddhartha became the historical Buddha. We found it and, unfortunately, were underwhelmed - just an old tree in a courtyard with a few people praying under it. The tree, in fact, looked ancient and we came to find it was third-generation. The first tree eventually died, but luckily the Sri Lankans had taken a cutting to the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy and grown their own holy tree. From THAT tree a cutting was taken and brought back to Bodhgaya, so this was the grandchild of the original tree (and still extremely old).
I picked up a few leaves that had fallen to the ground. One of them I presented to MS's father when we got to Japan in thanks for all the generosity that family had shown me over the years - a gift that was very well-received by my second family in Japan. Otherwise, I admit to feeling fairly "blank" about the whole place. There was one Western woman "dive bombing" the tree (continuously prostrating herself and rising to do it over and over). I thought, "Who am I to determine how you practice Buddhism, but lady I think you may have missed the point".
We were happy we went, no doubt. We visited the place where a major world religion had its start - a total first for me. However, Bodhgaya, its temples and viharas, as well as the "holy Bo tree" fell short for some reason. High expectations dogging me once again? Perhaps. Then again, I think as the focal point of an entire religion I envisaged the holy Bo tree somehow glowing on a hilltop as proof of its sanctity. Instead, it was just on a raised platform in a courtyard of a rather unremarkable temple.
We didn't tarry.
Bodhgaya, Bihar
train failure
After our glorious victory in Calcutta in Howrah Station, our newly minted train ticket strategy simply did not work in Gaya. The station master said "just get on the train and ask the conductor for a seat". We did and we ended up in the lowest class (3 non-AC) riding with the masses of humanity. Yes, the ticket was cheap, but it was crowded with no-AC and there were fleas (or bedbugs) in the seats that bit us mercilessly. The train slowly emptied out as we approached our destination. We were some of the last passengers to detrain and were worried that somehow we had missed the stop.
We had arrived in Kashi/Banares/Varanasi. If Bodhgaya had not met expectations, Varanasi would blow all of them away.
VARANASI, UTTAR PRADESH
a holy place
We arrived to Hindu/Muslim riots in Varanasi and a curfew + lockdown. We had to stay on the holy city's periphery anyway because it was perennially booked solid closer to the river and most places only rented rooms to Indians. We were highly disappointed because visiting Varanasi was to be one of the high points of the trip. However, as I learned later in life, curfews and lockdowns were largely states of mind and after some prodding we found we could take an autorickshaw down to the river as long as we avoided any protests and did not travel at night.
Kashi/Banares/Varanasi was yet another "oldest continually inhabited places on earth". Its history was long and turbulent, but one thing stood out - this was the place for Hindus to come and die and their remains to be put into the Ganges to help break the cycle of endless death and rebirth. So important was Varanasi that the historical Buddha gave his first sermon in nearby Sarnath (which we visited.) As a non-Hindu, Varanasi WAS Hinduism. This was the place people did ritual bathing in the holy Ganges to purify themselves. It was also the place people were cremated and their ashes scattered to the river. Varanasi was INTENSE.
We made it to the series of bathing and burning ghats and were propelled into another world and another age. I am not sure I have ever felt so out of place.
Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together. - Mark Twain, 1897
In 1656, Emperor Aurangzeb ordered the destruction of many temples and the building of mosques, causing the city to experience a temporary setback. However, after Aurangzeb's death, most of India was ruled by a confederacy of pro-Hindu kings. Much of modern Varanasi was built during this time, especially during the 18th century by the Maratha and Bhumihar Brahmin rulers.
(Wikipedia)
People were so involved in their own rituals that no one heeded us. We learned snippets of what the city was all about from the LP Bible and people around us. One particularly interesting faction on the ghats were the rapacious firewood merchants who relieved families of as many rupees as possible in obtaining enough wood to completely incinerate a loved one. Many could not afford it and incomplete cremations were routinely thrown in the river. The government built an electric crematorium for the destitute, but it was largely shunned for being too modern. A "firewood mafia" - only in Varanasi.
The boatmen harangued us to take a ride on the river, which we did eventually, and I was brought back to Bombay Bay and the terror of falling into that fetid water and immediately dying of "whole body sepsis". People were bathing in this water? It was terrifyingly dirty. Fear of being splashed aside, there were few views in India that compared to looking back over the ghats of Varanasi. It was a real high-point of the trip. At the same time a low point was seeing all the wrapped up things floating in the water - for those who could not afford to burn, this was the alternative. It was overwhelming to think about. I wondered who lived downstream from Varanasi?
Back on shore the carpet and trinket sellers (mostly Muslim) were pestilential. Varanasi actually was a center for artisans historically, but most of these guys just wanted to show us crap knockoffs made in nearby villages. They promised to take us through the maze of streets to see the Golden Temple, but even the LP Bible warned against such folly. Varanasi was a maze of streets and a series of neighborhoods representing all states and regions of the Hindu world. It made the streets of Venice look orderly. To said hostels arrived pilgrims with a dying family member who would stay with them until they passed - some people lived in Varanasi for up to one year. The family would then buy wood at an inflated price, burn their loved ones' bodies, and scatter the ashes in the the Holy Ganga. Varanasi, it was said, was a microcosm of India.
The Golden Temple of the city was supremely important. One of the 12 Shiva Jyotirlinga of India, it was an important pilgrimage site in its own right. The Mughals had destroyed the original temple and built a mosque (still there) and a new temple (Ironically funded by the Mughals, too) was constructed next to it. And anyone wonders why Hindus and Muslims are constantly fighting in India...
Varanasi had so much going on and FELT religious more than any other place we had visited in India. Aya Sophia in Istanbul still reverberated with the echoes of sanctity while Varanasi was living and breathing holy place for hundreds of millions of people in the present. I would not witness such religious fervor again for years. Varanasi was one of those places that made me question a lot of my beliefs - I just stood on its periphery barely comprehending anything I was seeing. The religious ritual there seemed almost staged in its "otherness", yet people came in an endless stream to perform centuries old practices. Is that really all I believed in, too? Perpetuated, ridiculous ritual? I was having doubts.
Varanasi changed me. We didn't spend all that much time there because it was a hassle to get to the ghats and we felt out of place. After two visits we realized it was time to move on. Not, however, without visiting the last holy Buddhist site, Sarnath, just outside of town.
Varanasi
Varanasi
Varanasi
Varanasi
Varanasi
Sarnath
Given how important Varanasi has been culturally and historically, it made perfect sense that the Buddha's big "religion launch" would take place nearby. Sarnath was the place where Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon:
The Deer Park in Sarnath is where Gautama Buddha first taught the Dharma, and where the Buddhist Sangha came into existence through the enlightenment of Kondanna. ...referred to as Isipatana, this city is mentioned by the Buddha as one of the four places of pilgrimage his devout followers should visit. And so Brian and I visited our last Buddhist holy place and for the both of us the first time ever to complete a religious pilgrimage. There were the remains of a city, but almost everything was in complete ruin.
Buddhism flourished in Sarnath because of kings and wealthy merchants based in Varanasi. By the third century, Sarnath had become an important centre for the arts, which reached its zenith during the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries CE). In the 7th century by the time Xuanzang visited from China, he found 30 monasteries and 3000 monks living at Sarnath. Kumaradevi, the Gahadvala queen, constructed the last structures at Sarnath. In 1193, her grandson, Jaichand of Kannauj was defeated by Qutb al-Din Aibak, a general of Muhammad Ghori. At the end of the 12th century, Sarnath was sacked by Turkish Muslims, and the site was subsequently plundered for building materials. (Wikipedia) The most striking thing about the park was not the ruins but the actual "Deer Park" reminiscent of temples and shrines in Japan more than India. It really appeared out of place to see deer roaming around a temple site in India. Otherwise, Sarnath was rather unremarkable as an archeological site. We had seen much better ruins. Our last Buddhist holy place was not "wow" at all. We both felt satisfied, however that we had done the pilgrimage even if some of the sites were not very impressive. If I had to place them in the order from the best: Kushinagar Sarnath Lumbini Bodhgaya Ironic that the place I thought would be the best was actually the least interesting and lowly Kushinagar, with its sad burial mound over the cremation site of the historical Buddha, was actually the most impactful. Our religious sightseeing continued... one more set of famous temples to visit. This time we would fly there.
Sarnath
KHAJURAHO, MADYA PRADESH
I heard about these temples from my professor, Donald Johnson, at NYU. When I was working toward a PhD there, he often talked about the time he had spent in India and referenced these erotic art temples frequently. Brian was game, so we decided to include them in our itinerary. One thing that protected the temples from destruction over the centuries of conflict in India was their relative isolation. It was true - they really were in the middle of nowhere - so much so, in fact, that they became overgrown over time and were only rediscovered during the British Raj.. We decided to fly from Varanasi rather than spend even MORE time on inconveniently timed and connecting trains. We went to Air India and had an excellent agent there who helped us book our ticket to Varanasi and then onward to Delhi. She really went out of her way to help us and by that time we understood a lot more how India worked. We requested her supervisor's name and wrote a glowing report about her service to us in hopes that it would help her career. We went out to Varanasi Airport and boarded the short flight to Khajuraho. I remember the plane circled and banked endlessly before landing - enough to make us both nervous that something was wrong. We did finally land in the middle of nowhere and found an old guesthouse (complete with a water cooled AC unit that blew out mosquitos when it was turned on!). After accepting yet another disappointing room, we were off to see these famous temples.
Most Khajuraho temples were built between 885 AD and 1000 AD by the Chandela dynasty. Historical records note that the Khajuraho temple site had 85 temples by the 12th century, spread over 20 square kilometers. Of these, only about 25 temples have survived, spread over six square kilometers. Of the surviving temples, the Kandariya Mahadeva Temple is decorated with a profusion of sculptures with intricate details, symbolism and expressiveness of ancient Indian art. The temple complex was forgotten and overgrown by the jungle until 1838 when Captain T.S. Burt, a British engineer, visited the complex and reported his findings in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The temples were a riot of carving both inside and out. I remember Dr. Johnson being emphatic that visitors to the temple complex rarely ventured INSIDE being so captivated by the exteriors (which were amazing). The insides also were ornately carved (and very dark), but it was the outside that held our interest. The temple carvings were about 10% erotic and in places quite graphic. Very much as been said about why the temples showed explicit sexual acts, but it seems there was a very easy explanation: When these monuments were built, the boys in the place lived in hermitages, by being brahmcharis (bachelor) until they attained manhood and these sculptures helped them to learn about the worldly role of 'householder. (Wikipedia) The simplest explanations usually being the best, the temple carvings did not show Gods, nor were they depictions of tantric rituals, but instead showed scenes of the daily lives of the people. They were educative. In as much as the cathedrals of Europe via painting, stained glass, and sculpture told Biblical tales to the unlettered masses, so did the temples of Khajuraho teach the young men studying there what to expect in adult life. Part of that was sex - although I have to say, they were preparing those guys for a pretty wild sex life! Our overall impression of the site was that it was a bunch of incredibly old temples in the middle of nowhere with little context. There wasn't even a city nearby. I am certainly happy we visited and the exterior carvings may be some of the finest I saw in all of Asia in terms of craftsmanship. In spite of how incredible it was, I felt somewhat flat. Maybe the holiness of Varanasi still lingered and made these "dead" temples seem irrelevant? We overnighted in our shitty room and left the next day for Delhi.
Khajuraho
Khajuraho
Khajuraho
NEW DELHI
We were in Delhi and we should have been more excited except that we were burnt out. Nearly two months in South Asia had totally drained us. By then we were expert in doing everything, but the constant vigilance and the masses of people just wore us down. Nonetheless, Delhi had incredible sights to see!
Jama Masjid The Jama Masjid of Old Delhi was built by Shah Jahan himself (builder of the Taj Mahal). The mosque was actually a focal point in India's independence movement to the point that the British considered tearing it down. Calmer heads prevailed (thank God), and its great plaza became a meeting place for Indians of all religions and classes to discuss the independence movement. For this reason alone it holds great historical significance. The style was the same as we saw in Fatehpur Sikri, but the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi was alive with human activity. We were there late in the afternoon and the atmosphere was magical around Maghrib time. It is my best memory of Delhi and indeed one of the best of India to be in that great courtyard as the muezzin called the faithful for sunset prayer amidst a swirl of birds coming to roost for the night. Red Fort Next to the old mosque was Shah Jahan's other legacy building in Old Delhi, the Red Fort (not to be confused with the Red Fort of Agra). Its red wall stood tall over the main thoroughfare that led into the maze of streets that was Old Delhi itself. The Delhi Red Fort was not as beautiful on its interior as its sister fort in Agra, but it was impressive all the same. For me, it was just too similar to what we had seen in Agra. Sandwiched between the two massive, red sandstone creations of Shah Jahan was the labyrinth of streets of Old Delhi. I actually hated it. It was too crowded, too hassly, too.... everything. Had we visited at the start of the trip, I am sure I would have found it fascinating, but at the end, it was just another crowded place with every other person bothering us for something where we had to be be constantly en garde about our possessions. Admittedly, it was the best traditional bazaar we had seen in all of India. Jantar Mantar Somewhere else in Delhi was the Jantar Mantar, an astronomical observatory, gifted to the city by Jai Singh II, Rajput Ruler of Rajasthan. Actually, he built five of them in India and the one in Delhi was the first. Originally, outside of the city, it was now in "New Delhi" and surrounded by modern apartment blocks which greatly diminished its "wow" factor. We had seen the one in Jaipur (Jai Singh II is the guy who planned and built Jaipur, too), so we felt satisfied we had seen something similar in a better location. The one in Delhi ended up being a massive waste of time.
Humayun's Tomb and Qutb Minar We took a usual white van tour out of downtown to two of Delhi's most famous sites - Humayun's Tomb and Qutb Minar Victory Tower. Humayun's Tomb (a Mughal emperor) was very much the same style we had seen elsewhere and although in a lovely setting, we had seen it all before and were not nearly as impressed as we would have been had it been the start of the journey. One thing we remembered was that it was originally built with inlaid precious stones like the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, they had all been dug out and left the entire structure looking worse for wear. Only on the Taj do those details remain at their original level of opulence, the hallmark of all the Mughal Era buildings.
Qutb Minar was far more impressive since it was different from most other buildings we had seen in India. We had seen other "victory towers" but nothing like Qutb Minar. It was massive. Construction of the Qutub Minar "victory tower" in the complex, named after the religious figure Sufi Saint Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, was begun by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who later became the first Sultan of Delhi of the Mamluk dynasty (Gulam Vansh). It was continued by his successor Iltutmish, and finally completed much later by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, a Sultan of Delhi from the Tughlaq dynasty in 1368 AD. The Qubbat-ul-Islam Mosque (Dome of Islam), later corrupted into Quwwat-ul Islam, stands next to the Qutb Minar. Many subsequent rulers, including the Tughlaqs, Alauddin Khalji and the British added structures to the complex. Apart from the Qutb Minar and the Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque, other structures in the complex include the Alai Darwaza gate, the Alai Minar and the Iron pillar. The Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque was originally built from the remains of 27 older Hindu and Jain temples. The pillars of the temples were reused and the original images plastered over. (Wikipedia) No big surprise that as India shifts politically to the right, all those centuries old temple to mosque conversions would suddenly become an issue again. It amazes me that such grudges are held for so long, but then again - what about Jerusalem? Some things are just never forgotten nor forgiven. Even if the Taj Mahal, a Muslim tomb and symbol of India, was a place of great national pride, all those mosques that were built with stones from even older Hindu and Jain temples would never ever be forgiven nor forgotten. Qutb Minar was impressive on many levels, but finally it was made of cannibalized stone from earlier religious monuments. How can something like that ever be resolved?
New Delhi The last bit of Delhi to see was its own India Gate in a great roundabout on a huge thoroughfare leading to the Parliament building in "New Delhi". The British created a brand new capital in their own image of what a capital should look like (very European, actually very WASHINGTON). It looked so bizarrely out of place and EMPTY compared to teeming Old Delhi just down the road. We found New Delhi and its monumental government buildings to be the Victoria Memorial on steroids. At least the buildings were being used, but other than that - that whole part of town seemed like some parting folly from the Brits to an independent India. One more thing remained. We hadn't seen tigers. We were headed back down into Rajasthan for one more adventure before we left.
Delhi Jama Masjid
Red Fort, Delhi
Jantar Mantar, Delhi
Humayoun's Tomb, Delhi
Qutb Minar, Delhi
Qutub Minar, Delhi
RANTHAMBORE NATIONAL PARK, RAJASTHAN
To get to Ranthambore we had to catch a train to Sawai Madopur Junction and that turned out to be one of our most difficult tickets to purchase. There simply were no direct trains that arrived at times that were convenient for us and using connecting trains in India was always a gamble (a huge gamble) since trains notoriously could be hours delayed. We finally did make it there, but not without a lot of teeth gnashing and angst. We ended up throwing caution to the wind and changing trains and it worked out ok. We had a realistic fear of sitting at some little station in the middle of nowhere with only tea and biscuits for food for hours on end with no information on a delay. We had heard horror stories from other travelers. From the station we found transportation to the hotel inside the park which was the Maharaja's ex-hunting lodge. These days it is a five star property, but back in 1991 it was just a very dilapidated small palace. We were thrilled even if the place had seen better days (better years? better decades?) - we were finally staying in a palace. Wow! Unfortunately, all of our travels were catching up with us and shortly after check-in to our formerly swish room, Brian became very sick. I felt terrible because Brian loved tigers and this was one of his personal highlights of the trip. I made sure he was cared for and told him I would check everything out in advance of his recovery which I hoped would be soon. The hotel had open air jeeps that roved around the park on bumpy dirt roads looking for tigers. The tigers were totally oblivious to the jeeps. The guide said either the tigers thought the jeeps were elephants (which they would never tangle with) or they just were used to them. In any case, we found tigers easily and watched them stalking prey (the park was filled with deer, pictured below) at close range. The tigers were absolutely majestic and it was thrilling to be so near such powerful beasts in relative safety. Brian eventually recovered enough to go out on one tiger safari (I went on three - there was nothing else to do and there was no wandering around the park on foot for obvious reasons). He still felt like shit, but he was very excited to see tigers in the wild. Over the years we were saddened to see the tiger population dropping in India, even in Ranthambore, one of its oldest and most popular parks. Most recently there has been an uptick and I hope that will continue. Brian recovered and we still had a couple of days to kill before our flight to Singapore. We really had done EVERYTHING we wanted in India and would have changed the flight if possible. What was near Ranthambore?
Ex-hunting lodge, Ranthambore National Park
Ranthambore National Park
Ranthambore National Park
Ranthambore National Park
RAJASTHAN (again)
Kota and Bundi
Brian had recovered and there was no sticking around Ranthambore, so we headed to the nearest big city on the main train line to Delhi, Kota. Oh, how we had changed.
We were back in our favorite place, Rajasthan, but we honestly didn't care. We were so burnt out on everything. Kota actually only had a palace and museum and not that much held our interest compared to other cities in Rajasthan. Kota was OLD, but it was lacking in "wow" locations. We did go to one museum in an old palace that had an incredible collection of Mughal miniature paintings.
The history of the city dates back to the 12th century CE when Rao Deva, a Chauhan Rajput chieftain belonging to the Hada clan conquered the territory and founded Bundi and Hadoti. Later, in the early 17th century, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, the ruler of Bundi – Rao Ratan Singh, gave the smaller principality of Kota to his son, Madho Singh. Since then Kota has become a hallmark of the Rajput gallantry and culture.
With more time to fill than anticipated we made it to nearby Bundi which was actually the older of the two cities (but now smaller) to see its fort. It was another impressive Rajasthan palace/fort built into a mountainside, but we had seen similar elsewhere. Clearly, it was time for us to leave - even Rajasthan had ceased to amaze us. Bundi was also very dirty and undeveloped compared to other towns in the state. Madya Pradesh was only 50km away. Bundi was not a desert Rajasthan city, it was a decaying mess that was off the beaten path. I am still not sure if the city was actually that bad (the fort photo looks impressive) or if we simply had had ENOUGH.
Bundi and the eponymous princely state are said to be named after Bunda Meena, a former Meena king. Bundi was previously known as "Bunda-Ka-Nal," with Nal meaning "narrow ways." Rao Deva Hara later ruled the region, taking over Bundi from Jaita Meena in A.D. 1342 by fraud and renaming the surrounding area as Haravati or Haroti.
(Wikipedia)
Even Bundi's Wikipedia entry is absolutely brief compared to other places in Rajasthan.
The time came to leave and we were exhausted. We got a train ticket to Delhi. We would be leaving India soon after almost 3 months on the Subcontinent.
Maharao Mado Singh Museum, Kota
Maharao Mado Singh Museum, Kota
Garh Palace, Kota
Taragarh Fort, Bundi
Bundi
street scene, Bundi
INDIA EXIT
I can't even remember where we stayed in Delhi, but both of us were so ready to leave. Our next stop was Singapore and even Brian who originally didn't want to go there was relieved we could rest somewhere that would not be a challenging hassle no matter where we turned. On the departure morning, I had a full English breakfast and the beans looked dodgy. Brian gave them a miss, but I ate them. I hadn't been truly ill the whole time we were in India and Nepal after all.
We left for Singapore with a sigh of relief.
SINGAPORE (December 1991)
you shouldna ate the beans
We arrived in Singapore and went to Bencoolen Street, the last refuge of hostels in Singapore. By 1991 Singapore was well on the path to modernity and a "backpacker destination" it did NOT want to be. Even though the room was cheap for Singapore, after India we felt we were being price gouged. That was not the only problem, I fell very ill. The irony of it all. I had wanted to include Singapore on the itinerary and now I was stuck in bed.
It was probably those dodgy beans from the "full English breakfast" in Delhi. Brian's "I told you so's" were endless.
He went out and did what needed to be done and I tried to recover. Basically, I didn't.
INDONESIA ( December 1991 - January 1992)
travelling to Pekanbaru, Sumatra
I was so ill, I don't even remember how we got to Pekanbaru. Maybe Brian got us a cheap flight from Singapore or maybe we took the boat over the Batam and flew from there. That memory is gone.
Arriving in Pekanbaru did not help since it was a hot city in the flat steamy part of Sumatra facing the Java Sea. We were just about on the equator. Why Pekanbaru? It was the closest city in Indonesia to Singapore (hence the cheapest to get to). What was the plan? It was "Visit Indonesia Year" and Garuda Indonesia, the national carrier, had an air pass that allowed us 10 travel segments in one month for an incredibly low price. Pekanbaru was a major city, so it had a Garuda office. We found a reasonable, cheap hotel (with AC) and Brian set off for the Garuda office (I was still sick and recovering).
Brian made an itinerary and I had to drag myself to the airline office with my passport to purchase the tickets.
We saw nothing of Pekanbaru, by the way. Even later when we lived in the region, neither of us ever returned.
We were off to Medan in the northern part of Sumatra (which is a HUGE island).
NORTH SUMATRA
Medan
We used the first leg of our air pass to get to Medan. We stayed there for a night as we were on our way into the highlands (out of the humid, sweat-inducing plains) of Sumatra. I think we saw the "Grand Mosque" of Medan, but it was not photo worthy. Maybe after all the Mughal architecture in India we just weren't interested. Memories of Medan are murky tinged with not being that impressed. We wanted to get OUT of the big cities and into the countryside to see some of Indonesia's incredibly diverse cultures.
We finally got on a bus and headed to Berastagi. We were going to the Batak Highlands.
Berastagi
The bus climbed out of Medan and into the relatively cooler Batak Highlands. It was still hot during the day, but the nights cooled off a little and the humidity was tempered. Berastagi was definitely geared toward tourists and we found ourselves on little white van tours almost immediately.
Batak
Linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that Austronesian speakers first reached Sumatra from Taiwan and the Philippines through Borneo or Java about 2,500 years ago, and the Batak probably descended from these settlers. While the archaeology of southern Sumatra testifies to the existence of neolithic settlers, it seems that the northern part of Sumatra was settled by agriculturalists at a considerably later stage. Although the Batak are often considered to be isolated peoples thanks to their location inland, away from the influence of seafaring European colonials, there is evidence that they have been involved in trade with other neighboring kingdoms for a millennium or more. The Batak practiced a syncretic religion of Shaivism, Buddhism and local culture for thousands of years. The last Batak king who fought valiantly against Dutch imperialists until 1905 was an Indonesian Shaivite king. The Batak may be mentioned in Zhao Rugua's 13th-century Description of the Barbarous Peoples, which refers to a 'Ba-ta' dependency of Srivijaya. The Suma Oriental, of the 15th century, also refers to the kingdom of Bata, bounded by Pasai and the Aru kingdom. Based on this evidence, the Batak may have been involved in procuring important commodities for trade with China, perhaps from the 8th or 9th centuries and continuing for the next thousand years, with Batak men carrying the products on their backs for sale at ports.
(Wikipedia)
We would be in the land of the Batak for the first part of our journey. Berastagi was the capital of the Karo Batak who were mostly Muslim, dark-skinned people. We visited their traditional villages and were invited to a wedding (we bought "tickets"). Unfamiliar with the local culture, we found it odd that we were attending someone's wedding as totally unknown guests, but looking back on it, the couple must have received a lot of praise to have a van filled with foreigners come, sit, and eat at their reception. Overall, it was a bizarre and voyeuristic experience; however, we were not barging in and we could take photos. We paid for that privilege. In fact, most places in Indonesia, we were ENCOURAGED to take photos of everything. People were very proud of their local culture, costumes, and food.
Berastagi was not quite a wonderful as our newest LP guide made it out to be, but it was lightyears better than Pekanbaru or Medan. We found the traditional village architecture fascinating and very different to anything we had seen in India and Nepal. The weather was better and the environment cleaner than the smog-choked cities on the plains below. We were getting our travel mojo back (and I was finally no longer ill).
Onward! Time for another steeper ride up into the heart of the mountainous interior, Lake Toba.
Traditional Karo Batak house, Kabanjahe.
Karo Batak wedding, somewhere near Berastagi.
Lake Toba We left Berastagi on a small tourist van and passed through Kabanjahe where we had seen Karo Batak traditional homes. The road climbed toward some low mountains on the horizon. We passed up over the crest of the hills and were treated to the wondrous panorama of the Lake Toba caldera. It was the most massive crater lake I had ever seen! Of course, Japan's volcanic mountains had many small lakes, but they were just ponds in comparison to Lake Toba. Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption estimated at VEI 8 that occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago,representing a climate-changing event. Recent advances in dating methods suggest a more accurate identification of 74,000 years ago as the date. It is the largest-known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, it had global consequences for human populations; it killed most humans living at that time and is believed to have created a population bottleneck in central east Africa and India, which affects the genetic make-up of the human worldwide population to the present. More recent studies have cast doubt on this theory and found no evidence of substantial changes in population. (Wikipedia) At the time, Lake Toba was still being researched, so although everyone knew it was a huge volcano, no one was yet aware that its last eruption had caused planetary wide change. Just wow! All I saw was this huge mountain lake with a giant island in the center surrounded by sheer cliff walls. We were in the land of the Toba Batak. We drank in the scenery as the van moved along the shockingly surfaced road to Prapat, the place we would take a local ferry to Samosir Island. We were dropped by the ferry landing and bought tickets for the regular ferry out to the island. Even though a short trip, the LP Bible warned not to take it in bad weather as ferries had been lost. I found it hard to believe that the waves could whip that high on an inland lake, but Brian and I heeded the warning and made sure our crossings were in good weather. The warning it seems was not without merit. The boat ride was beautiful, but very crowded on a sketchy boat. Suddenly the LP guide didn't seem to be exaggerating - even a little turbulence would have sunk it.. I just wanted to get to Samosir. We landed and made our way to the Tuk-tuk Peninsula which had a few lovely hotels, all with lake views. This was why we came to Indonesia. We were on a tropical lake high in the mountains of Sumatra. It felt just short of paradise after being sick in Singapore and Pekanbaru and not being impressed by Medan. We took a couple of days to relax - something we had not done in weeks. Brian was in seventh heaven because he loved Indonesia. I was happy to be somewhere clean with good food (the fresh fruits alone were amazing) and no noise nor masses of people. Those first few days on Lake Toba were extremely memorable mainly because we just needed them so desperately.
Lake Toba
Lake Toba
Toba Batak
After recovering and luxuriating in our room with a view of the lake (it was so incredible), we started to think about seeing more of the area. Samosir Island was the "ground zero" of Toba Batak culture and there were a lot of places to visit. One theme that was to appear repeatedly in Indonesia was cemeteries. The different peoples of the Indonesian archipelago had wildly different funerary rituals. The Toba Batak made anthropomorphic headstones which were actually very whimsical. They didn't really intend to depict realistically the deceased (unless the person were a living cartoon character), and we found the grave markers in the traditional villages to be quite humorous.
Their traditional houses were very similar to Karo Batak except they were more ornamented (perhaps some of the Karo traditional homes were, too, but we never saw any). The Toba Batak houses looked like they could appear in a movie set. As with many such places, and when on a tour, the local people performed their traditional dances for us. At the time, I found the performances more than a little contrived, but then again they served to keep an aspect of their culture alive which may well have died in the face of rapid development. One of the unique features of Toba culture was the use of life-sized puppets. The way the puppets were controlled was amazing in and of itself.
My strongest memory of wandering Samosir Island, however, was the singing. It was advent season and the Toba Batak were Christian. One Sunday while walking around we passed several churches and heard the parishioners singing Christmas carols. The fervor in their singing was amazing. In fact, many famous singers in Indonesia were from North Sumatra, so the Batak were well-known for their vocal abilities.
The time around Lake Toba finished and we had to take the ferry to Prapat followed by the long bumpy bus back to Medan. That was the worst part of traveling in Indonesia - we had been spoiled by the trains in India. Even 3rd class non-AC on an Indian Railways train was better than an old Indonesian bus on a pot-holed road!
We arrived back in hot and steamy Medan sufficiently having been bumped and jiggled for hours.
Toba Batak gravestone
Toba Batak gravestone
Toba Batak house
Toba Batak house decoration
Puppet dance, Toba Batak
After another steamy night in Medan, we booked a tourist van to Bukit Lawang at the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park. We were off to see orangutans.
Forest People
Orangutans are vegetarian and extremely peace-loving. Their babies are so cute that they are routinely stolen (usually by killing the mother) to be sold as pets until they grow up and become "non-cute". At that point, they are usually taken to the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Bukit Lawang where they are taught to return to the wild. In fact, they will never be able to live a completely wild existence again, but at least they can live in the forest of the preserve in a more natural state. The number of these animals was dwindling when we visited in 1991 and their state is even more precarious now.
The big thing at the reserve was to visit at feeding time. The keepers had very loving relationships with the apes and the care that they showed their "patients" was both heartwarming and sad. Orangutans were so absolutely cute and funny. How terrible they had been ripped away from their natural environment. That was our introduction to the orange-haired apes.
We booked a jungle walk with the national park office with a ranger. We were surprised to meet a female ranger wearing a hijab, but Brian and I were both like "go for it girl" and felt very happy to have such an unusual guide. We were joined by two European women for the trek. We took some food with us for a lunch break, and basically we were going to be walking in the rainforest for several hours.
Rainforest hikes are not fun at all. I have done them countless times - the mosquitos are pestilential, so it is important to keep covered up. Then the heat and humidity are oppressive. One must watch every step in case of coming across a snake or something else unpleasant. There might be larger carnivores to take care about as well (bears or tigers). On that trek, we were assured that our journey was only going to involve orangutans - big doofy apes.
The plus side of rainforest trekking was seeing all the beauty inside the forest. Some of the huge, old growth trees made it appear to be an unending cathedral. The Sumatran forest was another world. It felt like true exploration even if we were uncomfortable in the moment. The saddest thing during the walk was hearing the buzz of chainsaws outside the park perimeter. I would rank that as one of the saddest noises I encountered in my life. To be enjoying such beauty and then to hear its destruction nearby was devastating.
We stopped at a clear stream and pool for a quick dip. The European women (we didn't talk to them much) stripped down to their bra and panties and plunged in the pool. Brian and I were doused in mosquito repellent and although it looked inviting, gave it a pass. Our guide was in amazement that the women so easily undressed in front of us. Brian and I laughed a lot about it later.
We continued our walk and a huge orangutan came out in front of us and grabbed our guide's pack. That had all our food! The ranger was terrified. Brian and I stepped up and tried to pull the pack back, but to no avail. The ranger told us to back away slowly. Brian was sure he could get the pack but she said "leave it". We followed her lead and just walked away thinking the whole situation was overly dramatic.
The guide then praised our bravery for standing up to a wild orang. She said, "if it got angry, it could have killed you". Brian and I just looked at each other blankly. We both showed incredible courage in the face of danger. ha! We thought it was just another doofy ape from the rehabilitation center (they were all so cute and passive). It never occurred to us that it was an actual wild orangutan. That story became canon to us - "the day we faced off a wild orangutan and lived to tell".
Bukit Lawang had one more adventure waiting...
Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, Bukit Lawang
tubing on the river
The lodging in Bukit Lawang was actually in Bohorok along a rushing river in the rainforest and was nearly as dreamy as the lakeside hotel in Lake Toba. One of the activities to do was tubing on that lovely river spilling out of the national park rainforest (before it passed too many villages and started to get dirty).
We rented some tubes and then a bunch of kids joined us for the float. It was fun and they actually guided us through some places where the current got a little "dangerous" ("don't go there, someone drowned last month"). Once again, I felt like we had entered into a benign activity only to realize it was dangerous. What was more chilling, however, was hearing about the flash floods on the river that came unannounced. If it rained heavily up in the mountains, that water came down in force through Bukit Lawang and Bohorok even if the sun was shining. Apparently OTHER tourists had perished in a flash flood recently as well. After hearing that, we were ready to pull out. At the next bridge we got out and found a bemo (minibus) to take us back to the hotel. The experience was pleasant, and nothing happened, but with the narration of what COULD have happened, we decided after our orangutan encounter not to tempt fate.
Overall we loved our time in Bukit Lawang (two "nearly dangerous" experiences not withstanding). We had to head back to Medan again for our flight north. We were headed to the tip of Indonesia.
Bukit Lawang
ACEH
Pantai Rubia
Our next flight was to Banda Aceh. Actually our destination was Sabang, the main town on Pulau Weh, an island off the northern tip of Sumatra. We had almost no information about the place, but it looked intriguing and the LP Bible said the beaches were excellent. We arrived in Banda Aceh and somehow found the local ferry (which was VERY sketchy) to take us out to Pulau Weh. I actually remember being frightened once we got out to sea since the ferry looked so unseaworthy, but we often told ourselves that "they do this all the time, nothing to worry about".
We reached Sabang and found a place to stay. The island was trying to make a go of it as a "duty free port" to compete with similar places in Malaysia and Singapore. It was a failed project and most unfortunately a lot of the island's environment had suffered. We were totally disappointed. We asked around and were told outside of the Sabang Free Port Project was Pantai Rubia which still had lovely beaches. With some asking around and effort, we found it. The main issue was actually finding transportation there.
The beach was fantastic and even though the weather was rainy on and off, we managed to get in a little snorkeling (I can't imagine how we found equipment?) and found it unbelievable - like being in some National Geographic documentary. However, as our luck seemed to run this way in Indonesia, we learned from the locals there were many stonefish in the waters (one step on their spine meant death) and suddenly the paradise looked deadly. We also realized that this "beach resort" was nothing but a few tumble down shacks on the sea. It was simply TOO rustic for us. We weren't wimps, but we knew Indonesia had similar beaches with better accommodation. Add to that the stonefish danger and we decided that beautiful Pantai Rubia was not worth it.
We were happy we went to Sabang. In our later years in Indonesia, we were the only people among our friends local and international who ever made it there. Pantai Rubia beach and its coral offshore were amazing. It was simply too rustic (and too dangerous). Back in Sabang we decided to exit Pulau Weh hastily to Banda Aceh. We rode the sketchy ferry one more time to a city that 15 years later would be wiped off the face of the earth.
Rubia Beach, Pulau Weh
Banda Aceh
The capital of Indonesia's most restive Muslim-dominated province, Aceh remains the most unfriendly city we ever visited in Indonesia. We did meet a few nice people, but overall we found the locals unfriendly. It was even hard to find a room - they simply did not want us staying there. My memory of the Aceh was only of wanting to leave. At one point people even threw stones at us walking around town. Considering we came to live in Indonesia later and loved it, I still am aghast at our treatment there. Most Indonesians didn't believe us when we told them our experiences.
So the people of Aceh fought against the central government at a fairly low level for years and years and were in a stalemate. They wanted a nearly independent state with sharia as the law. Indonesia is officially a secular state, so that would have been against the constitution. The problem seemed intractable and unsolvable. Then, ironically, "God" intervened.
Thirteen years later, Banda Aceh was nearly completely destroyed by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. The disaster was "wrath of God" worthy and Banda Aceh was one of the worst affected cities. The irony? Aid poured in from the Indonesian government and around the world. The Acehnese were grateful and also realized that their course for an Islamic state might not have been the best idea (clearly God had spoken - they actually thought that). After the tsunami Aceh settled down and the central government accommodated their needs as they could. Aceh is now firmly part of secular Indonesia.
Regardless of future events, Brian and I really felt uncomfortable there and just wanted to leave. We got on a flight to Padang, on the Indian Ocean side of Sumatra, halfway down the island. It was not direct and we stopped off in Medan (again), and I still remember deplaning on the tarmac and having a Garuda Representative meet us and walk us to a nearby, waiting plane and show us our luggage being transferred. It was the most direct flight transfer EVER - on the runway and we saw our bags being moved. Amazing!
We landed in Padang. We were off to see the Minangkabau.
WEST SUMATRA
things that go bump on a bus
After our bad time in Banda Aceh and our skin of the teeth transfer in Medan Airport, we arrived in Padang. Actually, we never set foot in the city because our goal was the Minangkabau cultural capital, Bukittinggi in the highlands of central Sumatra. The airport was right along the main road into the mountains and the LP Bible explained that it was easy simply to walk out to the highway and hail a bus.
Neither of us wanted to travel into Padang city and spend the night just so we could turn around and get on a bus and go by the airport AGAIN, so we threw caution to the wind and flagged down a rather decrepit looking bus headed toward our destination.
The coast plains were pancake flat and the road was straight. We FLEW along that road passing through villages at lightspeed. Some of the villages had constructed "polisi tidur" (lit. "sleeping policeman" - speed bumps), but many had not. The bus slammed on its brakes and we hit a bump - thud, thud of both sets of tires passing over it. The passengers in the back looked out the window and started to scream at the driver "jalan, jalan, jalan" (go, go, go). Brian and I were confused, but didn't think much of it till we hit the mountains which erupted dramatically out of the plains. The driver didn't reduce his speed at all. We were flying up those curvy roads with the passengers in the back nervously looking out the rear window. Something was wrong.
We started to ask around (Brian had taken Indonesian at Columbia and could have a basic conversation). and we understood the last speed bump had been a child. Oh my God!! We were being chased by a village on motorcycles intent on vigilante justice to the driver (and perhaps the bus). Yeah...that happened. It was terrifying. We raced up through the mountains trying to decide which was a better death - plunging off the side of the road or being stopped by an angry mob and perhaps burned alive inside the bus? Finally we made it to a police station and the driver rushed inside for protection. The vigilante mob followed him. We never found out what happened.
Meanwhile, the rest of the passengers immediately flipped back out of excited mode to "bored passenger". We got our bags and sat along the side of the road with everyone else. We flagged down the next bus and got on. The rest of that ride we were in a total stupor. The passenger around us acted like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. What had just happened??
We arrived in Bukittinggi and found a lovely little guest house. We were still visibly shaken and when we told the guest house manager our tale (he spoke English), he was not even surprised. "Oh yes, that happens. You are lucky they didn't catch the bus".
Brian and I both slept fitfully that night.
Minangkabau
One of my favorite ethnic groups in Indonesia, they and their fiery food were ubiquitous across the archipelago and greatly influenced both Indonesia and Malaysia culturally.
Minangkabau people, also known as Minang, are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the Minangkabau Highlands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. The Minangkabau's West Sumatran homeland was the seat of the Pagaruyung Kingdom, believed by early historians to have been the cradle of the Malay race.
...
... there is also folklore that mentions the term Minangkabau came from a popular legend that was derived from a territorial dispute between a people and a prince from a neighbouring region. To avoid a battle, the local people proposed a fight to the death between two water buffalo (kabau) to settle the dispute. The prince agreed and produced the largest, meanest, most aggressive buffalo. The villagers on other hand produced a hungry baby calf with its small horns ground to be as sharp as knives. Seeing the adult buffalo across the field, the calf ran forward, hoping for milk. The big buffalo saw no threat in the baby buffalo and paid no attention to it, looking around for a worthy opponent. But when the baby thrust his head under the big bull's belly, looking for an udder, the sharpened horns punctured and killed the bull giving the villagers their victory (menang, hence minang kabau: "victors of the buffalo" which eventually became Minangkabau) ...
Minangkabau have large corporate descent groups, but they traditionally reckon descent matrilineally. A young boy, for instance, has his primary responsibility to his mother's and sisters' clans. It is considered "customary" and ideal for married sisters to remain in their parental home, with their husbands having a sort of visiting status.
(Wikipedia)
Everything we read about these people before visiting was fascinating. They were a matrilineal culture that was deeply religious (Islam). How on earth did they make that work? The LP Bible spoke very highly of West Sumatra but did warn how religiously conservative it was.
We were nervous.
Bukittinggi
"High hill" - that's what Bukittinggi means in Malay (or Minang). The town was far more orderly than the other cities we had visited and much cleaner. The people were amazingly friendly with us and immediately dispelled our fears of "Banda Aceh, the Sequel". In fact, it was so easy to get around that we took local transportation everywhere. People helped us to get on and off the small buses wherever we traveled.
The Minang people traditionally lived in huge, multi-family houses (rumah gadang). They were beautiful structures. A few were still in use, but most had been converted to museums. These days most Minang people live in their own homes but in close community groupings. We loved the detailed carvings and decorations of the old houses. The place was incredibly scenic in the mountainous interior of Sumatra. It was one of our favorite cities of our time in Indonesia.
Rumah gadang, Bukittinggi
Rumah gadang, Bukittinggi
Rumah gadang, Bukittinggi
Gudang, Bukittinggi
natural beauty Cutting right next to town was the Sianok Canyon with a big volcano looming behind it. That just added to what we liked about Bukittinggi. However, the place we really wanted to see (and the place the LP Bible swooned over) was Danau Maninjau, a crater lake a couple of hours out of town. We toyed with the idea of staying there, but the accommodation situation was not clear and we really liked our room in Bukittinggi. Add to that it was the rainy season and not likely we would have good weather. We got on a tour to the lake and it took us down the crazy switchback road onto the caldera floor where a small ribbon of flat land along the lake edge made the place habitable, like some little Shangri La. We were right about the accommodation - nothing looked as lovely as our cabin back on Lake Toba and the weather was on and off rain, although the swirling clouds in the mountain lake were also a thing of beauty. We saw a couple of waterfalls which were going full tilt as well. The rainy season did have some advantages. Overall, however, we were slightly disappointed with Maninjau - we really thought we would find a kind of paradise lost. Note: when we lived in Indonesia 7 or 8 years later, we returned to Bukittinggi and went to the lake again. It was still misty and overcast and no good hotels had yet been built. Maybe it was just too difficult to get to? In the end, that could be a good thing, so the lake stays pristine and doesn't get overdeveloped, dirty, and "over-loved".
Sianok Canyon, Bukittinggi
Our time in Bukittinggi (despite its horrific start) was lovely. We liked the culture, the people, the landscape, and the fiery food. Our little hotel was great and the manager, Jonedi, was a wonderful young guy who would stop at nothing to help us. On a subsequent visit, we found the place we had stayed (I don't know how? Maybe we noted it in the guidebook?) and he was still working there. The intervening years had not been kind and he seemed much older and beaten down. Of course, he did not remember us, but we remembered him. It was sad - definitely a case of where revisiting a memory was not a good idea.
We took the bus down to Padang Airport without incident and boarded our Garuda flight to Jakarta. Time to explore the capital.
JAKARTA
I am not sure why we spent time in Jakarta on that trip. I think Brian had a sense that if he worked in Indonesia, it would be there and, he wanted to get a feel for the city. In Bukit Lawang, we had briefly met Prithi and Raj, two Indian expats living and working in Jakarta, and they asked us to stay with them if we passed through. As it turns out, we decided to stay in Jakarta for a few days and check it out, so we took them up on their offer. The other option was the backpackers' street, Jalan Jaksa which had a very unsavory reputation. They had a nice expat house (very roomy with servants) and we were impressed. However, by that time Jakarta's legendary traffic jams had started (they only got worse in later years) and we realized what a lifestyle change it would be to live there. We tried to do some tourist things like MONAS, the national monument, as well as the National Museum, but they were very contrived and stupid. The National Museum almost seemed like an insult as it was Dutch-built with very few exhibitions for a country like Indonesia with a long history and such diversity. Most of the best artifacts from Indonesia are now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam or other large European museums anyway. My strongest memories are of the McDonalds and the Sarinah Department Store, both in one complex on Jalan Thamrin, Jakarta's main street in the business district. Sarinah was Indonesia's first and best departmental store. It had one full full floor of handicrafts from all over the archipelago. We agreed that when passing back through Jakarta before leaving, we would do some serious shopping in Sarinah. Otherwise, we spent time with Prithi and Raj. Prithi made home-cooked Indian food and it tasted great. They told us about expat life there and we had to admit some aspects seemed attractive in spite of the problems of transportation around that megacity. After we moved to Jakarta years later, they were still there and we looked them up. They had kids by then, so their lives had changed drastically (as peer usual) and we didn't keep up the friendship. Having experienced Jakarta and mostly not liking it, we were ready for the long ride to the airport. We were off to Sulawesi.
MONAS, Jakarta
MONAS view, Jakarta
SOUTH SULAWESI
Ujung Pandang When we visited Makassar it was during its brief time as "Ujung Pandang", an Indonesian attempt to cast off "Makassar" which was viewed as too colonial. Unfortunately, the locals hated it and brought back Makassar once again in 1999. We found a decent hotel and by a stroke of luck, a Georgetown classmate, BWD, had a local friend living there who had been an AFS exchange student in her high school outside of Cleveland. It truly was lucky for us because as it turns out, Ujung Pandang was maybe only a few steps lower than Banda Aceh in religious fervor with a dim view of foreigners. Chairin came and found us at the hotel and took us to the sites of Ujung Pandang (which were two - Fort Rotterdam built on an earlier local bastion by the Dutch in the 17th century and the seafront of Pantai Losari at sunset with its crowds of people and seaside vendors). The old Dutch fort was somewhat interesting and the seaside promenade was a beautiful, but MOBBED place to take in the sunset. Chairin seemed ill-at-ease, not because he wasn't friendly, but because he too knew that his hometown was not exactly the most welcoming place for foreigners. We never felt comfortable there as opposed to lovely Bukittinggi where everyone was incredibly friendly. Both places were staunchly Muslim, so we certainly couldn't attribute the ill mood to religion.
Ujung Pandang's history was extremely diverse. After being established by the Gowa Sultanate the city became an international free port of sorts. First Malay traders (expelled from their Melaka metropolis by the Portuguese in 1511), then Portuguese from at least the 1540s, began to make this port their base for trading to the Spice Islands, further east. The growth of Dutch maritime power over the spice trade after 1600 made Makassar more vital as an alternative port open to all traders, as well as a source of rice to trade with rice-deficient Maluku. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) sought a monopoly of Malukan nutmeg and cloves and came close to succeeding at the expense of English, Portuguese and Muslims from the 1620s. The Makassar kings maintained a policy of free trade, insisting on the right of any visitor to do business in the city, and rejecting the attempts of the Dutch to establish a monopoly. (Wikipedia) Chairin explained to us that three ethnic groups lived in the city: Makassar, Bugis, and Mandar. He was Mandarese (who claimed to have sailed there from Madagascar) and tried to make us understand more clearly the ethnic mix of the city. Hearing it from a native was so much better than reading about it in the LP Bible. One etymology of the "Boogeyman", is that it refers to the Bugis Pirates who were a terrifying presence in Southeast Asian waters during Dutch colonial times. They were known in English as the Bugi men and were the most bloodthirsty of the local pirates with black sailed ships and reported cannibalistic tendencies (hard to believe - they were Muslim). Luckily, Chairin knew of a local waterfall, so we took a local bus out of town and found a small park with a large waterfall and plunge pool. The water was clean and refreshing. The locals were enjoying it thoroughly. We didn't swim but waded in to our knees. It was the best part of the time spent in Ujung Pandang. We didn't stay long and wanted to head up into the hills as we had done in West Sumatra. In those karst mountains were the Toraja people known for their coffee plantations and unusual burial rites.
Pantai Losari, Ujung Pandang sunset
Chairin, Fort Rotterdam, Ujung Pandang
Tanah Toraja
When your ethnicity is forced upon you:
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonisation and Christianisation, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders—such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi—than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups—the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
(Wikipedia)
We were so excited to visit Tanah Toraja. Even in 1991 the place was rapidly gaining in popularity almost akin to Bali for all its complex rituals. The main urban center for the area was Rantepao so we caught a bus up from Ujung Pandang into those misty, coffee-growing hills. The scenery was stunning. We were out of volcanic Sumatra and Java and into the karst mountains of Sulawesi. The scenery alone was worth the bus ride - it felt like a totally different country.
Rantepao was modern and unremarkable, but a pleasant place since, like Bukittinggi, it was not down on the sweltering plains. The tourism industry was in full swing already and it was easy to get on a small white van tour of traditional villages and burial sites. The one thing we wanted to do, however, was attend a funeral. We learned that funerals were often put off for months and even years so the money could be saved to make it as elaborate as possible. Our timing was just not good - no funerals were even on the horizon for our short stay.
The land was filled with ponds and rice patties punctuated with hills with vertical cliffs. It was all very dramatic. Set amongst those hills were the traditional Torajan homes that were built up on thick stilts. The decoration and carving of the houses looked even more intricate than the Minangkabau, although the color scheme was limited to red, white, and black. In the traditional villages (by that time almost no people lived there, the houses only kept for ceremonial purposes) we saw some Torajan dances. The word "exotic" didn't even come close to how we felt wandering around Tanah Toraja.
The other thing we loaded up on in Tanah Toraja was coffee. We had bought some in Sumatra as well (Mandehling), but now we were in Toraja which was famous for its beans as well. Besides our planned trip to Sarinah Department Store in Jakarta to buy all kinds of handicrafts before departing, we had been collecting coffee along the way. In fact, upon returning to New York, we had enough Indonesian coffee to last us for months! It was one of the best parts of the trip (even though we rarely drank the stuff IN Indonesia which is more of a tea-drinking place).
Tanah Toraja
House decoration, Tanah Toraja
Traditional houses, Tanah Toraja
today is a good day to die
In spite of their conversion to Christianity, the Torajans clung strongly to their traditional beliefs, especially for funerary rituals. Anyone going to Tanah Toraja was going to be exposed to this somewhat morbid, yet fascinating part of their culture.
In the cliffs outside of many villages there were naturally occurring caves. Those caves were often filled with caskets and coffins overflowing the human bones. Those grottoes, however, were not the cemeteries. They were just ossuaries of a sort and the real cemeteries were carved into the cliff faces. There stood the human effigies of the dead, the tau-tau. Placed on rock ledges cut into the cliffs, the tau-tau were carved from wood with white, unblinking eyes that stared out over their native land. They wore fine ceremonial clothes (some were worse for wear after years of exposure to the elements) and stood silently in family groupings. The Torajans believed that the souls of the departed resided in these effigies until the second coming of Christ.
When Brian and I visited one of the caves, a small boy came with us inside and picked up some bones and explained who each person was. There was no fear or revulsion in him - these were his loving ancestors. Their tau-tau outside guarded over his village protecting them from malevolent spirits. In my life, no other culture has surpassed the Torajans in the uniqueness of their burial rituals.
As I mentioned earlier, we had hoped to catch a Torajan funeral. They went on for DAYS and were celebrated more akin to a wedding. People died and their body was put in the cave to decompose, but their soul was not at rest until they had a proper funeral and their soul was installed in their tau-tau. Families saved for months, even years, to give a proper funeral to a family member. Unfortunately, no funeral was taking place in our days in Rantepao.
In later years while living in Indonesia, we occasionally found shops in Jakarta or Bali that were selling "authentic" tau-tau. I was always blisteringly angry when I saw them. If they were just hastily-carved rip offs for tourists, no worries. However, if unscrupulous people under the cover of darkness actually stole real tau-tau, it was absolute sacrilege. I hoped that the ghost of the tau-tau haunted the shop-owner. The level of disrespect in that was phenomenal - and that was Indonesians doing it, not clueless foreigners!
Our time in Tanah Toraja was finished. It was the most culturally unique place we visited on the whole trip. We never returned either - I am not sure why since we both liked it. We caught transportation down to Ujung Pandang Airport and directly boarded our flight to the northern tip of Sulawesi.
It was time to go snorkeling.
Tau-tau, Tanah Toraja
Coffins, Tanah Toraja
Tau-tau, Tanah Toraja
Bones of the ancestors, Tanah Toraja
NORTH SULAWESI
Bunaken
We arrived in Manado and found a room downtown. Manado was not impressive compared to other cities we had visited on the trip, but we didn't really care. Just north of the city was one of Indonesia's most treasured National Parks, Bunaken Marine Park. The shallow waters around the islands of Bunaken dropped off steeply into the ocean depths creating a "wall". The water color changed dramatically from turquoise to cobalt when viewed from above. This was another "had to visit" place on our itinerary that we greatly looked forward to.
Since Bunaken was Manado's big tourist attraction, it was easy to find a snorkeling tour there. We were taken north by van and then by boat over to Bunaken Island and cut loose. There wasn't much to explain (except to avoid stonefish - yikes). We floated out from shore over some lovely corals just below us, barely able to scrape by them and suddenly the ocean floor plummeted straight down. It was vertigo-inducing. We criss-crossed the drop off peering down into its depths. In my life I had previously seen corals in the Virgin Islands and Thailand before Bunaken and then later in the Red Sea in Egypt and the Ningaloo and Barrier Reefs of Australia, but nothing could compare to Bunaken. It looked unreal, like some Manhattan skyscraper of coral sunk into the deep blue depths of the sea.
Brian was in seventh heaven and I believe the visit to Bunaken confirmed that he wanted to take up scuba diving (which he did when we later moved to Jakarta). In terms of life's superlative moments, I have yet to see a reef system that remotely approaches Bunaken if only for the sheer drama of the drop off. At the time the area was also pristine - I feared for its future in tourism-dependent Indonesia.
We were totally in heaven.
Then it was time to meet the Minahasa.
Minahasa I remember Michael Jackson's song Black and White was just released while we were traveling in Manado. The original inhabitants of the land were of a loosely affiliated group, Minahasan. They were very dark-skinned and I couldn't help but feel the irony of hearing the song. It did matter if someone was Black or White in Indonesia. The darker skinned the person, the less likely they would have a good social standing. Fair skin was praised.
The Minahasans are an ethnic group native to the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia, formerly known as North Celebes. The Minahasa people sometimes refer to themselves as Manado people. Although the Minahasan pre-Christian creation myth entails some form of ethnic unification, before the nineteenth century the Minahasa region was in no way unified. Instead, a number of politically independent groups existed together, often in a permanent state of conflict. (Wikipedia) We took a tour into the Minahasan highlands to Lake Tomohon. It was a lovely mountain lake and nearby there was an old graveyard showing traditional local tombs. No incredible old homes, no traditional dances, no famous rituals - the Minahasans never gelled as a group and didn't develop culturally like other parts of Indonesia. It felt like it. In fact, after we moved to Jakarta, we found they were the butt of many jokes for eating "just about anything" - dog and bat often referred to. It was, in fact, true that these people occasionally ate dog and fruit bats, but many of the exotic meats were consumed medicinally rather than as a staple. Nonetheless, people travelling to Manado from other parts of Indonesia were always warned "be careful what you eat". It could have been that we were starting to get a little burnt out on touristic anthropology, but also the Minahasans just didn't have many cultural artifacts or customs to "wow" us. We were on such a high from Bunaken anyway, we didn't care. Next stop - the Spice Islands themselves!
Lake Tomohon
Tomohon gravestones
MALUKU
Amboina
We arrived in on Ambon Island and the airport was far from the little provincial capital of Amboina. We took a combination of bus and then ferry across the harbor to reach downtown. The water was gorgeously clear and little kids swam up to the ferry and greeted our boat. It was like something out of Michener's South Pacific. We actually found the town to be disappointingly dull. I believe we were expecting something more like Hemmingway's Caribbean when in fact it was just another Indonesian provincial capital. In fact, the whole place had an incredibly lazy air to it. It was the LEAST vibrant of all the cities we visited on the trip. We were disappointed - then we went to the beach.
Pantai Batu Kuda
Our first beach was absolutely gorgeous from the point of view of the water, but it was very rocky with only patches of sand here and there. The view across to Haruku Island was beautiful as well. The Maluku Islands were mostly pristine and outside of Ambon, there was very little population. Still, although the beach was nice, it was not the lovely white sand beach we expected. The search continued.
Pantai Liang
We pushed onward and found Pantai Liang which faced Ceram Island (massive in size compared to Ambon with a much lower population). This beach was it! This was the beach we had looked for all across Indonesia. Multi-hued blue water and white sand with palm trees bending down over the beach - Pantai Liang had it all. Well, it had everything except people and services. It was a truly deserted beach. We LOVED it, but there is only so much time to be spent with no water and no food around. It was, however, one of the most beautiful beaches I had visited in my life and even until today remains in the top five.
We returned to Amboina and had a lovely grilled fish dinner. That was one thing we came to love in Ambon - grilled fish with kecap manis. Simple yet amazingly delicious - we adored the combination, so much so that we brought a couple of huge bottles of kecap manis home with us to New York. Our two big food finds in Indonesia were coffee and that sweet soy-based sauce the Indonesians loved to cook with.
Even if Pantai Liang had been amazing, Ambon was undeveloped and transport not easy. We would have loved to take the ferry over to Ceram just to see what a virtually unexplored (by tourists) island looked like, but the locals told us there were hardly even any roads at that time. Sometimes the idea of doing something exceeds the actual execution. I would love a return trip to Ambon more than any other place we visited in Indonesia.
We had one more flight ahead of us... we were headed to the coast of New Guinea.
Amboina Harbor
Amboina Harbor
Pantai Liang
Pantai Liang
IRIAN JAYA
Biak
We arrived off the coast of New Guinea to Biak Island. This was the far eastern edge of Indonesia and we would have loved to explore the province of Irian Jaya more fully, but we were far too afraid of malaria, snakes, and generally hard-going. At the time, Indonesian New Guinea was undiscovered jungle and difficult to get around. We settled for an island off the coast.
Biak was lovely but totally off the tourist grid. Why there? It was a major stop for flights to refuel on their way across the Pacific. Biak had a huge runway (leftover from WWII), so many Garuda flights stopped there. In the days before fuel efficient, wide body jets, refueling in cities like Anchorage and islands like Biak was the norm. The Garuda schedule from Biak to Bali and Jakarta was actually busy.
We arrived and found a place to stay. There was little to no tourist infrastructure. The people were kind, but we found out right away that there was not a whole lot to see.
The beaches were incredible and just offshore were a series of steel piers that seemed to be rusting and falling into the sea. Except those were not piers - those were amphibious landers! They were left in place after WWII. We learned those troop transports were always left behind. Amphibious landers were a "one-time-use" piece of equipment - ferry the troops close to shore, the doors open, and the soldiers wade onto the beach. The boats remained there until they rusted away. The ones we saw were in an advanced state of decomposition. It was so weird to think they had just been sitting there rotting since WWII. Nearby on the beach, the ground was littered with war artifacts, including one huge, unexploded bomb. Yikes!
The beaches looked to be fine for development - blue water and white sand, but nothing like the crazy beauty we had just experienced in Ambon. It was going to be hard for any beach to live up to that. We had some fabulous grilled fish and kecap manis meals in Biak. There wasn't a lot more to do.
WWII vestiges, Biak
WWII-era bomb, Biak
Gua Jepang
The only real tourist site was the Japanese Caves. As the Japanese retreated in the war, a whole troop of them holed up in this very deep cave/sinkhole on the island. It was possible to go down inside and see it. Now it is all green and tropical and even a little beautiful. Its history was far from that. The advancing US army did not have the time to flush the Japanese out of the caves and didn't want to leave them behind. The easiest course of action was to just pour gasoline down the sink hole and light it.
During 1942, occupied by the Japanese when they occupied Biak. By early 1944, the Japanese developed this cave into a natural defensive fortress with soldiers and heavy weapons emplaced and hidden inside the cave. On May 27, 1944, after the U.S. Army 41st Infantry Division made an amphibious landing at Bosnik. After the U.S. Army landing on Biak, Americans occupied portions of the cave while the rest was held by the Japanese and used to harass the landing force and bombard Mokmer Airfield (Mokmer Drome). To eliminate the threat, American forces began probing the cave system for entrances and weaknesses. On July 7, 1944 during the early morning, the U.S. Army began attacking the cave and bombing and bombarding of the area. The attacks culminated with pumping drums of gasoline into cave entrances that was ignited. Inside, an estimated 3,000 Japanese were killed in the attacks.
For Americans who constantly think the US Army fought "nobly" and only the enemy was "barbaric", this certainly is a wake up call. For me it was a moment were I questioned a lot of things about what I thought about war and my own country's military. Burning 3,000 soldiers alive? I didn't even want to think about it.
On that sad note we were ready to leave Biak. The island didn't hold much but had a lot of potential. At least we could say we made it to the province of Irian Jaya even if we missed the main island of New Guinea. We were ready for the long flight back to Jakarta. That is when we understood how big Indonesia really was: the flying time was nearly six hours!
Gua Jepang, Biak
Biak Sunset
JAKARTA (again)
We arrived back in Jakarta and once again relied on the hospitality of Prithi and Raj for a couple of days. We regaled them with the tales of our adventures and feasted on good, home-cooked Indian food.
Mainly, we were in Jakarta to go shopping. We went back to Sarinah on Jalan Thamrin to pick up gifts for friends and family back home. We could have picked up all of those things along the way, but the extra cost incurred in buying them in Jakarta outweighed carrying gift items with us all over Indonesia.
We also did a purge of our bags since, after another brief stop in Singapore, we would be headed to Japan (mid winter). We could ditch all of our, by this point, very well-worn summer attire. Our bags were full of gifts, coffee, and kecap manis.
The last leg of our Garuda pass was to fly to Batam off the coast of Singapore and take the ferry across to the Lion City. The trip was drawing to a close and we were very tired.
SINGAPORE (January 1992)
We only had one night in Singapore before our flight to Tokyo. Since I had been sick for our longer visit, I tried to run around quickly and do a bit of nostalgic touristing before our flight. Of course, we visited the Raffles - one of my all-time-favorite hotels. We also went out by the Merlion which at the time was still a failed attempt at a national symbol in its original location on the Singapore River. The Merlion was something of a joke to the people of Singapore when it was first rolled out, but as with anything, over time, Singaporeans came to love it and now they are fiercely proud of their somewhat bizarre national emblem. It was even moved to a prominent place on the newly developed waterfront a few years later.
We purged and repacked more. We got out our winter jackets (I am still astounded we carried them around the world only for use in Japan for a week). That freed up more space in our packs.
We were headed off to winter in Japan after our trip of basically "endless summer". We weren't looking forward to the weather, but this was Brian's first trip back to Japan since 1985. He was looking forward to it and I was looking forward to meeting up with old friends.
Raffles Hotel
Original Merlion
JAPAN (January 1992)
Tokyo
We arrived in Japan low on energy, money, and freezing cold. It did not bode well for a good time. I had to strong-arm Brian into a longer stopover (so I could meet friends), but ultimately he was right. At the end of the journey, it was just not a great idea.
We found our way into Tokyo and finally to TKM's small flat in the western suburbs. When I say small, I mean when we all slept at night in her place, there was no empty space other than the kitchen and the toilet. It was THAT small. We had a nice, brief catch up with her and Brian and I did a short nostalgia trip around Tokyo. I wish we could have enjoyed it more, but we literally had no money and it was FREEZING (for us who had enjoyed endless summer since the past August).
I was very happy to catch up with my old friend and I think Brian was happy to see his old haunts from when he studied in Tokyo for a year while at Georgetown. After our short (very short) stopover in Tokyo we got on the punishingly expensive shinkansen north to Sendai (even colder) and changed to the Senseki Line to take the train to the edge of Honshu. We were going to Onagawa to visit another dear friend and his family and friends.
Onagawa The train changes at Sendai Station and Ishinomaki killed us. Even with our heavy winter jackets we were cold. Thank God it was a short walk to MS' place in Onagawa from the train station. We were greeted warmly and even given our own room. After TKM's small apartment it felt luxurious and after all the shitty beds we had slept in, it was downright luxurious. However, it was COLD. Japanese people heat their homes locally (room by room) in the winter and sometimes just part of the room at that. We felt like we would never feel warm again! I caught up with my friends and Brian was introduced all around. Their hospitality was amazing and we appreciated it. At least we didn't have to worry about spending money in Onagawa since all my old friends there wanted to invite us. We ate good sushi - we drank a lot. It was fun, but it...was....cold. Brian had never seen Matsushima and since that is one of the most famous scenic spots in all of Japan, MS drove us out there to have a look around. That included a stop at the old Shiogama Shrine and then Matsushima itself. I had seen all of those places many times. I am not sure Brian was all that impressed, but at least he could check it off his list of places he visited in Japan. We also had a drive out of Onagawa to the nearby the Ojika Peninsula to its very tip where we could see Kinkazan Island (one of my favorite places in Tohoku - i.e., NE Japan). The beach was beautiful and it was sunny but the wind was blowing off the Pacific and we were freezing. I just couldn't believe how much the cold was affecting us since Brian was from Chicago and I grew up in Pennsylvania. It proved to be too much of a shock after five months of warm weather.
Note: Brian shared in my dismay after the Japanese Tsunami of 2011 that destroyed Onagawa. I was happy he saw and met my friends, some of whom perished. He called me from Jakarta (I was in Milford) right after to talk about it. We were both deeply upset. Tired, but happy to see old friends, too, it was time to leave and go back home. MS drove us to Ishinomaki, we got on the train, went to Sendai, got on the shinkansen, and then rode the next train after that to go all the way out to Narita Airport (which I always voted as one of the least-conveniently-placed airports on earth). It was time to head to New York. Our round-the-world journey would end once we touched down at JFK.
Shiogama Shrine
Matsushima
CODA
We arrived at JFK and took the train to Pennsylvania to my parents' house. They had kept all our things and it seemed the logical place to head back to.
We went back to New York City and started the next chapter of life:
The Roosevelt Island years
Brian was now an associate at White & Case and I luckily landed a job back at NYU. Life settled back into a new normal.
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