Demi Tour of the World

…so first of all, I’ve been to school, met everybody. Madam Tsulstim : the headteacher of Manasarovar school academy, with the whole team of teachers, included my future nepali teacher… I’ll start on sunday.
while waiting, i met also four volunteers from Italy who had prepared a play with children on the thema of a forest reconquering its land from the naughty men. a mononoke-like story  
                                                    

+ a quickly played romeo and juliet. The children had been fantastic. no photos yet, as you notice the blog don’t want too many photo at the time, but the month is nearly finished anyway.
  Next day, it Pokhara and Phewa lake. the one my neighbour in the bus described it as dangerous to swim but with  lovely sunsets and a lovely temple amidst.
along this lake it’s all done for tourists. the streets are cleaner than in Katmandu, especially these days as it is Dashain celebrations days. No time to think about rubbish ! in Pokh you’ve got nice and noisy restaurants, music shops, second hand book shops, 300 nrs the book. jewellery, pashmina and so on. But if we came here i t was for the Sanctuary, the Annapurna’s Sanctuary. We don’t plan to go to the Annap. base camp (ABC) but maybe to the Machhapuchare base camp (MBC).
 To go there even if it climbs high from Phedi, villages are all around, up to 2000. the thing here is that we are on a 28deg lattitude, so the trees limit is 3000m another 1000m to walk on the snow. Below these altitudes that’s jungle-like and paddyfields mainly. green, brights greens, dark greens, etc, no many flowers.
the first day of the trek and 2000rs out of the pocket for the permit, we crossed four villages and stopped at the fifth, Landruk, lot of guest houses are waiting for the tourist willing to eat and sleep. But in Tolka it was a headteacher who had stopped the trekkers for some donations to his school. Before it used to be maoists who taxed the foreigners.
The second day it started raining early, and so from the trees as the water from the clouds, the leeches fell down on the trekkers. so many of them ! the latter day we met father christmas on hollidays, coming back from Laddhak. is walking with us now and collected one leech in his beard. Unlucky as many others, but in their shoes. We saw langurs too, local monkeys.
If home you’re like to go to the gym for some stepping action, you’ll love the Annapurna reserve. The gradient is high enough to make the local people, gundrungs mainly, to set steps as an easiest path, so everyday we sang stairway to heaven.
Unregular but nice steps which make the way easier for us but particularly for the porter and their big burden, the trekkers equipment, but also the material for the villages. And no many donkey around here, but many japanese, many corean, many french, dutch, german people plus czec, polish, swiss, spanish, italian, americans and so on. The whole world gather in october on the grey steps of the Annapurna
Some are making suffer themselves, other make suffer their porter, by choosing any guy even if not fit for the mountain and with too heavy luggages. They’re supposed to carry 15Kg, but can go up to 30Kg as some people are not aware of social rights can be practised around the world, as some international companies for example !!

First, because i forgot on the last post, i’d like to thanks the clinic travel staff. Everybody ’s been really nice and effective. So if you depart for far away trip from Amiens go to them and you’ll have a warm welcome.

Now back to the trip. The plane Doha-Kathmandu was shared between nepalis and trekkers. I was between. My neighbour on the right was dutch and 15 years of nepalis trek experience, a knowledge of the country on his fingertips. My neighbour on the left was Nepali and named Ohm who’s coming back from Bahrain whit two of his friends.

In The Airport, the first thing to do is to queue, a long enough queue apparently because the customers didn’t read my form and gave me immediately a two month visa. Next step the luggage. A mess of luggage. Then the exit. Nepali’s Taxi come here as mamas’ in the market looking for fat chicken. Welcome to Nepal !) So happy i feeled !

As planned, Joanna, the organisation’s president, is waiting for me right at the entrance of  the Main Place of the Stupa. So here what you see when arriving :

the second largest stupa in the world. Buddha Nath where Joanna, and i now, live is this neighbourhood, the place’s named Buddhanath on the edge of Kathmandu. Mainly tibetan are living here but Indian, malaisian and tourists can be crossed. In any case if the place is full of people it feels quite as there are no cars like on the main road.

The other good surprise is the house in which Joanna rents the first floor :

Yeah, It is the house in the middle. In the flat we met Pema, Student in a surrounding school helped by the organisation, who’s now working for his old school.

Joanna just arrived to so we had to do some shopping, she wondered where’s her cat while two others, brothers for sure, have taken position on the kitchen door. dark happened quickly so we wen’t to eat guess where ? … The Regency ! but instead  of a big croque monsieur like in Amiens ! here it is tibetan food. At random i choosed Shya Balay which my host didn’t know. The plate was delicious, a kind of mashed beef pie. We eated on a large wooden table where seated a lama and his fellow. There are in pilgrimage from Dharamsala and eated Thukpa (noodle soup) and Momos. The lama showed me the CDs he bought today three new released album from wellknown tibetan singers.

Joanna, that’s five year she’s implicated with the tibetan refugee in Kathmandu. She’s in contact with three schools and a reading room just off the great stupa’s place. A late guest of the regency arrived on our table and understanding her knowledge of  the town asked her some questions.

 

Quelle soiree chaleureuse les amies que celle passee la nuit derniere a la braisiere. Merci a tout le monde pour votre presence.  et puis ca a permis de garder le rythme puisque mon sac fut pret a 2 heure du mat et qu’a 7 nous etions debout avec ma mere pour prendre le chemin de l’aerogare (comme il se dit autour de Roissy).  et demain levee a 5 heure !

La Qatar airways c’est le luxe ! repas, journaux, hotesses et stuart sur le qui vive, liste de film enorme et eclectique. Un voisin franco tunisien  (salut !) et derriere deux dames partant pour le tibet avec un groupe francais. Donc c tout naturellement qu’ils sont invites a venir voir comment ca se passe vers les camps de refugies a Kathmandou, d’autant plus qu’ils partent dans un cadre culture et renseigne qui fait que tous sont touche par la cause tibetaine.

Au Grand Wazou je suis vite passe dire bye a Steph (qui avait oublie qui ete Jah !) et Aurel. Nouvelle sequence emotion et, cerise sur le depart, une fille, Karine, de Marseille, vient vers moi pour me dire qu’elle a une copine qui bosse comme prof sur Kathm. Et oui jeune gens le monde n’est pas petit, il est tout petit.

Sur Doha, moi qui m’imagine sur un banc en transit pour la nuit et donc me renseigne pour quel banc ai-je droit le monsieur m’apprend que j’ai le droit a une chambre d’hotel ! l’homme qui enregistre derriere moi a l’accent francais mais un passeport rouge. C’est donc un Suisse, Pierre Yves qui prend son conges sabatique pour voyager en Asie de l’est, principalement le Laos. Et vous savez quoi, Pierre Yves il bosse pour une salle de spectacle a Nyon. ca c histoire de rester sur le theme du week-end dernier. du coup on a dine ensemble et puis il m’a reactualise mes connaissances sur la Suisse. Par exemple la-bas pas de Secu ce sont des Assurances avec franchise comme veulent faire certaines personnes peu recommandable en France ! la non-professionalisation des politiques, les referendum a tout va, la scene rock active la-bas entre Lausanne et Geneve etcetera. c la dessus que je vous quitte. 

bon baiser du Qatar, pays de 800 000 habitants avec  pour loi la shari’a avec un Roi-Emir par heritage.