Navigating Nepal

Today, I take off for my next big trip. 

First stop – Bombay.  I have a few interviews with some companies I’m thinking about for next year.  Yes, this does include an interview with the dark side (aka JPMorgan), but I’m also talking to some more socially-conscious (read “underpaid” jobs) organizations. 

From Bombay, I’m heading out next Monday to Kathmandu where I will meet my mother and brother for a week of touring temples, eating momos, gulping butter tea (hello obesity) and drinking Everest Beer. 

After Nepal, we have a day in Delhi (and yes, I do plan to visit India Gate for the 9th time) before sending my brother packing and returning to Hyderabad with my mom.  I’m hoping she’ll buy me a years worth of groceries while she’s here.

I won’t go into details about the itinerary because you can always download the color-coded planner I’ve made right here.  However, a few tidbits and highlights:

• On June 1, 2001, Nepal’s Crown Prince straight up massacred 10 people (including his family) and wounded 5 others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre

 

• Nepal is one of the poorest countries on earth (but they are rich in tall, barren and fundamentally useless mountains).  The World Economic Forum ranks the country 125 out of 133 for global competitiveness, but who’s complaining when you have 8 of the world’s top 10 highest mountains!.  To give you a reference point, India is ranked number 49 (and people regularly shit on the streets here).  To give you an even more alarming reference point – Italy is number 48.  http://www.weforum.org/pdf/GCR09/GCR20092010fullrankings.pdf 

 

• Nepal is now governed by Maoist communists.  Props.

 

• I may have forgotten to mention to my mom that the US State Department has issued a travel advisory on Nepal .  http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_927.html

 

• On our trip we’re going to visit Chitwan National Park.  My goals for our safari in the park are the following

                -See a Royal Bengal Tiger

                -Bathe an elephant

                -Not get eaten by a Royal Bengal Tiger

 

• Nepal is about the host the world’s highest same-sex marriage.  Yep, apparently there are gay marriages on Mt. Everest.  This makes Nepal cooler than NY state, but not quite as cool as Iowa (where you can have the world’s most boring gay marriage in a corn field)http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/relationships/man-woman/Nepal-to-host-worlds-highest-gay-marriage/articleshow/5689820.cms

 

• Nepali’s still select a “living goddess” that they call the Royal Kumari.  I actually find this fascinating.  Basically they find a girl who:

Must be in excellent health, never have shed blood or been afflicted by any diseases, be without blemish and must not have yet lost any teeth. Girls who pass these basic eligibility requirements are examined for the battis lakshanas, or 'thirty-two perfections' of a goddess. Some of these are poetically listed as such:

• A neck like a conch shell
• A body like a banyan tree
• Eyelashes like a cow
• Thighs like a deer
• Chest like a lion
• Voice soft and clear as a duck's
• Dumps like a truck

In addition to this, her hair and eyes should be very black, she should have dainty hands and feet, small and well-recessed sexual organs and a set of twenty teeth.

After they find this girl with thighs like a what deer, they put her through a few more tests, including:

“spending a night alone in a room among the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes without showing fear.”

Once she’s declared a goddess her feet never touch the ground again and she never sees her family again.

By “never” what I really mean is – until she starts bleeding.  Yep, as soon as she starts menstruating its all over.  After she starts using her tampons, the Kumari  goes from being a goddess to an uneducated, socially awkward, and likely unfashionable pubescent child (Kanika?). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_(children)#Selection_process

• I’m going to do my best to hide my tattoo from my mom for 7 straight days.  However, there is a good chance I’ll want to go swimming and “take my chances.”  If this happens, I’ll probably wish a tiger had just nabbed me when I had the chance.

 

• Did you know that Buddha was born in Lumbini, Nepal?  We had the option to go here and see the shrine the Japanese funded or go paragliding near Pokhara.  I chose paragliding.  I’m sure it’ll be equally spiritually enlightening. 

Lastly - how cool is this flag?