Nepali Influences

Now two weeks into India and our yoga adventure, I've had time to reflect upon our time and backpack/trek through the Himalayas. Nepal scenery flashes before my mind's eye during daily meditation and I fall more in love with the experience every time.

The trek was different than any other backpacking we've done before because you don't have to worry about carrying your tent, stove or food. Everything in the way of food and accommodation is available. That's not to say it isn't challenging because hiking for 19 days and 130+ miles pushed us physically and mentally. The elevation gain from 2,700 ft to over 17,700 ft definitely stretched us and hardened our boot-derived calluses. But wonderful and enchanting it was.

Beyond the magical scenery that unfolded as the mist and rain cleared, the people were a true delight. The Nepali people were all extremely nice and very accommodating. As we climbed higher into the mountains, the Tibetan influence became stronger and it was here that Amalia & I fell in love with the Tibetan people. Genuine souls whose friendliness and welcoming nature seem unbounded. 

It's funny but when you are in the midst of an experience some of the beauty and subtlety is lost to your grossest senses, but later on with time to reflect, missed sublime impressions slowly wash over you in waves of enlightenment. It's as if your in-the-moment consciousness allows only the most "pertinent" details to occupy your mind and lets the other impressions sift into your memory for later review and computation. If you take the time post-experience to let these memories re-emerge, deeper lessons and intuitions-missed will integrate into your full, overarching consciousness. For that reason, many experiences are lost to time because we are generally too busy to be in the moment and too busy to sit back and let the memories unfold their most profound lessons. And strangely only years later do we realize the importance of those moments lost, often to the detriment of relationships and our personal growth.

So for now, I am blessed to have both the wonderful experiences and the time after to discover and savor the truest "marrow from the bone." One piece of wisdom thus learned is to never let the true moments of friendship or beauty be washed over by details or perceived duties.

In our philosophy class yesterday, we asked the eternal question, why are we here?

We are here to hear one another.

There is no greater task or accomplishment we must reach other than to connect and truly understand our fellow human beings. All things material and immaterial can and will fall away, leaving only our relationships with any lasting meaning.

On Top of the World #2

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The next part of our journey involved a several day long ascent which would culminate in crossing a mountain pass. The pass, called Thorung La, was a whopping 17,872 feet (5416 meters for all you Canadians out there…which brings up another point…why aren’t we on the metric system?) Anyway, the reason its important to go up slowly is that there is a real danger of altitude sickness – fluid leaking from the blood vessles into the brain and lungs which causes you to “drown” in a matter of hours. This is very easily preventable by taking it slow so we took our time meandering through medieval looking stone villages.

Most villages had a local temple, a “gompa”, which was filled spectacular frescoes, artwork and musical instruments. They were technically Buddhist, but one could tell from the artwork that there was a lot of Hindu influence.

The village of Manang, the biggest town on this side of the pass. According to Lonely Planet “Manang knows what trekkers dream about in their sleeping bags at night and they have it all”. They weren’t kidding. The first thing to greet our weary eyes was a shop window stuffed with all kinds of fresh pasteries. We were in heaven. We were also happily reunited with our friends Chris and Jessica who we had lost shortly after my boots.

There are two kinds of trekkers on the trail, those who have porters and those who don’t (a porter is someone who carries all your stuff for you). We were in the latter category, but we were astonished to come across a troupe from the British army who had 1 porter for every 2 men. Glad they’re not defending my country! They kind of became the running joke of the trail since all they seemed to have brought was booze and cricket equipment.

As we ascended it got colder and colder and we were thankful that we had invested in down jackets and sleeping bags even though it seemed silly at the time in blistering hot Kathmandu. It was all fog and rain and we held out crossing the pass for a few days in hopes of getting some sun so we could see those amazing views. Alas it was not to be and so when we couldn’t wait any longer, we crossed the pass in the snow.

The most difficult part was not actually crossing the pass, it was going down the other side, 5100 ft., 3 hours, straight down. We ended up in the town of Muktinath where there was a fabulous hotel that served pizza! Muktinath is one of the holiest cities in Nepal and pilgrims come from all over to visit and bathe in the 108 cow head water spouts. I collected some “holy water” in my water bottle and asked Patrick “if I purify this water is it still holy?” There is also an interesting phenomenon in that area which is a perpetual flame that burns off of natural gas.

This side of the pass was very different than the other side because it had a road. Although it was much more convenient and you didn’t have to hire people to carry supplies in, it lost something of the personal feel. We were also constantly being pushed off the trail by jeeps and we resented that.

There were a few rewards on this side: one was a town called Tatopani which had a major hotsprings, another was a pack of Langur monkeys and the best was a place called Poon Hill. To get to Poon Hill you had to make the biggest climb of the whole trek – 5600 ft. – but we finally had sun! We got an amazing panorama of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges. We were so happy that we had finally gotten to see our mountains that we decided to end on a high note and make that our last day.

Rishikesh, India

Here are some random images from our stay in the original home of the ancient rishis of India. We have not found any rishis yet, but there are a lot things to do, places to see and plenty to learn.

We are not wasting our time, as our days are filled with yoga and meditation by Mother Ganga, flute lessons, massage courses, wildlife viewing and lots of reading. Going much deeper into the science, philosophy and practices of yoga. :)

The Holiest of Holies - Sikh Style

After finally uprooting ourselves from three months of intensive self-study in Rishikesh, we arrived via overnight express in the city of Amritsar in the Punjab.

Amritsar lies less than thirty miles from the border of Pakistan and is the home of the holiest site in Sikhism, the Golden Temple.



The city's name is derived from the pool of nectar (water) surrounding the temple, the amrit samovar.

Given the close ties between Sikhism and the kundalini yoga style we often practice, a visit to the temple was high on our list and it did not disappoint.

Never before have we encountered any people like the Sikhs. For the most part, they were overly gracious, helpful and not-too-pushy to sell you something (a novel concept in India). The facilities around the temple were amazing while the temple itself was spectacular.

A prominent feature of Sikhism is the welcoming of all peoples, from all backgrounds and all religions. The kitchen in the temple complex is open twenty-four hours a day, everyday, and feeds between 50-80,000 people per day for FREE. Those numbers are not a joke.


It is a wild experience because you just follow the lines where you are handed an aluminum plate, bowl and silverware, funnelled into large halls with long runners to sit on with a thousand plus other people, and fed by men who dish out all-you-can-eat dal, beans, rice porridge and chapati from large stainless steel buckets and wicker baskets. Afterwards you can help clean up in long dish cleaning stations or even help in the massive kitchens. How they fund or man such enormous operations is mind-boggling, but profoundly beautiful.

As for the temple, if ever I could imagine a building housing the divine in my soul, the Golden Temple would be it. Maybe it's the supposed 750kg of gold glimmering on the top, but somehow I couldn't help but sit mesmerized by its visage. I'm positive that the countless amicable pilgrims walking around it and bathing in the sacred waters generated ample good vibes, but just sitting there gazing on the temple brought spontaneous smiles to our faces.
Being back in a bustling large city was both exciting and challenging. In addition to the copious amount of turbans available, both meat and alcohol were back on the menus. We found ourselves being very timid with the ordering of either but were pleased at finding some lovely coffee houses to take brief respites from hustle.

While the temple was the highlight, we were awfully cold and ended up cutting short our trip through Rajastan by catching a flight out of Delhi to the south into the former Portugese colony of Goa. That move made Amalia, my little California girl, very, very happy. :)

While in Goa we'll be meditating on the golden temples in our hearts as we warm up laying in the sun and soaking in the Arabian Sea. And since we have opted to rent a small apartment just off the beach for a month, we'll have ample time to do just that.

We know, it's a rough life but someone's got to live it. ;)

PS, click on the last picture to open in a bigger window & tell us what's happening in the shot.

Dark Canyon, hot-as-blazes

Streets of Hong Kong