My OperaWhirlwind and Freefall
Thursday, July 31, 2008 8:39:44 AM
This is a big blog, and you're going to want to read to the end of it, but don't skip to it.
Tess McEnroe, the University of Montana journalism student also interning here, left today. So naturally, the last few weeks have been full of packing, frantic gift purchases, and idle conversation about what we're looking forward to in the States and what we'll miss about Nepal. For my part, I had spent too much time at or near the office and not enough exploring Kathmandu. I was worried I would later have the inclination to say I hadn't seen as much as I had wanted. So with Lonely Planet in hand, I planned a whirlwind two-day bike tour of the Kathmandu valley. Instead of explaining the itinerary, I'll give it to you straight. This is what I saw and did.
On the first day, I got up long before the crack of dawn and took my rental bike to Swayambhunath, the enormous hilltop Buddhist stupa, one of the most well-known of Kathmandu's dozen or so UNESCO heritage sites. It's known as the "Monkey Temple," so I wasn't surprised to see whole battalions of monkeys running around, and rest assured I took plenty of pictures. But I didn't know that Swayambhu was also such a popular fitness destination:
At the stupa, there were just about as many joggers stretching as monkeys screaming, which is to say a lot, and plenty of people doing yoga. Of course, the stupa was pretty cool, too.
Next up on the list was the southern valley suburb of Kirtipur and its Bagh Bhairav temple. Shiva is the god of destruction, Bhairav is his "terrible incarnation" who often sports a necklace of skulls, and Bagh Bhairav is Bhairav's tiger form. But the temple itself was pretty tame. It's hard to be intimidated when one of most terrifying members of the Hindu pantheon looks like this:
So I moved on to better tigers, such as the one I was told I would be able to see in the Patan Central Zoo. I cycled into Patan, the big city in the southern valley, paid my 150 rupees, and found myself mostly depressed. These guys stared at me:
And this guy didn't look happy being jammed into a pen the size of a large closet:
And there were two Himalayan Black Bears in something like a big birdcage. But appalling as the conditions were, I was there to see the tiger (hadn't spotted one in Chitwan), and see it I would. Unfortunately, tigers being nocturnal, the hour I spent in front of the tiger compound was mostly fruitless. I saw flashes of its stripes as it wandered around its shadowed den, but mostly it was just getting up to find a new place to sleep. Then it rewarded my patience, lumbered out, and made a quick circuit of the compound. Imagine my surprise when it looked up at me:
I left satisfied, but not before getting extremely close to a leopard. This photo should help:
For the rest of the first day, I noodled around Patan's Durbar Square and gazed up at big pagodas. It's easy to waste a few hours when you do it in a place like this:
In the rain, I rode to my last day at work and had my final meeting with my editor. But there's no space to reflect on The Himalayan Times yet. I will say that I didn't turn in my press pass, and don't plan to. Then I went to bed, got up the next day, and embarked on Whirlwind Valley Bike Tour Day Two. I biked to Bhaktapur, the big city in the southeast valley, to see its Durbar Square, which included this gigantic five-storey pagoda...
...and plenty of temples, so many it's almost impossible to fit more than one in a single shot:
I biked up to the northern end of the valley to see the intricately carved Changu Narayan temple, itself a UNESCO heritage site:
Then my whirlwind slowed to a pitiful breeze when my bike broke down for the third time. I hired it for about 70 cents a day, so it was to be expected, but walking it everywhere landed me with a pretty bad temper and a sunburn. Still I managed to get to Boudhanath, the other great Kathmandu stupa:
Under the eyes of the Buddha, I turned some of the 108 prayer wheels and walked clockwise alongside hundreds of Tibetan exiles. I also hung out in one of several dozen Buddhist monasteries, got blessed by a lama or two, and enjoyed the artistic flair:
But I was tired, badly burned, and ready to turn in for the night, so after giving back my crappy bike, I went home and tucked myself in. Day three was going to be a big one. Here's the story:
Santosh, one of my THT coworkers, once mentioned a place not far away called The Last Resort,where he had been bungee jumping 32 times. He said they provided bus fare, lunch, and the jump for not so many rupees, and asked if I wanted to go. Well, sure, I said. I hadn't gone bungee jumping before, and if Santosh was a 32-jump veteran, surely the place was safe. It defied all the logic of Nepal that something like a rope should work all the time, in this place where everything from washing machines to politics malfunction routinely, but some research told me that it was actually a Swiss-built bridge, and could hold so-and-so amount of weight, and was perfectly safe. I decided to ignore Santosh's reports of people who went to the bridge, panicked, and simply wouldn't jump. So I signed up.
Turned out it was pretty expensive. Even with the 10% discount my THT press pass afforded me, it was $90, a not-inconsiderable fortune in Nepal. But I had to do it. The jump itself was 165 meters long, about 540 feet, making it either the second or third-highest in the world, the highest in Asia, and with better scenery than most. The prospect of bungee jumping in Nepal had me in its grips. So after two days of biking around the valley, I got on the Last Resort bus and headed up to the Bhote Kosi gorge, site of the jump.
"Five-hundred-forty feet high" is hard to grasp until you're five-hundred-forty feet high. And as we walked across the bridge for the first time to receive the safety lecture, I and the other jumpers (five Dutchmen, an Austrian, and an Australian) were lost for words. This is also not a situation photography can describe particularly well, either:
That doesn't even get close. Five-hundred-forty feet is three times the height of Niagara Falls. It's also one-half the Chrysler Building or about as high as the UN building, but those comparisons don't much get the idea either. What I had heard so many times was true: the only way you can tell how high 540 feet is by jumping. So when I, jumper number 69, finally found myself on the edge, I was that close to realization and too terrified to think about it. Then with a 3, 2, and 1, I spread out my arms and dove.
Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus.
The video, which was $30 and I didn't buy, shows me kicking my legs frantically during the three-second freefall. It also shows that I kept my arms out the whole time, frozen that way because I'm not sure I was capable of moving them, but my personal recollection is just one image. Like I said, photos are useless here, but it was a little like this:
I remember thinking I was very small, and that the gorge was very, very high. I remember saying "Oh my God" and "Oh my fucking God" over and over, and being overcome with something like an adrenaline monsoon. But three seconds was both very long and very short, and then I was bouncing up and down on the remarkably well-made bungee line, staring down at the Bhote Kosi, and thinking, "I gotta do this more often."
After walking all 540 feet back up the gorge, which was pretty tough on my still-wobbly knees, I got my promised free lunch, watched the video and laughed with my fellow jumpers. Then I bought a t-shirt and asked one of the Dutch guys to email me the photos he had taken of my jump. I might be able to put one up in a later blog. But for now, I just have the memory of freefall and the ticket stub, which says, "You are brave enough!" Well, thanks, Last Resort.
So back to the present. Tess left today and my dad arrives in a few hours. I've still got to shop like a madman, trek for a few days, and soak up what I can of Kathmandu. My own departure is creeping up on me. But the whirlwind and the freefall are out of the way, so I think I've earned a little rest.
Brendan
Tess McEnroe, the University of Montana journalism student also interning here, left today. So naturally, the last few weeks have been full of packing, frantic gift purchases, and idle conversation about what we're looking forward to in the States and what we'll miss about Nepal. For my part, I had spent too much time at or near the office and not enough exploring Kathmandu. I was worried I would later have the inclination to say I hadn't seen as much as I had wanted. So with Lonely Planet in hand, I planned a whirlwind two-day bike tour of the Kathmandu valley. Instead of explaining the itinerary, I'll give it to you straight. This is what I saw and did.
On the first day, I got up long before the crack of dawn and took my rental bike to Swayambhunath, the enormous hilltop Buddhist stupa, one of the most well-known of Kathmandu's dozen or so UNESCO heritage sites. It's known as the "Monkey Temple," so I wasn't surprised to see whole battalions of monkeys running around, and rest assured I took plenty of pictures. But I didn't know that Swayambhu was also such a popular fitness destination:
At the stupa, there were just about as many joggers stretching as monkeys screaming, which is to say a lot, and plenty of people doing yoga. Of course, the stupa was pretty cool, too.
Next up on the list was the southern valley suburb of Kirtipur and its Bagh Bhairav temple. Shiva is the god of destruction, Bhairav is his "terrible incarnation" who often sports a necklace of skulls, and Bagh Bhairav is Bhairav's tiger form. But the temple itself was pretty tame. It's hard to be intimidated when one of most terrifying members of the Hindu pantheon looks like this:
So I moved on to better tigers, such as the one I was told I would be able to see in the Patan Central Zoo. I cycled into Patan, the big city in the southern valley, paid my 150 rupees, and found myself mostly depressed. These guys stared at me:
And this guy didn't look happy being jammed into a pen the size of a large closet:
And there were two Himalayan Black Bears in something like a big birdcage. But appalling as the conditions were, I was there to see the tiger (hadn't spotted one in Chitwan), and see it I would. Unfortunately, tigers being nocturnal, the hour I spent in front of the tiger compound was mostly fruitless. I saw flashes of its stripes as it wandered around its shadowed den, but mostly it was just getting up to find a new place to sleep. Then it rewarded my patience, lumbered out, and made a quick circuit of the compound. Imagine my surprise when it looked up at me:
I left satisfied, but not before getting extremely close to a leopard. This photo should help:
For the rest of the first day, I noodled around Patan's Durbar Square and gazed up at big pagodas. It's easy to waste a few hours when you do it in a place like this:
In the rain, I rode to my last day at work and had my final meeting with my editor. But there's no space to reflect on The Himalayan Times yet. I will say that I didn't turn in my press pass, and don't plan to. Then I went to bed, got up the next day, and embarked on Whirlwind Valley Bike Tour Day Two. I biked to Bhaktapur, the big city in the southeast valley, to see its Durbar Square, which included this gigantic five-storey pagoda...
...and plenty of temples, so many it's almost impossible to fit more than one in a single shot:
I biked up to the northern end of the valley to see the intricately carved Changu Narayan temple, itself a UNESCO heritage site:
Then my whirlwind slowed to a pitiful breeze when my bike broke down for the third time. I hired it for about 70 cents a day, so it was to be expected, but walking it everywhere landed me with a pretty bad temper and a sunburn. Still I managed to get to Boudhanath, the other great Kathmandu stupa:
Under the eyes of the Buddha, I turned some of the 108 prayer wheels and walked clockwise alongside hundreds of Tibetan exiles. I also hung out in one of several dozen Buddhist monasteries, got blessed by a lama or two, and enjoyed the artistic flair:
But I was tired, badly burned, and ready to turn in for the night, so after giving back my crappy bike, I went home and tucked myself in. Day three was going to be a big one. Here's the story:
Santosh, one of my THT coworkers, once mentioned a place not far away called The Last Resort,where he had been bungee jumping 32 times. He said they provided bus fare, lunch, and the jump for not so many rupees, and asked if I wanted to go. Well, sure, I said. I hadn't gone bungee jumping before, and if Santosh was a 32-jump veteran, surely the place was safe. It defied all the logic of Nepal that something like a rope should work all the time, in this place where everything from washing machines to politics malfunction routinely, but some research told me that it was actually a Swiss-built bridge, and could hold so-and-so amount of weight, and was perfectly safe. I decided to ignore Santosh's reports of people who went to the bridge, panicked, and simply wouldn't jump. So I signed up.
Turned out it was pretty expensive. Even with the 10% discount my THT press pass afforded me, it was $90, a not-inconsiderable fortune in Nepal. But I had to do it. The jump itself was 165 meters long, about 540 feet, making it either the second or third-highest in the world, the highest in Asia, and with better scenery than most. The prospect of bungee jumping in Nepal had me in its grips. So after two days of biking around the valley, I got on the Last Resort bus and headed up to the Bhote Kosi gorge, site of the jump.
"Five-hundred-forty feet high" is hard to grasp until you're five-hundred-forty feet high. And as we walked across the bridge for the first time to receive the safety lecture, I and the other jumpers (five Dutchmen, an Austrian, and an Australian) were lost for words. This is also not a situation photography can describe particularly well, either:
That doesn't even get close. Five-hundred-forty feet is three times the height of Niagara Falls. It's also one-half the Chrysler Building or about as high as the UN building, but those comparisons don't much get the idea either. What I had heard so many times was true: the only way you can tell how high 540 feet is by jumping. So when I, jumper number 69, finally found myself on the edge, I was that close to realization and too terrified to think about it. Then with a 3, 2, and 1, I spread out my arms and dove.
Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus.
The video, which was $30 and I didn't buy, shows me kicking my legs frantically during the three-second freefall. It also shows that I kept my arms out the whole time, frozen that way because I'm not sure I was capable of moving them, but my personal recollection is just one image. Like I said, photos are useless here, but it was a little like this:
I remember thinking I was very small, and that the gorge was very, very high. I remember saying "Oh my God" and "Oh my fucking God" over and over, and being overcome with something like an adrenaline monsoon. But three seconds was both very long and very short, and then I was bouncing up and down on the remarkably well-made bungee line, staring down at the Bhote Kosi, and thinking, "I gotta do this more often."
After walking all 540 feet back up the gorge, which was pretty tough on my still-wobbly knees, I got my promised free lunch, watched the video and laughed with my fellow jumpers. Then I bought a t-shirt and asked one of the Dutch guys to email me the photos he had taken of my jump. I might be able to put one up in a later blog. But for now, I just have the memory of freefall and the ticket stub, which says, "You are brave enough!" Well, thanks, Last Resort.
So back to the present. Tess left today and my dad arrives in a few hours. I've still got to shop like a madman, trek for a few days, and soak up what I can of Kathmandu. My own departure is creeping up on me. But the whirlwind and the freefall are out of the way, so I think I've earned a little rest.
Brendan
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