Terminal Monkey

This is monkey, coming to you LIVE from Changi Airport Terminal 1.

Yeah I'm such a cheapskate, can't let go of a single opportunity to partake in anything F R E E... even if I'm just moments from my own high speed internet from the comfort of my own living room, without the burden of my cabin luggage.

Alas, terminal 1 these days are just so... terminal 2-ish! When I arrived I swear I thought I was at T2. There's even all these security checks which we were beginning to think synnonymously with nepal's manual body searches.

Well fans, the monkey is home. See you soon for another round of DDD on Oct 1 and pray you got some gift from the mystic mountains of nepal courtesy of the nepali bandar-ni.

But yes of course, I picked up a few words of nepali. Couldn't resist ;)

PS: portable HDD broke down so now... the photos might have been... *wail* compromised. thought of all of you plenty... yep... erm especially when whining to everybody how there are no ducks in nepal. argh it was freaking distressing. So on the last day, we decided to feast on some ginger ducks instead. bleh it was tougher than rock. must be all the mountain climbing they did.

Some interesting tidbits

Here are some things quaint about Nepal:


Small doors? The city of Kathmandu was built almost 2000 years ago!

- the doors in Nepalese houses, especially the old ones (think hundred of years), have very small and low doors. The guide explains that this is because they believe there are house spirits who reside within the house and when the door frame is so small and low, you'd always have to bow before you enter the house and this ensure you shows respect to the gods and spirits within! :)


Vote for tree? ALWAYS!

- Actually that's the symbol of a political party in Nepal *grin*

Monkey in Nepal

Monkey went exploring in Nepal and found more of her kind being worshipped in a tibetan buddhist temple in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Ah well, I thought wrong. I thought I wouldn't be able to blog or even come online in the "ulu" land of the himalayas. But yes, I was wrong. The cybercafes litter the streets, more than Chiang Rai was for sure!

Then I thought, my parents would never let me go for it. In fact, mama says she'll leave me behind if i went for it. But the next day, papa says, hey there are like cybercafes going for SGD50cents an hour! Go for it! ... I've been at this for 22 minutes and I still have no idea what the going rate at this cybercafe is.

Well I'm going to try to upload more pictures before the end of the day. So remember to go to my flickr account.

I'm not having a great time here. The place is beautiful, I love everything about it cept for the company. Remind me NEVER to go on a trip with my parents and their cronies senior citizen friends. They talk louder than me when I shout. I'm having heart seizures (seriously) trying to be the middle person/translator for the tour guide and the demanding old folks.

Yes, a monkey with my temperament cannot deal with them. Yes I make a good tourguide, they all agree but I cannot be a good tour companion when I have to suffer their words. Thank god the tour guides don't know what they are saying.

Yes the tour guides are family by marriage and I really enjoy getting to know more about them. One of my cousin-in-law's brother in my age and it's fun hanging out with him.

Alright enough of this. I SWEAR I will definitely come back to nepal again, WITH suitable company. Definitely. sigh. I want to explore, I want to hike and trek. I want to... well I guess be like those backpackers but not on a budget. I want to live here for a while. I think I just love the lifestyle (not in the city) but then such as in the village in Chiang Rai... What I really want to do is get to know the people culture and lifestyle. Maybe a research is in order. Afterall, ecotourism is so prevalent here. Even the arrival declaration form has a long list of rules and regulations (akin to our "do not bring drugs to singapore") that states how people should treat the environment. Not to litter, not to enter the ranges without permit etc. Actually the locals don't climb the mountains because to them those are the gods and what are we doing defiling their sacred mountains? sigh. For the sense of conquest?

For some facts and points of reference, I arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday and stayed over a night. Next day we left for Pokhara where I am now. We were supposed to have left and gone to Jomsome today but then the weather was bad and the flight to the mountain village of jomsome was cancelled *sniff* :( Well instead we went for a city tour of Pokhara. Yesterday we boated around the lake. Today we went to see a river that plunges 100m into the ground and continues as a subterranean river. Later we visited a Tibetan Refugee camp and went to a village in the mountain, Sarangkot where we got a relatively good view of the Pokhara Valley and the Anupurna Mountain Range and the highest point in that range - the Fishtail peak. heh Too bad clouds were pretty bad. We got a glimpse though. The photo is really poor at that.

I got a postcard for erkie because she requested that would be the best present for her. Unfortunately, I really have no idea what to get for duck, joe and W. It's really tough. *sigh* I got a tshirt of the map of the anupurna range trekking route. lol that is so typical me. duck, im trying very hard to find mountain ducks here and short of buying the duck people rear, I haven't found any nice scultpures yet. Monkeys, plenty though. heh ;)

Well, tune in next time when I decide to splurge on internet again. *besos!*

Monkey off to Nepal

All packed and ready to go

So off I go to the land of the Himalayas and Mount Everest, the meeting point of the Eurasian plate and the Indian subcontinent, where the collision of these two continental plate created one of the most massive mountain chains on our blue planet. Ah well, you can take a geographer away from geography but you can't take geography away from her.

Adieu dear friends! See you in 9 days!