March 2003 Archives

Mumbai

We have left kathmandu yesterday morning... and it s a bit ironic : when we arrived there it was the day of Holi, a day of party and laughs, we could hear the laughs of the entire city from the terrasse of our hotel... and we left yesterday during a demontration against the war...
i haven t really paid attention carefully to what was going on in Iraq.. i ve heard some of the cnn and the bbc programs yelling from some tv set sometimes... but it seems to be such a propaganda from the british and the us government that i don t want to listen to them...
i ll try to get real information on the internet when i ll be back in france...
i am just a bit scarred of something : the anti americanism starts to grow up everywhere, here in India, among muslims but also indians, nepali... and foreigners tourits.. i hope it wont turn into racism and hate...
i really think that the internet is the best way to have real information about this war...
Yesterday evening we went in Dadar, in a kind of muslim area, in the suburbs of Mumbai... it was a bit weird to be there... like white westerners alone in a cab... but it was an interesting situation, everybody seemed a bit surprised to see us there, but no one were agressive or mad about us. just surprise, no hate. But it s a bit weird... in india and in nepal, people try sometimes to know if we are americans... and they seem satisfied to know that we are french... it must be so hard for americans to travel right now!!!
well that s it for today...

Here in Mumbai the weather is very hot... and as usual there are beautiful setting suns... each time i am here i notice that the setting suns are so georgious!

thanks for reading!

Katmandu, Nepal

Back from Pokhara yesterday evening, after an harrassing journey ...
Usually it takes 6 hours to drive from Pokhara to Kathmandu by bus, but yesterday it has took us 14 hours! yes, 14 hours !
We have been stuck for 5 hours, because a piece of land has fallen on the road, then we have "broke" a tyre, so the driver had to change the wheel, and after we have been blocked 3 hours because of an accident, then later, 2 more hours because of a broken truck, and then it has started to rain, with thunders and stuffs...
So at the end of the day i was happy to crawl in a bed.

Pokhara is a nice place, surrounded by the mountains... but the problem is that everything has been made specially for tourists there. It s not really Nepal, it s just another turistic area where everything is more expensive than anywhere else in Nepal. and in this kind of place you cant feel anything else but a tourist, because everyone consider you this way... so you can t have real contacts with the locals, they just want to make business with you, they are not interested in who you are at all.

But this is something weird in Nepal: a lot of people are living from tourism. It seems they don t have many other ressources. They have beautiful mountains, but that s it. So they are over-exploiting tourism, and it s too much for me. This is "so" made for tourists so i just have the need to boycott it ! by example if you wanna go for a small trek in the mountains onyour own, just to spend 2or 3 days alone or with friends, then you have to pay 2 000 roupies (around 30 euros) per head just to get the permit to go walking in the mountains!
i just can t pay for that, to me the nature is free!
and also in Katmandu you have to pay 200 roupies (around 5 euros} just to visit some touristic squares, like Durbar Square or Patan. 200 roupies per head! that sucks! of course it s not that much expensive for foreigners, but this way of thinking "taking as much money as we can from foreigners" annoy me.
I ve met a couple of spanish, the guy came in Nepal 4 years ago and he told me that you didn t have to pay to go to Patan or Durbar square then... so it seems it s a new thing.
Well that s it for today, because this keyboard is driving me nuts!

thanks for reading!

Have reached Nepal yesterday at 1pm, during the day of Holi, a very special day, in India and in Nepal: it s a day of holiday, when everyone play throwing colours and water on others. From the top of my hotel, we could hear the laughs coming from the whole valley, it was amazing.
Today i have spent my day hanging around in Swayambhunat Stupa, a really beautiful place.
Nepal seems to be a beautiful country, the people here are very friendly and they don t really pay attention to you... which is a real change when you come from India!! India is a magic country, full of things that only happen in India... but sometimes, in the big cities it s a bit harrassing because people keep on asking you things and trying to sell you stuffs. Here in katmandu, nobody really cares about you.
But actually it s funny, i think we are a bit too much used to India, we are very "aware"... i mean people are very nice and friendly, but i can not help it, i always expect them to try to sh*t me a bit or to be only interested in selling me something at the end! i know, it s such a bad habit, and i promise, i am going to give it away !

Well that s it for today, because i am tired, i have been walking all the day!

Thanks for reading,

Majnu Katilla (Old Delhi) India.

Arrived in Delhi this morning after 2 nights and a day and half in a train...
(this computer is driving me nuts, it s bugging all the time!)
i am so impatient to leave Delhi... i don t like this city... as usual, it s so so so much polluted, it s hard to breath and it really stinks.
These 2 weeks in Mundgod with my tibetan family was as usual, so great... and i ve done all the works i had to do for the organization i am involved in, in the tibetan settlement. But there is still a lot to do when i ll be back in france: like collecting funds for many projects to help the tibetan community there... and trying to find sponsors to help the tibetan students and elder persons... yes there is still a lot to do!
2 days ago, when we left our tibetan family at the railway station of Hubli, it was a sad moment... but this time nobody cried.Iit was a bit hard when we left the monastry in the morning... seeing all the young monks in line, with their katags ( a white scarf in sign of friendship) some were about to cry and looked very sad to see us leaving. My young friend, Lobsang Digme couldn t stop to stare at me and i admitt it was a bit hard to stand... and my eyes were a bit wet behind my sunnies...

I am now staying in Majnu ka Tilla, the tibetan refugee camp of Delhi, and to me it s the worst of india. The settlement is all along a highway, and is surrounded by garbage and wastes. It s a sad place... tibetans look exhausted trying to live in all this... youngs are really get bored and just don t see the point, so they drink and take drugs... there are a lot of kind of germs here.. and people are afraid to go the hospital because it seems there are some organ traffics running there... it makes me really sad to see the conditions of living of the tibetan community here...
it s not the fisrt time i come here, so i should be a kind of used to it... but i think i ll could never be used of that.

Anyway, i leave on monday for Kathmandu, and it gonna be my first time in Nepal! i have travelled all over in india, but i have never been there.
i already went close to the boarder in Sikkhim, in 2000, but i have never crossed it... i am so happy!

Hubli, India - thursday 06th march 2003

Tashi delek from india

i am spending the tibetan new year with my tibetan family, in the south of india and i am taking billions of pictures, as usual.
everything is fine, india is still india: beautiful, kind and friendly.
i am here in this cyber cafe with my young friend thupten kalsang, who is wondering about what am i doing... probably one of these weird stuffs i use to do...

thanx for reading,

take care