koopkathmandu

The Yoma Yangon International Marathon, January 27, 2013.

The morning was still pitch-black when I left for the course at 4:30. So pitch-black that I managed to put on two different shoes without realizing it. (I would. I really, really would.) It wasn’t until I was walking into the starting gate that I noticed my gross miscalculation.

The grand goal of the day was to finish, and I finished! Matching shoes or not. It took me four hours and three minutes to cover those 42kms/26miles. Not exceptionally fast, but for my first one it was fast enough. I felt strong, light and damn near deer-like for most of it… at least until the last 10k. As unsightly and uncomfortable as those final few miles were, it felt good to revisit the pain cave. Its cavernous lair was as dark, grim and masochistically gratifying as I recalled.

Yangon’s first marathon was a two-way spectacle. On one side there were the overseas participants, observing the novelty of an inaugural event in Shwe Myanmar. On the other side there were the locals, observing the oddity an exotic ritual unfold in their backyard. The people of Myanmar haven’t had much, if any, exposure to events like this. The bizarre pageant of half-clothed humans voluntarily traversing the perilous main thoroughfares of Yangon undoubtedly caused some confusion. Nevertheless, they were extraordinarily enthusiastic about it all. I raked in a minimum of 15 high fives a kilometer. Special shout out to the blessed child that sprinted down her driveway to intercept my passing with a platter of peeled and segmented Satsumas. Saved by the buoyancy of citrus at mile 19 (excuse Hedberg’s French and the irrelevance of his jokes to the marathon).  

The fact that I enjoyed running a marathon gives me hope. If I can find meaning in a pastime as absurd as recreationally exhausting myself, I must be able to find meaning in other absurd pastimes. Namely, little ones like work and life. 

Till then, cheers to a goal accomplished and more marathons in my future!

When The Big Boss Came to Town

I first heard suspicions of an imminent Obama visit in the final weeks of October, but the Burmese whispers weren’t formally confirmed until after the election results. Since that official announcement, peeps have been giddy as hell over his arrival. Teashop owners, taxi drivers and hardware store clerks have gone wide-eyed when I say I’m from the United States. “What a wonderful country!” “Do you know Mr. Obama is coming here? To Myanmar??” “Such a beautiful country and beautiful president.” The warmth of this reception has been a sharp deviation from what I’ve come to expect as an American expatriate/traveler. A refreshing change of pace! If not slightly embarrassing. I’ve developed a Pavolv’s Dog-like conditioned reflex to brace myself at the disclosure of my Amurrican birth. Yet here the Obama/USA love fest was garishly a-flourish! At least from my limited observation. 

If you were wandering the streets of Yangon on November 19^th you would have thought it was public holiday. The Obama subject dominated water cooler conversation, bathroom conversation, commuter conversation —  you-name-it conversation. Every TV screen in every teashop that I passed was tuned into the live coverage of Obama’s six-hour power tour with every pair of eyes, glossed with expectancy, glued to the grainy and pixilated screen. Even when all the live stream offered was images of empty upholstered seats and a big band soundtrack, it relished in unrivaled attention from the Myanmar masses.  When word got out that Obama’s motorcade would be passing by our office there was a frenzied exodus to the street level… followed by 75 minutes of waiting for 12 seconds of epoch-marking euphoric bliss while his limo sped past.  

Okay, I’m being a bit cheeky.  Only because I felt silly standing on a corner and throwing elbows to catch a fleeting glimpse of tinted windows. In all seriousness though, the Presidential visit to Myanmar was indeed historical. The side trip was in accordance with his “pivot” towards the Pacific and geopolitically loaded. Two years ago, such a trip would have been unfathomable. As unlikely as finding Nicki Manaj guest speaking on a Joel Osteen televangelist broadcast.  Ok not really like that at all, but similarly farfetched nonetheless? As Obama noted in his speech this afternoon, “Over the past few decades our two countries have become strangers.” Now the times, they are a-changing. Obama continues:

When I took office as President, I sent a message to those governments who ruled by fear: ‘we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.’ And over the last year and a half, a dramatic transition has begun, as a dictatorship of five decades has loosened its grip. […] So today, I have come to keep my promise, and extend the hand of friendship. […] But this remarkable journey has just begun, and has much further to go. Reforms launched from the top of society must meet the aspirations of citizens who form its foundation. The flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished – they must become a shining North Star for this entire nation’s people.

***

Instead of being repressed, the right of the people to assemble together must now be fully respected.  Instead of being stifled, the veil of media censorship must continue to be lifted. As you take these steps, you can draw on your progress.  Instead of being ignored, citizens who protested the construction of the Myitsone dam were heard. Instead of being outlawed, political parties have been allowed to participate.  As one voter said during the parliamentary elections, “Our parents and grandparents waited for this, but never saw it.” And now you can see it. You can taste freedom.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s cool them Air Force One jets and reign in the enthusiasm for a hot minute. The transition is indisputably dramatic, but sweeping reforms are far from being felt at the lower and farther flung rungs of society. We hope broad-based impact on the lives of Myanmar people is in the pipeline.  Until then, very few have “seen” the tangible form or “tasted” the galvanizing tang of freedom that Obama alludes to. As Aung San Suu Kyi noted during her meeting with the President that same day, ”We have to be very careful that we’re not lured by the mirage of success.” 

When the time came for Obama’s speech to start, my coworkers huddled around our office television. The crowd, both in Local Resource Center and the amphitheatre at Yangon University, went wild when Obama stumbled awkwardly over his opening “Mingalabar!” greeting. Oh I see what you did there Obama, and I respect it. Yes, he knows exactly what I’ve learned over the past year and a half: elementary use of the language is the easiest way into an Asian stranger’s heart (besides rice and karaoke, of course). They eat that ish it up with a spoon. Hence why I purposefully stunt my progress in learning Burmese. Gotta work the disarming ineptitude that everyone seems to have a weakness for as long as possible.

Throughout the rest of his speech, Obama was characteristically calm, cool and collected. As was Hillary. Though perhaps a little too calm. I admire the woman to bits, but girl’s eyes looked like they were inlaid with lead.  She may or may not nodded off for a few moments during his speech.  Evidence that jet lag catches up with the best of us. Regardless of whether or not we’re sitting next to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, second row to history-making remarks and being spotlighted on nationally syndicated television.

In stark contrast to Hill-dawg’s torpor, my coworkers were frozen in rapt attention. The live translation in Burmese petered out halfway through Obama’s speech, which only intensified the attention they paid. The fervency of their focal and mental focus was palpable as they frisked Obamas stream of speech for words they could understand and draw meaning from.  When they nodded in agreement and clapped at a few of his crescendoing points, I felt a quiet welling of pride for my country and President. As we made our way back to our desks, I asked my coworkers what they thought. Most of them repeated the same appraisal: “We have so much to learn, and so much work ahead of us.”

[Note: please excuse the tardiness of this post! Full text of Obama’s remarks available here.]

Bagan, October 13-14

The greatest escape from Yangon thus far. All the standard trappings of an adventure in Asia were in attendance: a few thousand pagodas, staggering sunrises and sunsets, bicycles, boat rides, getting lost in a mud field after dark and overnight bus odysseys blaring god-awful Burmese pop into the early AM. A successful preliminary pilot for my Burmese sea legs. 

One last round up: Eight things that didn’t make the Koopkathmandu blog, but should have.

1.    Ramshackle blues

In the 60s and 70s, wagons full of rucksack wanderers set out for forgotten horizons and expanded consciousness along the hallowed ‘Hippie Trail.’   This ambitious hitchhiking route blazed its way from the UK, overland through Eastern Europe, Istanbul, Tehran, Herat, Kabul, Peshawar, Lahore and India to Nepal. For the dirty hippies that saw it through to the end, Kathmandu was a perfect climax: enshrined in Himalayas and overrun with hashish growing lush enough for picking by fist full. While dreadlocked heads still cobweb the corners of Kathmandu, the infamous “Freak Street” is only a shadow of the bohemian crunchiness it once epitomized.  Most of the so-called KTM Freaks eventually turned back, sold out and assumed senior executive positions back home. But some burnouts never left. 

Meet Desmond. On the heels of the Hippie Trail, his VW van was bound for Lhasa when it shuttered to a stop in Kathmandu. According to his narrative, they started to drive up the Himalayas but the damn van kept stalling and sliding back down into Kathmandu Valley.  So they stayed.

Desmond may have never made it to Lhasa, but he can sure as hell sing the blues. Every Monday night he posts up at Jazz Upstairs and performs with a poorly rehearsed but spirited ensemble that goes by Ramshackle Blues.  Sometimes accompanied and sometimes solo, Desmond brings Muddy Waters, Elmore James and B.B. King to the Monday night masses, with some Dylan and Hendrix thrown in for good measure. While the old guy can certainly rock out to a 12-bar blues scheme, the real highlights of the night are the pearls of wisdom he mutters into the microphone between songs.  E.g.:

• “Leaning Tower of Pisa needs two tons of viagara, that’s what it needs.”
• “Never pet a burning dog.”
• “I like nineteen year old girls.”
• “That war in Iraq could have been resolved a lot sooner if Jimmy Carter had just dumped peanut butter a meter thick all over the country and planted a million pole dancers over it.” (?!)

Transcendent brilliance. If he wasn’t pushing 70 and wearing crocs, I might just be in love. 

2. That awkward moment when you wake up the morning after Holi and find yourself on the front page of The Himalayan Times

Apparently my dancing at the neighborhood block party on Holi was deemed worthy of the front page.  As was a young couple eating each other’s faces. Hard hitting Nepali journalism at its finest.

3. Climbing Lobuche East (6,119m/20,075 ft)

Couldn’t front the $80,000 or the six weeks off work to climb Everest, so I settled for Lobuche East.  Only a piddling 9,000ft shorter, so you know, same same really. I briefly split from Walter during our trek through the Khumbu last April and met up with my guide Karma Sherpa for a two-day technical climb.  (Note: Karma has summitted Everest four times, nbd.) At the end of the first day we pitched our tent at high camp (18,372ft) and after feigning sleep for a few hours, set out for the summit at 3am. I was mercifully spared any negative effects from the altitude, so the only major limiting factor was my laughably amateur skill level. Nevertheless, my every move was very heavily supervised by Karmycats and the summit came off without a hitch! Smashed my standing highest altitude record by 6,000ft. I pray there will be more mountaineering in my future.

4.“A Funky Soul and Motown Set” and “Motown Revisited”

A bold-faced statement that I’ll throw all my weight behind: it was the best night ever. In collaboration with fellow Motown enthusiasts Erin and Evan, we compiled a funky soul/Motown set and hosted an evening of dance-laden merrymaking at one of Kathmandu’s premier discotheques, Casablanca Lounge. Yes, the establishment is as wonderfully kitsch as the name implies.  Our song choices may have been slightly self-indulgent, but that’s your prerogative when it’s your party. No matter how many times the Nepali Club Kids asked for house music we refused. Sorry we’re not sorry for having good taste. The event was a smashing success (if I do say so myself, which I am). So smashing that we did it again a few months later.  If there had to be one assailable aspect of our event, it might be that our music was too good. So groovy were the jams, and so possessed by the spirit of the Supremes was I, that I was utterly incapable of leaving the dance floor until the police pulled the plug. I left a tiny part of my soul on that dance floor that night — my humbly submitted prasad to the gods of Tamla Motown.

5. Getting lost and flirting with the idea of sleeping under a frozen boulder

Lesson learned. Don’t trek alone after dark in subfreezing temperatures  above 16,000ft in the Everest Region.  I don’t always make the brightest life choices, and while EBC and Kala Patthar were certainly spectacular, it may have been a bit overambitious to attempt both in one day. To make a long story short, it got very dark on my walk back to Lobuche at the end of the day and I got very lost. It was a proper comedy of errors, i.e. no compass or map, a low-lying cloud front obscuring any recognizable mountains to orient myself by, no food or extra warm clothes and my notoriously poor sense of direction.  After accepting that I was indeed lost, I experienced a sweeping array of emotions. There were intermittent panic attacks, some laughing, maybe a sprinkling of frozen tears and a moment when I splayed my tired bones over a boulder and thought that it might even be nice – nay, sublime! - to sleep under the stars on the edge of the Khumbu glacier for a night. That romanticism ebbed the moment I realized that my backpack was already encased in frost. After walking aimlessly in arbitrary directions for four hours, I did eventually find the trail and make my way back to the guesthouse before sunrise. No, I wouldn’t have died had I not found my way back – but I would have been very, very cold.

6. Kapacity Building

Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip cakes, scrambled eggs and microwave nachos… upon arriving to KTM, these specialties were the pitiful extent of my cooking skills. Chalk such culinary ineptitude up to a four-year meal plan at John Jay dining hall. It was easy enough to eat out every night in KTM, but lo and behold a dormant yearning for domestication started to rear its curlers covered head. Erin (one of my go-to-girls in KTM) on the other hand, is a spectacular cook. So we set up a weekly “kapacity building” program to improve my cooking skills. Each week I’d rally the necessary ingredients and she’d drop the knowledge. Standard kapacity building protocol prescribed that we each consume at least one bottle of red wine over the six hour training course and strictly listen to old timey country folk music. Always a highlight of my week.  My repertoire now includes foxy sounding dishes like Moroccan Vegetable Stew and Mediterranean Grilled Vegetable Salad.  As a capstone to my kapacity building program, I dropped nearly an entire month’s stipend on groceries and put on a tasty spread for thirty-some-odd people as part of a farewell party for me and Sheila. If that was domesticity, I don’t hate it.

7. The Natural History Museum

I’ve recently been enlightened to one of the greatest fringe benefits of living in a developing country: the poorly curated museums.   Not only is the Natural History Museum in Nepal poorly curated, it is an offense to each and every aspect of the human sensory system.  For a mere 50 rupees, you can cash in on enough nightmare fuel to last you a lifetime. The title is wildly misleading because nothing is natural about this museum. It is somewhere between a fun house from hell and the fusty shadow shrouded basement at your grandparents old house that always scared you ****less as a kid.  The crown jewel of the collection, which is prominently showcased immediately in front of the entrance, is a murky jar filled with bloated folds of mildewy flesh labeled “8 legged lamb.”  My other favorite jarred items included a human fetus and conjoined piglets. To add insult to injury, the museum is positively putrid. Taxonomy is clearly not this institutions strength, and the patchwork of animal hides that pattern the back wall permeate the museum space with the smell of rotting and moldering flesh.  The presentation techniques are similarly “rustic.” In the avian display, bird bodies are impaled by corroded nails that directly attach them to the museum walls. You’re welcome for forgetting my camera that day and thereby sparing you a week of queasy PTSD.

8. The Constitutional Circus

As the Kathmandu Post headlines ever so aptly observed a few months ago, “Nepal’s Constitution Proves a Hard Nut to Crack.” Apparently so. On May 28, the Constitutional Assembly was dissolved after failing to finish before the extension deadline (again). Four years of constitution drafting and Nepal remains a legal vacuum.

__________________________________________________________

I’ll never tire of rehashing Nepal, but enough for now. I’m six weeks deep into a new country and a new position, so I suppose it’s time to move on. Cheers to a brilliant, brilliant year in KTM.

Much like the Mustard Seed Grill & Pub in Newport Hills or A Touch of Dee in Harlem, Upper Mustang is sexy because it’s exclusive and overpriced.  The entrance permit alone costs $500 and the number of visitors is capped at 1,000 each year. Inconvenience and elusiveness however, only fuel my appetite for chasing tail. Blinded by desire for one last impassioned affair with the Himalayas, I set out for The Last Forbidden Kingdom on August 3.

I’m pleased to report that the hype didn’t disappoint. Mustang Sally turned out to be an even finer dime piece than anticipated. Our route meandered for twelve-days through monstrous spectacles of crumbling cliff, weather-beaten rock, cerulean sky and immense empty spaces. Red wasteland unfurled on unbounded courses in every direction. It was austerity incarnate; except for the localized pockets of green where irrigation innovations have given root to odd little villages that look wildly incongruous with the dry riverbeds that surround them (see picture 3). They actually remind me a lot of Las Vega$.  Okokok, maybe Mustang has less strippers and more yak herders — but both epitomize man’s incredible power to manage our natural environment and bend it to our will. 

The only facet of the trip that trumped the views was the company. We had an all-star cast starring Alexandra Celeste Angelo who she flew all the way from New York City to join the jaunt. That girl is a legend. Relishing in Alley Cat’s musky embrace whilst trekking through the desert was a magical adventure that has crystalized into a salty sweat-steeped memory that I’ll cherish forever. It may have made my final weeks in Nepal a little too sweet though. Such a fanfare finish set me up for a heart wrenching departure at the end of August. 

When we rolled back into dusty KTM, I felt as if I had exchanged a great and unbounded reality for a comparatively meager and manufactured one (a feeling that intensified ten fold when I landed in Bangkok three days later). I call it Post-Trekking Blues, and boy was this bout brutal. At least I can take solace in knowing that my removal from the wilderness is reversible whenever I wish.

Part of the deal in redeeming my “Free trek to Everest Base Camp” (courtesy of Mt Rainier fundraising efforts) was that I join one of Red Lantern’s group treks. When I heard that the “group” was going to be just one other person, I shuddered. Low (or no) reserve of substitute companionship raises the friendship-stakes perilously high. It’s like a randomly assigned roommate freshman year of college: you grip your hands in white knuckled prayer that your compulsory best friend doesn’t turn out to be one of those SWF or Declan types. 

When I found out that the one other person was a 63-year-old man from Connecticut named Walter, my shudder escalated to palpitation.  I don’t have anything against 60 year olds. Some of my all time faves are in their 60s. But ~Walter of Connecticut~ conjured visions of jaded Stepford yacht-clubbers clad in seersucker picking apathetically at cucumber-salmon-watercress finger sandwiches.  Three weeks was an intimate length of time to walk with anyone, let alone a sweater vested swashbuckler from CT. But a Stepford yacht-clubber Walter was not.  In fact, I could not have been further off the mark with this guy.

When we started out from Lukla, the sky churned itself into a ominous tumult and thunder pounded the Sagamartha foothills with a supernatural force that hummed through each vertebra of my spinal column. Was I approaching the Black Gates of Mordor? Felt like it. While I stopped to hide under an awning from the downpour that shortly followed, Walter plodded on. I watched from my shelter-of-shame as he barreled down the soggy craggy slope with the furious reckless course of a galloping troika. So it’s gonna be like that, ‘eh? Turns out the ole Pole had grit, spunk and speed.  In poetic justice for my prejudice, I found myself cast as the straggler trying desperately to keep pace.  I daintily tottered between slippery rocks while he bounded down with a fearlessness that I thought was reserved for ADHD kids under 10.

I quickly learned that this freakish vitality is hardly limited to his stride. It charges the way he lives, learns and loves with an indefatigable and contagious (dare I say it) sparkle. He’s recently retired, but thinking about moving to Argentina for a while to pick up Spanish. Why not, amiright? In his youth, he joined the fight against communism in Poland and in 2008 he campaigned door-to-door for Obama in Pennsylvania.  

Walter’s duffle bag was a land mine of tender tokens. His wife had seeded his pockets and socks with pastel post-it notes before he left CT, each scribbled with a sappy variation of “I love you.”  (I wonder how much I would have to pay to have someone do the same for me before my next vacation..)  As he peeled a lavender post-it from the breast pocket of his gore-tex jacket, he wisely advised me “If you’re 30, 40, 80 or 100 years old, it doesn’t matter. Romance is everything. If there’s no romance, then what’s the point? You might as well hire yourself a cook.” Well put.

More than a few times, Walter informed me that it’s not what you do in life but whom you share it with.  I guess that’s why he offered to sell me to a Dutch guy in Gokyo for three goats. Pfft. Clearly my charm qualifies me for a market price of at least four. Nevertheless, I appreciated his thoughtful attempt at matchmaking.

Dear Walt was the crème de la crème of walking partners for two reasons. (1) He pelted me with an endless arsenal of fun-size Snickers bars for three weeks. Few commodities cut me deeper or sweeter than second rate American chocolate. (2) At least a few times a day he’d interrupt our mindless alpine blather with an abrupt observation: “My friend, life is sweet.” Each syllable of that phrase would punch a hole through the veil of nonchalance we unwittingly resigned ourselves behind after particularly long stretches of steady trudging. The singularity and ineffable beauty of our immediate environment deserved ceaseless appreciation and wonder.  If I had one bone to pick with human beings, it’s that we so rarely notice it when we’re happy.  After a few weeks of Walter’s intermittent reminders however, he had me blissfully brainwashed.  Every day in the Khumbu I was impossibly happy, a slippery consciousness made tangibly present by mere acknowledgement.