Varanasi, India
November 30, 2012
Altitude: 1,010'
In the end, Nepal still has the ability to astound. What's not to like about viewing the world's highest mountains. How amazing is it walk around Medieval Newari villages, coexisting just outside the chaos of Kathmandu. What's not to like about seeing rhinos coming to the river to drink at dusk or elephants lumbering down the only street in Sauraha.
But in the end, Nepal was a bit of a disappointment as well as a lesson very well learned. At the end of the 1998-1999 world trip Nepal came in at #1 of the 25 countries I visited. But it's been 14 years between visits and it's mighty hard to stay #1 for that long.
A lot had changed in the travel world since the turn of the 21st century.
In the end Nepal was simply overrun with tourists. In the past you could always expect the usual assortment of Central Europeans, North Americans and Australians. But the past decade has been good to the Chinese and to Eastern Europeans, all of who were in huge numbers. Add to that mix a generous share of retired boomers and you get the idea.
In the end I was happy to get out of the major tourist hubs. I stayed six days in Chitwan, living in my own bungalow, sitting on its front porch, reading the afternoon away. In the late afternoon I'd go down to the river, watch the sunset, eat, and go to bed early. It wold be the quite, I knew, before the storm of India.
In the end it's hard to top Thanksgiving with the elephants. And while I missed home, it was a wonderful day.
In the end, I may come back, but I doubt it. I learned a valuable lesson. You truly can't go home again. The Nepal that existed in my memory was still there, but it was more crowded, dirtier. I was not seeing the country through the same eyes I saw it from in 1998.
The Pokhara I remember was a small town at the base of the Annapurnas. There were few cars and it didn't take long to bike out of town into an agrarian world that hadn't changed much in centuries.
But this year! This year motorcycles raced around me. screaming paragliders who'd jumped off a cliff several thousand feet higher were descending. Range Rovers raced by me as I rode my bike out of the city.
You really can't go home again. The places in the world I hold special were experienced a long time ago.
I remember renting an inner tube in the small Laotian village of Vang Viene and lazily drifting down its river,past a herd of water buffaloes, past women modestly bathing by its banks.
I've read where Vang Vien is now the adventure capital of Laos. The images I hold of that special place probably dont' exist anymore.
I remember sleeping on sandy Greek beaches, "showering" at local tavernas. I know that's illegal now, and I certainly wouldn't want to replicate it, but it's a fond memory.
I remember touring Anchor Wat in Cambodia with only a large handful of tourists. The road back to Phenom Phen had just opened. Hue potholes existed where landmines had recently been removed. Now more than a million people visit that site each year, many flying in just for the day from Bangkok.
There are a million other images. What I learned is that I'm not going back to some of these places. They would never equal what they were when I first saw the,
Still, in the end, Nepal was nice. But it wasn't the Nepal I remember.
And that's OK.
November 30, 2012
Altitude: 1,010'
In the end, Nepal still has the ability to astound. What's not to like about viewing the world's highest mountains. How amazing is it walk around Medieval Newari villages, coexisting just outside the chaos of Kathmandu. What's not to like about seeing rhinos coming to the river to drink at dusk or elephants lumbering down the only street in Sauraha.
But in the end, Nepal was a bit of a disappointment as well as a lesson very well learned. At the end of the 1998-1999 world trip Nepal came in at #1 of the 25 countries I visited. But it's been 14 years between visits and it's mighty hard to stay #1 for that long.
A lot had changed in the travel world since the turn of the 21st century.
In the end Nepal was simply overrun with tourists. In the past you could always expect the usual assortment of Central Europeans, North Americans and Australians. But the past decade has been good to the Chinese and to Eastern Europeans, all of who were in huge numbers. Add to that mix a generous share of retired boomers and you get the idea.
In the end I was happy to get out of the major tourist hubs. I stayed six days in Chitwan, living in my own bungalow, sitting on its front porch, reading the afternoon away. In the late afternoon I'd go down to the river, watch the sunset, eat, and go to bed early. It wold be the quite, I knew, before the storm of India.
In the end it's hard to top Thanksgiving with the elephants. And while I missed home, it was a wonderful day.
In the end, I may come back, but I doubt it. I learned a valuable lesson. You truly can't go home again. The Nepal that existed in my memory was still there, but it was more crowded, dirtier. I was not seeing the country through the same eyes I saw it from in 1998.
The Pokhara I remember was a small town at the base of the Annapurnas. There were few cars and it didn't take long to bike out of town into an agrarian world that hadn't changed much in centuries.
But this year! This year motorcycles raced around me. screaming paragliders who'd jumped off a cliff several thousand feet higher were descending. Range Rovers raced by me as I rode my bike out of the city.
You really can't go home again. The places in the world I hold special were experienced a long time ago.
I remember renting an inner tube in the small Laotian village of Vang Viene and lazily drifting down its river,past a herd of water buffaloes, past women modestly bathing by its banks.
I've read where Vang Vien is now the adventure capital of Laos. The images I hold of that special place probably dont' exist anymore.
I remember sleeping on sandy Greek beaches, "showering" at local tavernas. I know that's illegal now, and I certainly wouldn't want to replicate it, but it's a fond memory.
I remember touring Anchor Wat in Cambodia with only a large handful of tourists. The road back to Phenom Phen had just opened. Hue potholes existed where landmines had recently been removed. Now more than a million people visit that site each year, many flying in just for the day from Bangkok.
There are a million other images. What I learned is that I'm not going back to some of these places. They would never equal what they were when I first saw the,
Still, in the end, Nepal was nice. But it wasn't the Nepal I remember.
And that's OK.
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