TravelStream™ news feed for member kyewix on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/kyewix en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:49:30 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1251844675/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1251844675/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1251844675/tpod.html Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:49:30 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

I have a friend who I wanted to visit while I was in China. Anthea. She came to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2005 to study at the U of A. She lives in Guangzhou and she invited me to visit her in China if I came to China. It was a fantastic visit. We visited Yuexiu Park and the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall. She helped me get a new camera and backpack (after my old ones were stolen in Yangshuo) and to fix my watch (a pin broke when I chased after the backpack thieves). It was great hanging out with her, learning more about her and seeing the city she lived in. I wanted to meet her husband as well but, unfortunately, he was too busy during the week I was there. He and Anthea teach at university. Anthea also works for a small Dutch company which makes specialized oil ship attachments.I also met another friend, Paul, on a day-trip to Shenzhen. I met Paul in Yangshuo. We wandered around this huge, beautiful park in Shenzhen which was quite nice. It was great to see him again. Shenzhen is right next to Hong Kong (you can take the Hong Kong metro from the Shenzhen Lu Ho bus station and the 2 cities can see each other across the water). Shenzhen is a rich, booming city which grew from nothing in the last couple decades because China created a "Special Economic Zone" next to Hong Kong. Paul said there wasn't much to see but the park was impressive and quite pleasant.Guangzhou is a prosperous city. They speak Cantonese just like Hong Kong (they also have to speak Mandarin: in school, university and from TV). They have a lot of ties to Hong Kong. Many of the Chinese immigrants in the West apparently come from this Chinese province. It has a lot of prosperity from being near the industry in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It's not a bad city.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250889173/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250889173/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250889173/tpod.html Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:04:55 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China

I had a wonderful time in Yangshuo and made some great Chinese friends. I met Tim, Chen, Iris and Paul (their English names). I had a blast with them! On the main night we had dinner, went down to the riverfront, had some beers, then went to a bar and had a great, fun time! Tim and Chen are university students who came to Yangshuo for their summer holiday. They are laid-back, good guys. Iris is a younger teacher and is trying to improve her English. She is fun, spirited and easy to hang out with. Paul works in Shenzhen and is between jobs in IT. He's sincere, outgoing and I relate to him well. They were all great people and I hope to keep in touch with them. I met them through Allen, an old, British English teacher here. He eats most nights at this one place and Chinese people who want to learn English often drop by. I saw him and decided to try out the restaurant, then met Tim, Chen and Iris! Some bad news: My daypack was stolen in a grab and run (and jump on his friend's moped). My backpack was on the ground beside me as I sat with a friend. I tried to chase but he got away. I lost my camera, mp3 player, guidebook, translation book and rainjacket. The police were quite decent - they even drove around randomly looking for the guys / backpack for a bit before making a report. My friend said there were 3-4 thieves all working together - a couple of spotters. It's about 3 hundred dollars to rebuy stuff mainly the camera. I lost a bunch of China pictures. All I can do now is deal with it. I have safely set my backpack down beside me a million times. I couldn't really have done much more except maybe put it in my lap or in front of me (only then I couldn't have sat right on the water). It's really just back luck to get caught by someone this way. They could have grabbed it any time I take it off to get something out or sit down anywhere. Or razored it at any time. I need to be most careful at night esp when I'm not around many people. It's frustrating to realize that there are bad people out there who would do this. They probably might get $50-$100 reselling the old, blocky, cheap, scratched, used camera and throw the rest away? The 8G SD card is quite resellable and worth $30 new. I wonder if anyone is looking at my pictures?! In a silly way, I'm kind of proud to have my pack stolen - it marks me as an experienced traveller! At the time, I was rather irritated however.I went to some water caves here with a mud bath and hot springs! I got all mudded up and discovered that I float unbelievably well in mud!I took a bike ride out in the hills alongside a river. The hills here are unlike anywhere else. They are super-steep (only rock-climbers with rope, etc can reach most of the hilltops) limestone hills (almost pillars) about 100-200 meters tall covered in trees.I went to a light show with maybe 1000 "dancers" who danced on the water. 50 men went out in little motorized? bamboo rafts and used this red ribbon to pull themselves around and flashed the huge ribbon in patterns. 200 people in light suits (lightbulbs sewn in) walked around the lake and across it on a row of bamboo rafts. They had a girl dancing and singing on this special boat with a semicircle moon thing. She sung badly and danced ok. All in all it was amazing they did it on such a big scale but the quality was low and it was a bit boring at times. I wish they got perhaps 50 trained dancers and did it better. There were thousands of tourists (mostly Chinese) here.I went swimming in the river with Iris, Tim and Chen.I had a fun time with Iris walking around the beautiful park and learning Chinese while she learned English. And a fun time dancing with Paul briefly. The Chinese have these old-couples dancing in the park set-ups! Some of them are quite good dancers. Paul and I had trouble learning their moves! Iris doesn't like to dance!My first impression of Yangshuo was that it is a big, over-rated tourist trap. But man, I had a blast here anyways! I'll never forget it.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250219292/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250219292/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250219292/tpod.html Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:09:41 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Dali, Yunnan, China

Quite a nice tourist place. Alot like Lijiang but different. Tourist shops and a stylish old town. Wider streets. A city wall and big N/S/E/W gates. I liked it here, more than Lijiang. They have more variety of shops. One eatery sold a big, tasty meal for 66 cents. I got 4 scoops from veg/meat bins of my choice. Then as must rice as I wanted! The veg ones were delicious. I kept going back. The meat ones were out a bit too long. They do that in China as in India. Families will take chicken unrefrigerated for over a day on the train to eat. Another shop had China-style smoothies with various toppings. My smoothie cost more than my dinner!I explored the city and went out on a small fisherman's boat with a Chinese tourist family to see the lake. We picked lillypad-type plant root things which are edible. I took the little girl's hand and pretended to get ready to jump with her into the water: 1...2...!!! I could communicate almost no words with the family but they seemed alright.There was a torch festival while I was here! People came out with wood torches (eg small log chopped into frayed sticks at the end to burn more quickly). They added to the action by throwing handfuls of powder (sugar, baking powder, flour?) into the fire. If they got the timing right, it became a big, flash fireball! People would flash fireball other people! At first I thought this was quite fun. I let a little girl do one toward me. But then some jerk got too close and I ended up with sugar and ash melted to my pants. I hope only the sugar and not my pants melted! I hope it washes out! Later on, they had big fire fights between groups of warring fire warriors! There was a circle in the centre of town and anyone who ran through got chased! You can defend yourself by throwing powder into the torch of the guy chasing you and getting him! Also, if you throw the powder incorrectly timed, it doesn't really burn and just falls to the ground and makes people cough. A lot of people had singed arm hair!I had trouble accessing facebook here and figured out how to get through the China firewall to facebook. Either a web proxy which encrypts the URL (regular web proxies stopped working just this week), a SSL web proxy or OperaTor.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1248951494/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1248951494/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1248951494/tpod.html Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:25:50 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Macau, Macau

Macau was nice to see. It is sort of the Vegas of Asia. Gambling is legal. The population is 400 thousand and it used to be a Portuguese colony. It hasn't boomed as much as Hong Kong due to a shallow harbour less suitable as a port. I was happy to meet my friend, Hugo, here. I knew him from Diu, India and Kathmandu, Nepal. He is here doing some graduate work at the university. He showed me around the old town (quite nice). We had the Portuguese speciality of cod, scrambled egg and onion for dinner which was new and interesting for me. The next day, I explored the city and saw the Macau museum. Hugo also showed me the casinos. They were grand and huge. Water shows (MGM), other shows, stages, acres of chandeliers and shopping malls. The huge Venetian had fake sunny, cloudy skies and old-style European streets going on and on. I was quite amused by the way the classy casino prostitutes presented themselves. "Oh, there's 2 fairly young girls..out on the town at the casino together, I guess. A bit uncommon. And two more. And five more. They are just walking along the hall to the other part of the casino. And then stopping. Checking things out. And walking back. And forth. Over the same one section of the hall. Over and over again. Wait a second!" Another had a different strategy: "Psst!" huh? (pretty but otherwise normal-looking girl looking straight at me blankly and sitting on a bench) They dress nicely but they don't immediately stand out from other people at the casino.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250217772/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250217772/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1250217772/tpod.html Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:07:48 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Qiaotou, Yunnan Province, China

I wasn't sure I wanted another trek so soon after my 16-day trek in Nepal but people told me such good things about this 2 day trek that I became convinced. It wasn't so hard a trek because I only needed to carry my small daypack to carry a bit of stuff for 2 days. I stayed at dorms in nice lodges. I met many interesting people. I met some people right off the bus at the start. I hiked with Gal from Israel for most of the trek. He just finished his 2 year military service and he had been in Intelligence on the Gaza strip!The trail seemed quite free of people but we met people at the lodges at lunch or at night. There were about 30-50 people doing it at once, I think. A group of us played the card game Shithead one night at the lodge and it was great fun. It is so interesting to have people from so many different countries at the same table.We walked past/in multiple beautiful waterfalls and the views were great. There were small mountains shrouded in cloud. Sometimes the clouds and mist made everything white which is a bit frustrating. It is the rainy season here and mist is to be expected. It seemed to burn off the mist a lot by late afternoon. It often rained as we walked as well. But the rain wasn't heavy and not for more than a few hours.At the bottom a group of us all hiked down an extra leg to the place where a tiger apparently once lept onto a rock in the huge river. They had a walkway across to the huge rock so I was able walk around on this rock and be right close to the raging river. It was quite beautiful.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1247304739/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1247304739/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1247304739/tpod.html Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:54:15 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Jhawāni, Nepal

I had a great time in the Chitwan National Park.My favorite part was bathing with the elephants! I rode that elephant as he tried to buck me off. It's not quite as wild as it seems - he only did exactly what his trainer ordered. So I was able to learn a few of the commands and if the trainer ordered a lean+waggle on the left, I'd scramble over to the right to compensate! The elephant also could be told to spray water on the riders! Up to 3 people at once could ride. You can even stand up! It's so much fun and I got some great pictures.I went on an elephant safari through the jungle. I saw deer, monkeys, boars and a peacock. But no rhinos (common) or tigers (very rare). We sat on a 4-person platform on top of the elephant.I went on a canoe ride and guided jungle hike back. I saw 3 crocodiles in the river and we had to get out before reaching the rhino in the river! We hiked up to it and watched it from the river bank. Rhinos can be dangerous if you get too close and they decide to charge you.I saw baby elephants at the breeding centre. They are quite cute and playful. Elephants weigh about 5000 kg! They are very strong. The baby ones would sometimes bodycheck each other and I'm very glad they know not to bodycheck tourists! You could end up with a broken back or sprawled out on the ground a few meters away! They cost about 40k dollars to buy and $30+ per day to maintain (food, driver, cook; driver makes $150/mo and cook $100/mo). Or $350 / mo to rent. The captive ones seem to be rather sterile for some unknown reason so they bring in wild ones to breed with. To train them, it intitially takes about 2 weeks where they tie it's legs to posts and really whip/hit/etc it until it obeys. 2 trained adult elephants help the trainer. After that it obeys and learns many more commands as it grows older. Only young elephants can be trained.I met a great family who I became good friends with. They run a restaurant outside the lodge where I stayed. I met this friendly, outgoing, good guy, Prakash who was a close friend of the family. He helped me and was great to talk to. The family's daughter, Sonu and her cousin, Akash could speak English fairly well and they were good people. The mother, Darshana, and her sister, Manu, would speak only a little English. They were clearly great people but I could only communicate a little with them. They taught me some Nepali. They invited me to come meet more of their family on a day trip to a town 40km away (2h by by bus). It was quite nice although I could not really speak much to anyone except Prakash (also Sonu and her cousin) due to the language barrier. I met Manu's son and daughter. Her husband died suddenly one night while in Thailand after he went to sleep! So she is a widow - a tough situation in Nepal (and India). Men traditionally don't want to marry a widow. Widows are even somewhat cast out of the community. Black women, unlucky. I bet she can find another man. She's pretty and clever.It is the hot, low tourist season but it was quite fun here.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249878368/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249878368/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249878368/tpod.html Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:37:25 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Shangri-La, Yunnan, China

It's pleasant here. I have a cheap hostel with free, fast Internet. There are some good, not-too-expensive places to eat. The town is pretty and the Guishan Park temple / 5-story-prayer-wheel was fantastic. It is colder due to it 3200m elevation but not as cold as I expected (I only wear a sweater and a few extra shirts in the morning and evening). Also free DVDs at the hostel with a TV to watch them on. I watched Taxi Driver (Are you lookin at me? - DeNiro) which was an interesting movie. I expected Shangri-La to be a small high-altitude village but it's a big city. 125k people as of 4 years ago.The main thing I came to see here was the big Tibetan 600-lama monastery (Ganden Sumtseling Gompa). It was not so impressive and they raised the ticket price 2 months ago quite a lot making me a bit jaded about Tibetan Buddhism. It was almost not worth it. They have laptops and electronic ticket gates at the grand ticket building and a whole fleet of fancy buses to take people in the 1 km which the local bus drives anyway. The 2 main temples had huge buddhas inside a big temple. But everything was constructed a bit cheaply and the paintings mostly weren't great. It was like many other Tibetan temples only with multiple temples on a big hill. The houses on the hill below the temple were quite primitive and empty looking. In the paintings, the houses look cheerful and bright. They were doing a lot of construction on new temples so hopefully it will be better in the future. They had a nice lake / marsh with a wooden walkway around it in front of the temple hill. I think they get tons of tourists in high-season based on the ~15 buses in their fleet and the automatic ticket gates. They will make a mint. It would make me feel better if they explained where all the money was going (eg temple construction, community aid). Maybe the head lama needs a new car and a nice mansion? As I read about "peace for all beings" on the plaques, I was not in a receptive mind-set after being charged such a high entrance fee. Speak some nice junk, have some nice prayer sessions and the lamas can live very nicely. Maybe they can allow marriage and women. Get a really sweet life for the lamas. Why shouldn't lamas live well?I googled this and monks sometimes can marry. But in the Yellow Hat (Dalai Lama) sect, they must take a vow of celibacy. "In the old days it was customary for senior monks to keep young boys and girls as <i>drombos (passive sexual partners) and marry noble women who bore them children." http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=218&amp;catid=6&amp;subcatid=34 "Monks live as simply as possible." - hmm, even the head lama? The Dalai Lama lives pretty well in his huge estate.Shangri-La is just starting to look a lot like Lijiang with a fancy, touristy old town with tons of jewelery shops, paintings and hotels. If all the tourists were like me, those shops would go bankrupt. Maybe a lot of people quite appreciate specialized markets of boutique-ey shopping? Maybe it's a good thing?? I am not sure whether businesses accurately reflect what people want. Businesses always try to find ways of making more money. Competition isn't always as great as it should be. Also, most businesses are not very imaginative in trying to satisfy people. They often just clone other shops. Only a few people have enough money to start businesses here. It feels better when people are creative, businesses are easy to start and things are cheap.Sometimes I feel a bit oppressed by capitalist culture. I look down a street and see a whole long row of fancy, expensive shops which I would never buy from. Even at home, outside my apartment, every building has to make money. I only personally buy at a few shops, often somewhat far from where I live. I am surrounded by shops that seem even a bit alien to my subculture. As time goes on, will shops become more and more expensive and boutique-ey? I like to live simply and not buy much. Food, a room and occasionally other stuff. But capitalism drives people to buy, buy, buy. It motivates everyone to try to persuade everyone else to buy. It motivates marketing to make status about money because that makes people buy.I read about "socially responsible capitalism" here. They have these 2 eco-lodges in remote villages. One is a co-operative to promote sustainable farming, and eco-tourism. They let tourists stay in a local Tibetan home. They have a model farm and teach people modern, more-efficient farming techniques in ways that protect the environment. The second lodge had rooms and was a jumping off point for exploring the area. Both required you to hire cars / jeeps and guides which made it too expensive than I wanted. But I like the fundamental idea of socially responsible capitalism.Overall, Shangri-La was quite pleasant and relaxing. Fairly Tibetan and Deqin but becoming a big city.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249649945/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249649945/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249649945/tpod.html Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:40:30 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China

The old town is quite pretty and artsy. But a bit to geared for tourists. It's huge with water canals and all old-style buildings. There are many shops for paintings, carvings, silver jewelery and hippie clothes to name a few. There are many hotels and restaurants. It's all 1-2 story buildings that look like Chinese temples with sweeping roofs. A hilltop lookout pavillion and gardens is off the Market Square. It is unavoidable to get lost here. Random alleys curve around and intersect over a good square km. Some of the art was quite creative. But there were clone shops indicating that the items might be mass-produced.There are so many tourists, mostly Chinese tourists. Watching the tourists was my favorite part of it. Tourists here are different than in India. There seem to be many relaxed, middle-class Chinese. Richer than middle class Indians, it seems. They have some money to spend and slightly more expensive clothes than India. In India, there is more a feeling that money is precious and should be spent extremely carefully. There is more of an upper class and poorer class in India. The poorest people in the cities here don't seem that poor. I don't think the taxi drivers sleep in their vehicle here, for example, like rickshaw drivers do in India. There are some interesting clothing styles here. Funky sometimes. Hippie or artsy occasionally. One girl had camo pants and a biker-girl T-shirt (but no leather, chains, jeans, piercings or tatoos). It breaks my Chinese stereotype.I find Mandarin often rather shrill and aggressive. Many people get quite loud and nasal (almost aggressive) with each other but their body language says they're saying something normal. Or they get really in-your-face and righteous with each other very frequently almost like it's a common habit.Mandarin has different meanings depending on how you vary the tone of the word which is interesting. I am trying to speak a little but it is difficult. I got a small translation book and it has been invaluable.It is quite frustrating being illiterate and unable to speak with almost everyone. It makes me vulnerable in particular to taxi drivers lying to me (eg the bus station is 25km from the train station and it will cost about $10 to go there, there are no local buses at this time - it was 5am and luckily one girl spoke a little English but wasn't familiar with this town. I just had to go with it. In India, I generally never faced such difficulty knowing if a taxi driver was lying.). But so far taxi drivers have been good (probably honest). Also, I say "No thanks" only once and they actually say "ok" and stop asking! Once I even walked past a man leaning against his cab and he didn't even speak or stare at me! He just patiently waited! How wonderful! This is a significant hassle and down-side to India.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249409956/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249409956/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1249409956/tpod.html Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:11:10 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Chengdu, Sichuan, China

I came to Chengdu because it is a major starting point for Tibet. But I decided not to go to Tibet. The government doesn't want tourists going there so it makes it a big hassle and expense. Plus I read Lhasa is now just another big Chinese city and it has a majority of Chinese Han immigrants. Still, I'd like to see the Potala palace. Maybe on another trip. I wanted to see more of the Chinese side (liberating exploited serfs from primitive, poverty-stricken feudal domination and slavery) since I've heard so much of the Tibetan side of the argument in Dharamsala and from news / movies promoting the Tibetan cause (high-minded, spiritual, peace-loving people brutally oppressed and beaten to the point of genocide). This travel situation doesn't make me think highly of China. I don't need to pay a few thousand dollars to have a few days in Tibet. There is so much else to see including real Tibetan culture in China and it costs at most a thousand a month.Chengdu is ok. It has Pandas and the People's Park. The Sim's Hostel is fantastic. 200 rooms, many dorms. Tons of DVDs to watch in the DVD room. A nice, fairly cheap restaurant. Lots of interesting travellers to meet. I spent over a week here which was too long.China is interestingly different from India and Nepal. Friendly, helpful people who almost all cannot speak a single word of English. You'd think that the ones in tourist areas might know one or two words like "Toilet." But no. It forces foreigners to learn more Chinese which is interesting. There are more English teachers here (who are paid perhaps $400/mo; few in India/Nepal are paid). Cities are richer and perhaps better organized. The ring roads system here in Chengdu is nice but the regular road naming is frustrating - the names are non-numeric and change about every 100 meters. The bus system is nice but could be a bit easier to navigate (more organized than India's). I haven't been scammed yet - not even overcharged for anything. But prices in many of the stores here are not low. Cameras are expensive and old and as are all electronics. Surprising. Cell phone models however are new and expensive. Fancy cell phones are a status symbol just like in India / Nepal. The big-box stores aren't big or cheap enough. It feels like the retail stores need a decade or two to mature after such fast economic growth in China.Rooms cost more but only a little more if you choose dorms. Food can be as cheap as India. Trains and buses are way more expensive (maybe 10x). Overall, it might cost $1000/mo whereas India and Nepal cost more like $500/mo. I have to get used to different foods being available in the supermarkets in different packaging and costs. Rice plus veggies and/or meat is the same basic meal plan as India and Nepal. The veggie and meat dishes are different. They often drink cheap rice alcohol as they do all over Asia. A 600ml beer costs $1.25 at any convenience store or supermarket (eg Carlsberg, Budweiser, Tsingtao). Chocolate costs the same everywhere. I am trying to find some good, cheap, non-perishable dry foods for train / bus rides. The good old biscuits and peanuts strategy as I used in India seems to be a good bet. There's no beaten rice here which I quite liked in Nepal. I try to get my food cost down to 10 cents per hour, ideally. But I'll break that rule to try new foods or a nice, local meal. I normally spend $2-$5 per day on food here.I hear that social networking to get jobs is enormous here. You have to go out drinking with people (women must also) and if they like you and you buy them drinks, they might hire you. Being in the communist party is a highly sought after position and it enters you into a upper class of society.Now on to Shangri-la...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1235917800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1235917800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1235917800/tpod.html Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:07:09 -0400 My Asia Journey 2

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Kathmandu, Nepal

I am really enjoying myself here at help2educate. I am volunteer teaching at a local English-medium government school. In the evenings, I help the 15 girls at the hostel study. On holidays I also get to play with the girls in the park or go on walks which is quite nice.The girls are sponsored to stay at this hostel and go to private school. They are from poor, difficult, low caste backgrounds. Many did not go to school because their parents can't afford it and need them to work to earn enough money to eat.Some of them are from brick-making and stone crushing areas. Poor families move into these areas and set up a simple shack out of sticks, tarp and local materials. To make bricks, they dig clay, form it with a wooden mold, leave it in the sun to dry, pile them up to dry further and finally sell them to the people who operate the kiln tower and ship them off. The stone-crushing families are even poorer than the brick-making families. They take medium sized river stones and crush them to about 1.5" x 1.5" square blocks to make a nice sort of course gravel. The kind of gravel you might see in a flower bed or rock garden in Canada. They use a small hammer and a loop to capture fragments as they fly away from the impact.I am really happy with this organization. It makes a significant, real difference and is run very efficiently. It takes only about 40-50 English pounds per month per girl (for food, school fees, hostel rent, everything). There are 2 men who run it: a Nepali (Rabindra) and a British man (Ian). However, the British man actually works back in London and doesn't even draw a salary from help2educate. There also is a cook / cleaner / helper (Kayshori) plus 3 part-time young women who help the girls study (Ishwori, Manshova and Nirmala). Ishwori is the main helper. The other two are previous graduates from the hostel and help part-time. The 3 helpers make sure the girls are studying and working on what they need to work on.I teach at the government school. I started out with 4 classes: 2 class 5s and 2 class 7s. There are about 65 students in each class. I teach English (3 English reader classes and 1 English grammar class). It is challenging and hard work to teach. The hard parts are keeping the class quiet and thinking of good exercises to do.I have to enforce discipline in my class to keep the noise level down. It is difficult. I look around and as my gaze sweeps the class, there seem to be no mouths moving. Yet there is a loud murmur which makes it hard to teach or hear children respond. I am allowed to hit them. But I'd rather not do that. My current technique is to put my finger to my lips and they have to mirror me. Anyone who does not I walk up to and point at them sternly. If that finger doesn't whip right up promptly then they have to stand up on their chair and put the finger to their lips. They are embarrassed to stand on their chair and everyone nervously giggles a bit. After I start catching a few like this, they all get their fingers up and I hear such an amazing silence! This is a good technique but it takes a good half minute to perform currently. Hopefully, I can get it faster and faster as they get used to it. Another technique is to say "Who is speaking!?" (with a threatening tone suggesting imminent punishment) This works better than "Quiet" (or "Choop" in Nepali / Hindi) which doesn't really work that well. I can also see them talk more easily if I am standing behind them at the back of the class but it is hard to get opportunities to get here (eg while one of the students is reading aloud).If you think about it, all they have to do is turn their head slightly away from me as they speak or slightly open the corner of their mouth to speak. Usually, they prefer to hide behind another student or wait until I turn in a different direction. Some students are quiet and get angry at others for not being quiet which is nice. I could enlist kids to help me catch others if I wanted and sometimes they tell me who was talking. Only I have to be careful that the information is reliable. Good students build up my trust. Quite often they are reading quietly aloud or discussing a question with their friend. But this is slightly problematic since I can't understand Nepali. They could be saying anything. I give them leeway if they are looking at their book intently or I just asked a question.I can also use "Up and Downs" and sending them to the corner. "Up and Downs" are where they cross their arms, hold their earlobes and do squats in front of the class. Occasionally I do hit them lightly on the shoulder without force to catch their attention and chastise them. I also occasionally smack my folder on their desk in front of them loudly if they are totally not paying attention (staring out of the window or turned right around to have a good, in-depth talk with a friend). I've only send kids to the corner a few times. Generally, the kids aren't truly bad. No one has openly and defiantly challenged me for instance. They are often quite shy and many get embarrassed easily. A few even have such trouble speaking to me if I ask them to read or answer a question. They put a hand in front of their face, turn their head away and act like away like a frightened doe. Perhaps then, they bolster their courage, look up with trepidation and speak. It's very cute.I usually somewhat follow their book but try to come up with interesting, fun ways to teach it. It is challenging to engage 65 kids.The Nepali year (different from the Western calendar) ends around Apr 15, I believe. It will then be year 2066. The school year ends and all the kids had exams a few weeks ago. Now most schools are on a 2-4 week break (schools vary with their exam times and holiday times). The hostel girls travelled back home to their families for 2 weeks. During that time, I helped envigilate some exams (watch over them). Also, I saw some sights in Kathmandu, went on a Bungy + Canyoning + Rafting trip and visited some of the girls at their homes.While they were at home, I visited some of them. It was great to see them, meet their families and see how they lived.I went first to visit Sanju because she is the closest - only a 30 minute walk to the brick factory. It was very special to visit her. She seemed hesitant at first and asked me why I came. I said to visit her and I was going to visit some of the other girls as well. That I was really happy to visit her. Her father and mother seemed to be doing well. They served me a huge glass of chai and many tasty biscuits (they had to send one of their children to run and get biscuits). I was quite honoured and impressed with their hospitality. She is younger and can't understand that much English but her understanding during this visit impressed me. I couldn't really communicate in words with anyone but her. I met her 3 sisters, Anju, Ranju and Bindu and her little baby brother. I showed them a picture of my family which they were quite interested in. It was hard trying to think of things to say which required very simple English. But I was quite happy to meet her family and they were seemed quite happy to host me. At the end, I took a picture of everyone which is quite nice.Their shack was make of unfired bricks with a corrugated metal roof. It seemed small and sturdy. It might be a bit cold at night in there and with not so much space for everyone to sleep. Mosquitoes could also be a pain but that is somewhat true of all houses here - people don't feel the need to mosquito screen their windows and close gaps under doors / etc. The lack or improper installation of mosquito screening is one of my pet peeves.I had a wonderful visit to 5 more girls in the Dhading district. It is an hour motorcycle ride West of Kathmandu. They live near a river where they collect small rocks to crush into gravel (that 1.5" x 1.5" granite looking kind often in flower beds). I visited Suku Maya, Laxmi, Kumari, Binita and Samjana.I met Suku Maya first. She was doing dishes next to her house. It was shocking to see her sister the first time because she looked just like Suku Maya and I had that deja-vu feeling that she might be someone I'd already met! I barely said Namaste to Suku Maya and went on. Rabindra chatted with her briefly in Nepali. I was unsatisfied with this sort of visit so I asked Rabindra for a longer visit for the next girl.Laxmi and Kumari must've seen me coming because they had on really nice clothes. They were delightfully welcoming. Laxmi taught me to catch these little fish with my hands. They hide in the shadows of rocks in the shallow stream so you can cup your hands around them and drain the water through your fingers. I met the girls' families and collected a somewhat big group of kids.We then went to visit Binita and Samjana. I met Binita's father and brother. I shook his hand and gave a respectful "Namaste!" but I could not communicate further. I met her brother and asked her a few things. Then I asked if Binita could come with us (we had a small group of kids).We went next to Samjana. She was a bit farther on a hill and it was difficult to get all the kids up there. If I had known how tough it would be, I would not have taken them all! Still, I think it was fun for everyone. There was a stream with a 2-3 meter deep chasm around it to jump over (or carry each kid over) and climb up the other side. Also, the terracing steps were perhaps up to my neck and I had to lift kids up one by one. A few kids could climb. I hadn't realized what a trek this would be. We hurried back and I was late - I told Rabindra I'd be back in 15 minutes and it was perhaps more like an hour! Rain might be coming and riding a motorcycle 1h in rain isn't fun or as safe. By the end, the kids were starting to look a little tired and grouchy so it was good to end it then. Overall, It was great to meet the girls and some of their families. And to see how they lived.The shacks they lived in were made of sticks and tarp. The parents I met seemed tired and poor. Often, I met only one of the parents because the other parent was away for a while on some chore. They didn't seem starving - they made an honest living. I noticed that at least one of the girls was developing a bad cough. I wonder if they had enough blankets at night or how good the sanitary conditions are.There is a really positive atmosphere of growth and learning here at the hostel. They have to study a lot and follow certain rules. They take turns cooking about 2 days per week (in teams of 3). They do their own laundry in a bucket (as everyone does it here generally and as have I for that last couple years traveling). I think it's good for them to learn to cook and look after themselves. They also ride bicycles to school and they are the only girls who do this at their school.I'd really like to try to improve the world. I got this idea: If I invest even 10k for 200-300 years then it will become maybe 10 billion dollars. I could have a Nepal-wide scholarship program! Paid school / university fees for anyone who gets over 80% perhaps. Every 10 years, it would double and could spawn off another fund! By then Nepal might not even be poor so I could have it go to the poorest country in the world at that time. I could do this when I get old with my money before / when I die. It might be hard to stop people from ineffectively spending my money at that point. But it would still probably do a lot of good.I played a lot with the girls outside esp during the new year break. Things like soccer, frozen tag (theives and police actually, a similar game), red light green light, Darling if you love me won't you please please smile. I taught the older 5 an extra computer class. Meha (another volunteer from Boston) taught an extra Math class as they needed improvement in Math. Each of them has their own personality and it was wonderful getting to know them.I am sad to leave. I hope to sponsor a girl in the future. I'll have to keep in touch with everyone. It would be great to come back to visit them in the future to see what has become of them. SLC (grade 10) graduation? College? Working? Married? All grown up? They are age 11 - 17 and grade 2? - 8 right now. Ishwori will graduate her teaching degree in 3 years and get a job. Maybe get married!? I would like to return in 3 years, if I can.
]]>