Review 1 (R1) Mandi and two times to Nepal

End of October

I booked a cheap hotel in Mandi center. To get the right room was a bit difficult. So they showed me some rooms and I accepted, even though it was a bit to much money wise. Soon after I accepted I found out, there are much cheaper rooms in the hotel and I moved another 3 times in 20 min…. but not in such good conditions. So I asked for some cleaning tools…… and I did clean all the room…… (next morning the whole hotel crew was cleaning all the other rooms)…..
I walked direct after cleaning to look a bit around the city. And came along a little photography shop. There was someone sitting behind a computer…. but he looked at me through a mirror…. with a big smile on his face…. I smiled for a while back….nice moment……. took some more steps towards my way…..seconds after I turned around, opened his shop door, and Sangeet and me dived into a wonderful long conversation….. For the nights after he invited me to his house….. where he and his wife Tanu and further family welcomed me heartfully….
2 days later we took a motorcycle ride towards Rewalsar, a holiday, sunday and pilgrim destination with some hindu and tibetian monasteries and tempels around a lake. There is also a huge 37,5 m statue of Guru Rinpoche, who founded tibetan buddism, Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava. We went also to a cave further up the mountain, where he used to meditate in a cave. That was just a wonderful day.

I have a one year multiple Visa for India, witch allows me a max stay of 90 days. So every latest three month I have to leave the country, to come in again. This is more or less the only time, when I use transportation. The closest is Nepal. I can get Visa there at any border on arrival. For max 14 days it costs 25 $. Travelling from Mandi to the Nepalese south-west border city Mahendranagar it means a day and night travel by bus through Delhi. All together 25 hours. Nepal and India have an open border. Locals of the two countries don’t have to register or get any stamp. Foreigners could easily cross the border, but in case of any control, we (foreigners) have to look for the Visa and stamps. The offices are to find, but its good to ask someone to find the immigration offices, not always clear signs. Somehow there are some offices kind of in a half jungle. The officer checks very intense my passport and visa. After 90 days I have to leave latest…. and he finds out, with counting the first and this day, its 91 days… this invites a fee of 75 $…. but because, its early morning, 7 a clock, he doesn’t charge…
From the beginning Nepal feels a bit softer than India, I mean in terms of consciousness of feeling with people, social behavior….., beggars are not so penetrating…. It seems to be even a bit poorer, and much more bicycles on the streets….. That makes it also a bit calmer. Just one day later I will leave again…..
I enjoy the day walking around the city, sitting here and there in the sun, under a tree, watching markets and life….
Some tailors are doing there job on the street or in the shade close to some shop. Later the day I remember that I have to do some repairs on my clothes and at my backpack, so I bring my staff towards a nice tailor, who got my attention earlier. It turns out, that he is very honest, he ask very little money, even for a big job. Beside a new sipper at my backpack, my Afghan trousers needs to have pockets (did not have at all) with sippers on each side and some of the fabric of this trousers can be cut off in the middle, just to much. During his work, I become the impression, that he is very honorable but poor. He has a sewing machine, operated by foot pedal, fixed on a wooden board, which is broken. From all my donation money, what reaches me, I have a rule, to give 10 % away. From the beginning of receiving a donation I consider these 10 % not to be mine. During the last months I saved some of that giving-away-money and I feel, this man really deserves some of it. I come to the conclusion to give him 2000 Indian rupees, what is about 30 Dollars. When he is finally ready with the job, I pay him, what he asked for….. and then I am sooo happy to give him the donation. I tell him, this is not a payment, but a donation, what I want to give to him….its for repairing the board and the rest is just a donation, he can use it for what ever its needed…. His reaction is priceless… he can’t believe his eyes and jumps a bit up his chair, stares at the money, as if he has never seen that much and says to me ‚I think, you are God….‘

Behind my hotel is a recycling station. Glass and Paper is sorted here, also some sorts of plastic, but not bottles. All the glasses get cleaned by hand from about 10 women. They earn about 7000 Nepalese Rupees in a month, which is  about 4.300 Indian Rupees, 67 US $. All together there are 15 people working at this station. And then there are all the collectors, they collect the material by bicycle from where ever in the city, from the rubbish or from small companies. The glass, paper and plastic get weight at the recycling station, and therefore the collectors get some small money. Lots of families have to survive from this kind of income. A little further from the recycling station are some tents. Some families live here, with super basic needs, or less than basic needs. I don’t see any belongings in the tents except of some pots. Some of these families collect plastic bottles and sell them…. don’t know how that works, and I guess the income is even much less than what you can earn inside the recycling station.

The next day, the bus is leaving in the evening, I end up, around midday, sitting under a tree. Not so many people speak English. Under the tree is a concrete area for sitting and resting. People use to gather there. I witnessed the trash laying around earlier…. just knowing, we (humans) have to clean it. Finally to boys around 19, 20 sit beside me. After some small talk I focused on the rubbish topic. Around that tree are so many small plastic pockets, which had tabac in it. People spitting on the ground…. and so on…. They are aware of the mess ….. I have cleaned so many times on my journey – in Turkey around an outdoor restaurant – in Jordan on the property of a farm and becoming Peace project and at the 200 m area at the street – in Greece at a 15 km stretch at the beach, where all the Syrian refugees had arrived….. Also I was not always alone at the projects, but I was always the driving or inspiring forth, it feels now the time has come, to not start alone, and then attract people to do so, too…. so I said…. ‚The nature is suffering, the animals are eating plastic, the water gets polluted, the humans suffer because they can’t breath anymore (and here I mean not only air pollution, I also mean space pollution, the space, the inner space and outer space we need, to feel healthy), because of that the humans can’t connect with nature anymore…. We need to clean the world!!!…. How do you want to start?….‘  There was a silent space…. better than a short answer…..
Some days later I received a message from a friend of one of the boys, a teacher from Mahendranagar, he was interested in doing something for cleaning the environment…… I promised, as soon he is starting something, I am so happy to come to his school and encourage his student, to inspire and present ideas, on my next Visa visits to Nepal…..

From Nepal I went to Rishikesh, I had a invitation, to again stay for free at the bonfire hostel chain….. about this in the next article.

End of January/beginning of February

After the stay in Rishikesh I had to travel to Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, this time. Last time, at the border, when going back, the officer told me, there is a good change, in my case as a peace walker, that I could get a different visa, which would allow me to stay for a whole year without leaving the country …. So this time I travel by train from Haridwar to Gorikpur. Then with two busses, one to the Nepal/Indian border, one from the border to Kathmandu. The ticket office in Rishikesh tells me 15h to Gorakpuk, first bus 3h, second bus 6h. 24h journey. Because I had to travel by bus to Haridwar first, I left my place in Rishikes at 1 pm. The train was supposed to leave at 5 pm, but had a delay of 7 hours. He actually arrived even later at 2.30 am in the morning…. arriving in Gorakpur was announced for 8 in the morning, but we arrived at 10.30 at night…. luckily there was a bus to the border to this time…. I was still kind of fresh, had the luxury of a sleeping coach… this bus took around 3 h to the border station Sunauli. At the border the normal formalities, but I had to find the offices, not so easy, in the middle of the night, the Indian office was not directly at the border…. Special, I had to wake up the officers, make some loud sounds at the doors, until sleepy looking humans were opening the doors….  Finally I reached the next bus to Kathmandu (289 km) which left at 3.45 h. With my calculation of 6 h I would arrive at a very comfortable time ….. but some other passengers told me, the bus needs 9 h…. aha. In the end the bus needed 16 h… all together 44 hours…. it was already dark. Anyway, the day journey was interesting, very nice scenery, its not easy to build roads in that steep and beautiful valleys….. lots of road works … and I witnessed in the traffic jams, they don’t horn… also very nice…!!! Coming towards Kathmandu I got in a nice conversation with a young men. He told me, that the winter before, they had a big power problem in the capital. 16 h or more there was no electricity…. now they have a better power manager. This manager made it possible, with the same amount of power produced, that the city has now almost all the time power. What an achievement!!!!! And there is a second great improvement: Since half a year honking is by law not allowed anymore, only in dangerous situations, and it works. What a release…. What a step towards the realization of sound pollution. I can only say, congratulations, congratulations, congratulations!!! This men also tells me, that the prime minister or president, I forgot, wants to make Nepal the Switzerland of the Himalayas. Towards nature and economy, transportation…. that’s a good goal to have. There is a train project in discussion, to build route from China through Kathmandu to India. Very good. But it needs also trains inside Nepal. There are none – and tunnels…….and so on. In Kathmandu the air pollution is terrible. I bought after the first night a breathing mask. Its also because of lots of road works and dust, because its dry season.
My idea to get another visa had no success…. so I stay for the next 6 month with my old visa, getting out of the India every 90 days, for more travel adventures. I can say, that I only use trains, buses and planes, because having visa issues. Cars I use sometimes by being with my hosts, for example to get to this office… but I don’t like it very much. Trains I like actually, but the standard and capacity has to be improved very much…. and bicycles I love anyway.
Because of air pollution I did not do a lot in Kathmandu, even stayed because of that in my accommodation. Once I visited a nice Swayambhu stupa and the area around. On the way to the Stupa I got lots of time begged…. puh…. also the souvenir shop keeper are sometimes act somehow as beggars, when in comes to attract tourist… (this is also another kind of pollution, not to leave space) but when they understand, what I am doing, they calm down with there business behavior and become humans again. And then its so nice to really meet. A had a really good time with my new friends there. Anyway I come back to Kathmandu this summer to get a new Indian visa.
I went to Lumbini, very close to the border to India. Again long bus ride. Lumbini is the birth place of Lord Buddha. Uuuuh, and I did not have enough time. Actually there is not a lot left of the palace, where Siddartha was born, some kind of foundation, ok, a little bit more. And I did not visit that place, because I was attracted by what this place has been developed in. There was one UN secretary, who delivered his idea of founding a huge area around the birth place to invite Buddhist from around the world, to build monasteries of different Buddhist traditions. The area is around 3 to 4 km long and 1 to 1 1/2 km wide. What they want to achieve is not completed, but there are huge achievements, huge. There are around 30 monasteries who settled there, there is a Vipassana center, several stupas, a museum, a souvenir market area, the historic area, lakes and water streets where constructed, and a huge peace stupa. The most or a lot of projects are sponsored by different nations and traditions, a temple from Malaysia here, a temple from Korea there…., the peace stupa and a temple close by supported by Japan, but also non Buddhist cultures have invested in this area, for example France, Germany with the Lotus temple. …….. and so on, and so on…. its just great. Its reminds me somehow of the shortly discovered Cambodian temple areas in the jungle…. I think Lumbini is a wonderful chance to show, what happened after this man Lord Buddha got enlightened 2.500 years ago, how many traditions rised until today. And how beautiful, that they all come there together in harmony. What a wonderful idea of that UN secretary and how wonderful that Nepal liked this idea and took action. How wonderful, that the area around is benefiting from it, and how wonderful to honor the Buddha this way. Just great.
It seems, that I will walk there, arriving there in a year from now, again. Then I have more time.

From Lumbini I traveled by bus and train to Amritsar. Again the train was late. Instead of noon I arrived at 8pm.

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