Sticker Shock in Hong Kong

Guess I should have written more blog entries when I was in Bhutan and charged only $1.50 an hour to use the Internet: The rate here at my hotel in Kowloon is $28 an hour! Sorry, you are not going to get more details about Bhutan until I find less tony digs for my Internet needs.

To make a long story short --- and affordable --- I am still very healthy and happy in Asia. It has been almost four weeks since I left home, however, and I do miss my husband, my family and my friends, not the least of which is meeting our new granddaughter.

On Saturday, I will be onward to South Korea to visit our Rotary district exchange partner for this year. Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes you continue to send.

A real E-ticket ride in Bhutan airspace

I closed my eyes for a moment and swore I heard the plane's wing tips brushing the pine trees. (If you're an "Airplane!" fan, you'd say "Well, I guess I picked the wrong week to give up aisle seats!")

When the plane is a commercial Airbus, that's not much room for error, but the Druk Air Royal Bhutan Airline pilots must pretend they're Star Wars Jedi knights by the way they wig-wagged the plane's wings to fit through the narrow and twisting canyon that was our flight path. It worked, but we didn't have much room left at the end of the runway. As pilots always say, however, any landing you walk away from is a good landing.

I haven't had time to tell you much about Bhutan, so let me backtrack a little ... and that really WAS an impressive way to enter the country.

The roads are nearly as harrowing as our flight in, and I know people who'd have been screaming the whole way. Remember, I am in the Himalayas, and they ain't short hills: They are towering mountains now sharply cut in a V by swift rivers, and that means steep drop-offs, the kind where you occasionally read about a bus plunging off the side with 50 locals inside, 30 locals clinging onto the top and two Americans. (Carole and I are traveling as a group of two with a guide and the driver, so at least I have some control because these guys want us alive for their tips at the end of our tour.)

Our guide is a 21-year-old Bhutanese who is like a mother hen. He insisted that warm-blooded Carole (from Pennsylvania) wear a jacket to go to the Internet place just now, and he hovers over us. I know he is trying to be responsible, and he likes being responsible, but we want to cuff his ear and inform him that we each have traveled the world several times over --- and alone --- without his kindly supervision.

By the way, here are some travel axioms I've lived:

* You know you've been gone a long time when the local language sounds familiar. During my last taxi ride in Nepal, I thought the radio announcer was speaking in Spanish and that I understood it.

*You know you're in a developing nation when diarrhea control is an acceptable --- and eagerly discussed --- dinner topic.

*You know you're in a developing nation when your air traffic control tower is a hut on stilts. (It was made of pine here in Bhutan; bamboo in Peru.)

*You know you're in a developing nation when your airport's name is spray-painted on the side of the ticket sales booth.

More later; my Internet time is over and our flock is going to be rounded up to return to the roost!

P.S. Tomorrow we are going to "The Tiger's Nest," the misty photo of an earlier entry.

LIVE ... from Thimpu ... it's Saturday Night!

For the geographically challenged, I'm in the capitol city of the Kingdom of Bhutan, which is the world's only capitol without a traffic signal. "The dancing policeman" directs traffic from his tiny bandbox in the intersection, but not after 5 p.m. in winter for fear of him getting too cold. (I am in the eastern Himalayas, sandwiched between China to the north and India on three sides.)

This is a compassionate country whose king prizes gross national happiness over gross national profit. I have found everything here to be to my liking (well, except the lack of an Internet cafe within my hotel or walking distance; in that respect, Kathmandu and Lhasa really have this place beat).

It has been a very long day that included our car's warning light going on because it was running entirely out of oil. I'll bet the oil pan was a casualty of having to drive through some severe road construction yesterday. Our guide flagged down a passing tour bus of kind Swiss people who offered two empty seats to Carole and me while our driver stayed with the car for help. We were ferried to a chilly little restaurant atop a pass until another tour company car arrived to help us.

By the way, the Indian government provides road construction and maintenance to Bhutan as a form of aid. I have seen WOMEN and men slinging sledge hammers to break granite boulders into smaller rocks, then other people pounding those with smaller hammers to form the roadway base. No eye protection, by the way. Think about this the next time you want to say you don't like your job.

The road workers are all Indian nationals, and I have seen women nursing their babies next to a cement mixer or small children sitting by their parents as they work. I cannot imagine how destitute these families must be that they leave their homes to do hard physical labor in a foreign and cold place for what cannot be much pay. This also is how child labor starts: when the toddler can fetch a hammer or carry a pail ... it is a cycle of poverty through a lack of education to do something better.

The Kingdom of Bhutan is a very different place, in addition to the Gross National Happiness factor. Tobacco sales and smoking are outlawed (although I have seen tour guides surreptiously sucking down their cigarettes), and so are my white sneakers and jeans in temples and other important buildings. "Appropriate dress" can be rented from one's hotel, but fortunately I packed a long black skirt and some black shoes (the ones that DIDN'T get stolen from my suitcase violation when arriving at Kathmandu).

Tour guides must be in their national dress, called a go for men, which looks like a tailored bathrobe that ends at the knees, with black or coordinated knee socks and black shoes; the robe's long white cuffs must be showing, as well as a white collar that indicates the wearer is subservient to the king. When entering a temple, guides must wear an additional sash that is tied just so around the body and shoulders.

Well hey, that might be enough of a lesson on Bhutan, probably quadrupling the amount of Bhutan facts you previously knew. If you know any more, please enter them in the comments!

By the way, I met a 98-year-old man today who wanted to tell Carole and me the story of the temple we were visiting and his memories of the place. He sang a blessing to us for our safe return home. I have a wonderful photo of him that I'll post when I get home.

Stay tuned, as next time I will tell you about the many countryside homes I saw today with the most colorful murals on their walls: huge male genitals, complete with very hairy testicles and equally huge sperm happily spurting out the tip: a legacy of the Divine Madman monk whose famous member was supposedly as long as he was tall.

No wonder this a happy country. (The previous king also had four wives, all sisters.) But I digress ...

Karen's a Grandmother!

After stumping her attending physicians for 23.5 hours yesterday, Hailey Lynn Cascarelli was born this morning at 6:10 PDT to Karen's son, Travis and our dear daughter-in-law, Traci. All are doing fine. Karen's been notified.

Personally, I thought Hailey was delaying her entrance to the world until the air quality of the wildfire-ravaged region cleared up a bit...

Ahhh...I can hear you all now saying to yourselves, "But Karen, you're too young to be a grandmother..."

Photos at...

http://web.mac.com/clintbradford/Site/Hailey.html

Clint Bradford

Greetings from the Kingdom of Bhutan!

Greetings from the Kingdom of Bhutan! Bhutan looks like Switzerland with Tibetan-style buildings, if you can imagine that. Seriously. There are pretty, clean cows grazing, horses in the fields and a quiet, clean environment. After the noise, traffic and let's-extort-the-foreigners environment of Kathmandu, Bhutan is quite a pleasant and quiet retreat. Shocking, really, in comparison.

I don't have much time to write my thoughts as our guide is standing behind me and the driver is waiting, so I will just give two more comments on Nepal:

1). For the last week, I have often gotten into taxis driven by young men I would not have trusted to carry my groceries to the car;

2). Last night the was the first time I thought I'd suffer internal injuries from merely riding in a car. Being a passenger in a car in Kathmandu is like being launched inside a pinball machine, only the paddles and flappers include the possibility to ricochet off of cows, pedi-cabs, trucks, motorcylces with whole families on them and even an elephant that I saw walking down Kantipathi Street yesterday. (He was outfitted in red, ridden by two men. I wasn't drinking.)

That's PROFESSOR Lama...

ATLANTA - The Dalai Lama was formally installed as a professor at Emory University on Monday as Tibetan monks wearing large moon-shaped, yellow hats chanted and played cymbals, gongs and horns.

"I suspect you will not need to carry this with you for identification, but in any case, we wanted you to know you are welcome," student Emily Allen said as she handed him the card, a present from the students.

In his first speech as a faculty member, the Dalai Lama encouraged his audience of thousands of people to look beyond money and fame for happiness. Education paired with destructive behavior is wasted, but knowledge used for good is a powerful instrument, he said.

"As a professor of this university, I think you should listen to me," the 72-year-old monk and Nobel Peace Prize laureate said with a laugh.

As Presidential Distinguished Professor, the Dalai Lama will provide private teaching sessions with students and faculty during Emory's study-abroad program in Dharamsala, India, and periodiically visit Emory in Atlanta.
---
On the Internet...

Emory-Tibet Partnership: http://tibet.emory.edu/

Dalai Lama's visit: http://dalailama.emory.edu/

The "Pointy End of the Spear" - where theory intersects life

I met a polio crawler yesterday.

It is October 21, and I am in Kathmandu, Nepal: not exactly a vacation --- my travel is too rough and basic to be called a vacation --- so perhaps you could call it business since I am a writer and this is a great place to observe life. It certainly *is* what Clint calls "enrichment," because yesterday I met a crawler.

Carole, my traveling companion, and I sat on the balcony of a second-floor restaurant, watching street life from our "observatory" as we ate, entertaining each other with a running commentary on the interaction between people: tourists, beggars, fruit vendors, street hustlers, sari-clad ladies carrying a child and tapping passersby on the arm with an empty baby's milk bottle.

Of course, we could not ignore this man, the crawler, as he appealed to various people. Carole and I had made a pact that we wouldn't give to most beggars, especially after watching a boy instruct younger boys in the art of efficient begging. We couldn't hear him, but we certainly understood his gestures: how to run up to adults, how to prayerfully fold the hands in the "namaste" greeting, how to look appealing. (We then saw them inhale from paper bags, recognizing the habit of children who sniff glue to get high.)

As we would have to walk past him, I asked Carole: "What about this guy?" He was different. Carole is an RN, and we had decided this was not an act: his withered and contracted legs were surely the result of polio, folded in front of him the way a butterfly would retract its wings to rest for a moment. He used his hands for support and advanced himself by pushing forward an incredibly calloused foot. His richly browned face was at the knee level of everyone else.

Carole and I talked about a world that stops caring when there are too many people in it. People become commodities to advance their governments, and instead this man was a burden.

I wondered how the man could use a toilet, thinking of the "eastern style" squat toilets where I carefully rolled up the cuffs of my jeans so they wouldn't touch the smelly, slippery floor. Could this man unfold his legs or manuver his body to decently relieve himself?

When Carole and I finally went into the street, he saw us and beckoned. He was younger than I thought and frightfully dusty from living at dirt and pavement level, as Kathmandu is certainly not a tidy city. His clothes seems to be more of rags wrapped around his nut-brown body, but his eyes were a startling contrast: large whites in contrast to nearly black irises. I could not help thinking that he looked up at me like the fearful and tentative eyes of a guilty dog waiting for punishment.

I feel very strongly about our Rotary projects to relieve suffering in the world, like this. When the unfair and unequal distribution of wealth and services continue cycles of poverty, we must share our blesings that we are finacially able to give, multiplying our individual donations into a mightier effect.

Police Clash with Monks

BEIJING - Police in the capital of Tibet clashed for four days with Buddhist monks trying to celebrate the awarding of a congressional honor for the Dalai Lama, a Hong Kong newspaper reported Sunday.

The Ming Pao newspaper said hundreds of monks at the Zhaibung monastery in Lhasa had clashed with police.

It said that after the clash, the monastery was surrounded by 3,000 armed police who refused to allow more than 1,000 monks leave. It gave no other details and did not say if there were any injuries.

A call to the monastery was not answered Sunday.

Kathmandu

I am safely at my next stop --- Kathmandu, Nepal --- and the challenges of a third-worldcountry are evident: Somone cut the zip-tie on the outside pocket of my suitcase(a someone who did not want ladies black shoes). Nepal is a case of remaining vigilant.I have a TSA lock on the main compartment, so the rest of my things were untouched.

I was the first person of our now-small group out of immigration and went outsidethe airport, looking to meet our transfer who never showed. The taxi touts circlingme like sharks: "Madam! Taxi? Where are you going?"

When Carole and Joann caught up to me, we decided we had better take a cab, and then I had a whole circle of drivers offering to take us. I negotiated in front of them, then asked to see the vehicles they were driving. One fellow assured mehe could fit three American ladies and five suitcases in something the size of aGeo Metro. I went for the mini van, then saw five men rush to help us, then askingfor "small gifts" for the favor. You know what that means: tips to anyonewho even looked at my belongings, preferably in American dollars.

When we pulled out of the parking lot, the next stop was a supposed "attendant"at whom the driver stopped and asked for 20 rupees fee: 10 cents equivalent. I wassitting next to the driver and just stared at him until he drove on. Can you imaginetrying to extort someone for 10 cents? It reminded me of getting shaken down in India when I went horseback riding, my guide telling me get off at a place shortof the stable and then saying I hadn't paid for his services. (I had not yetlearned to be suspicious and should have demanded that we ride back to the placewe started, but it was a steep hill with cobblestones and I was just as happy toget off with my legs intact.)

It is festival time here in Nepal, so many of the shops are closed, but I intendto go to a meeting of the "Rotary Club of Himalaya Gurkhas" on Monday night! (Isn't that a great name? I have visions of "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!") Stay tuned, and thanks for reading my blog.

The Disco Lounge Bathroom

What more could Heaven offer me? In Shigatse, I finally had plenty of hot water, a shower, soap and ... red and blue blinking lights in the fluorescent fixture over the sink mirror! (It made up for my "No! No Laundry!" experience ...)

Now I know another reason that Rotary International builds clean water sources: When I tried to wash my hair the day before in Shegar, there must have been chemicals in the water that bonded molecules in some ways I've never encountered.

My hair was so filled with dust from our Mount Everest expedition that I was even going to chance washing my hair in water so cold that it made me gasp in shock and my hands quickly ache. I figured that if I sufficiently contorted myself into a U-shape over the tub, only the smallest amount of my scalp would have to endure the cold and I wouldn't scream very loudly.

I was pleasantly surprised when warm water began to flow, but when I looked in the tub, I saw apparently much more than Tibetan topsoil. When trying to comb my hair the next morning, I knew something was wrong, horribly wrong. Fortunately, our tour group arrived at the hotel in Shigatse before I truly had "helmet hair." I had the serendipity of thinking that even John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever" never had a disco bathroom.

"Gulliver's Travels" a la Tibet

I thought I was going to be trussed by Tibetan schoolboys today when I took a walk instead of staying with my group to visit the Sakya Monastery.

Still at about 13,000 feet elevation, I was suddenly overwhelmed by sleepiness and took a nap instead of inhaling more yak butter fumes from the lamps in the monastery.

I took a walk toward sunset and sat on a rock to watch the villagers threshing their barley harvest. A steady string of children passed me by, mostly chirping "Hello! How are you!," but some asking for money with the universal outstretched hand.

Then it happened that I nearly got mugged by four eight-year-old boys, realizing their strength in numbers despite being half my height. They circled to look at me, then noticed all the cool essentials I have attached to my purse: the twist pen with KAREN printed on it; several carabiners; my water bottle; and the flat LED flashlight; my REI compass/thermometer; the tiny bottle of hand sanitizer.

One clever munchkin snatched off the hair clip I always keep on the strap but I got it back. Another had time to untwist my pen to remove the cartridge, but I managed to get it back, too. I felt this was quickly getting out of hand, like sharks smelling blood in the water, like feral dogs hunting in packs, and I was the Gulliver who was going to be overwhelmed by pint-sized people.

I sprang up to make my escape, fortunately at the same time as an Anglo guy about 6'7" was near. He turned out to be a 20-something Swiss national named Blaise who had bicycled alone from Kirghizstan on his way to Lhasa. One little guy still tried to leap up us, like an ambitious Chihuahua, but I was safe. Thank you, Blaise.

How Thoughts of 1904 Echo to Me Today

We now are in Gyantse, one of my favorite places in Tibet, and certainly more so since I started reading the history of this country. British Colonel Francis Younghusband (pictured above) was ordered to Tibet from India in 1904, tasked with securing the country as an Empire ally and trading partner to shut out Russian advances in "The Great Game" that had begun play a century before.

Younghusband reached Gyantse and asked surrender of the fort, a massive wall that sprawls across several ridges and can be seen from far away. The Tibetan general asked what would happen if he didn't surrender, to which Younghusband replied "Then we shall blow open the gates as we did (elsewhere)." Although British and Tibetan history diverge, it is said that the remaining Tibetan soldiers under siege threw themselves from the cliffs rather than be captured.

Younghusband got to Lhasa, the first known foreigner who made it past all the Tibetans who asked the uninvited foreigners to turn back. He took seven weeks to get acquainted, negotiate an agreement that cemented British trade in Tibet that shut out the Russians and rest before returning to India. The night before departure, he rode up into the hills above Lhasa for solitude. He later wrote that that hour alone "was worth the rest of (his) life."

Younghusband wrote that he found Lhasa to be dusty and dirty instead of the fabled and mystical Shangri-la. But obviously, Tibet was a very special place even one hundred years ago and continues to intrigue many of its visitors. With Carole, my traveling companion from last year's tour and this one, we continue to cry our way through various Buddhist monasteries, looking at the ancient relics and the overwhelming piety and sincere beliefs of the faithful.

When we visited the Gyantse monastery this morning with the marvelous blue-roofed Kumbun, I started to cry and told Carole I needed a hug. We continue to say how lucky, lucky, lucky we are; the spell of Tibet has not worn off.

No! No laundry!

One thing you learn about traveling in foreign countries is that you just have to go with the flow, whatever the flow is.

Case in point: In one of our hotels on the way to Mount Everest, I saw a laundry slip in the room and thought great!, I can get my dusty clothes washed! I entered "1 pair white socks" and "1 long black skirt" that I'd been wearing (a discreet and wise choice for when nature calls on the Tibetan plain where there are NO trees to hide behind).

When I placed them on the counter at the front desk, the woman looked at me like I was offending her. "No!" she shouted with disgust, waving me off with her hand. "No laundry!"

"But there was a laundry slip in my room," I explained, trying to justify my behavior.

She just look at me again, perhaps thinking I was deaf as well as stupid: "No laundry!"

I slunk away, rolling my black skirt around my sockies so no one else would notice my grievous error.

I Have Been to the Mountain

There are days when I say "Thank you God, for getting me this far and letting me see this." October 15 was one of those days, standing --- again! --- in front of the world's tallest mountain. How lucky, lucky, lucky I am. (I think I've said this before, but oh well, the lack of oxygen does have effects!)

I remember last year, staring up at the perfect and majestic rock and snow-clad glory of Mount Everest. The elevation there at base camp is 17,200 feet, and as I looked at it, I thought if we could add the full height of Mount Whitney (which I've climbed) at 14,495 feet, it STILL would not equal the height I was looking at: 29,035 feet.

So there I was again and grateful I had been there before because the mountain was nearly completed occluded by clouds, only intermittenly revealing the summit for those who knew where to look. I felt sorry for the rest of the group who would not be able to see it as I had, a brilliantly blue sky behind it with snow blowing off the top as the peak interrupts the jet stream.

Some of our group did stay the night at the marginal Everest Hotel, but that spot is not a pleasant place for humans, and I chose to return the few miles to our hotel in Shegar. Even then, the temperature in the morning was 20 degrees Fahrenheit. My REI clip-on thermometer indicated 45 degrees at Everest, but mere temperature is not the issue there: it's the blasting wind that is! The farmer in our tour group figured a 40 MPH wind at Everest, so my windchill conversion chart brings the temperature to something like 25 degrees to exposed skin. (Yeah, it certainly felt like it. I had on my lined leather pants, silk long-johns top and bottom, plus layers of more wool, cashmere and silk. I cranked down the hood retainer on my North Face jacket (standing in front of the original North Face!) just to keep my head scarf and hair from blowing around!

But temperature really didn't matter to me, except that my smile might be frozen on my face. The intense cold merely inspired me to quickly tie my string of prayer flags to the ones that had been placed before me and unravel the ones I meant to take home with the memory that I had flown them at Everest.

P.S For you Google Earth fans, here are the coordinates of where I was:

N 28 degrees 8' 478"

E 86 degrees 51' 054"

Dalai Lama Visit to U.S.

Karen's away from Internet access for the past three days...Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama's visit to the U.S. - and China's threat to the U.S. for honoring him - dominated this afternoon's White House press briefing...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071016-5.html#

Moving closer to the roof of the world

I am in Shigatse now. The police regulate how much time can elapse between five check points on the road from Lhasa after a Chinese tour bus overturned and killed 16. So, our drivers know how much time there can be, so we pull over and wait so that we can arrive at the proper times and not get fined. The drive so slowly any way!! Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise as the view at the side of the road is much preferable to being in a city that is becoming more Sino-ized by the day. I can see tremendous change just in the year since I was here, and as I am a country girl at heart, I feel sad to see more ugly construction and mindless sprawl without charm.

During this morning's drive, we climbed to more than 17,000 feet to a pass that overlooks the exquisite Turquoise Lake: the clouds change the color of the water's surface as they move across the sky, causing incredible shades of blue. This is the place of my first "yak encounter" last year.

( I am not able to upload photos from the road here, so I've asked Clint to substitute some of my photos from last year. What Tibet 2007 would show as a marked difference from Tibet 2006 is the temperature: While last year there was snow at the top of the pass and I was bundled in five layers that I hardly removed for two weeks, this year's photo would show Kare in a short-sleeve silk knit top and a long skirt --- nary a glove nor insulating scarf in sight --- striking a jaunty pose that is not wind-whipped! We would call the weather Indian Summer, but who knows how that would translate into Tibetans.

I continue to be extremely healthy with no effects of acute altitude sickness, knock on wood painted with the auspicious symbols of Buddhism!

"You Chinese!"

Yesterday started as a most beautiful morning: absolutely gorgeous autumn weather with stunningly blue skies that made me incredibly happy to be alive: I was back in Tibet, and I felt welcomed. I am happy here.

Our small group of nine walked around the Jokhang in the heart of Lhasa; it is the most sacred of Tibetan Buddhist temples. From the roof, we could see the Potala Palace some miles away, bathed in a shaft of light through the puffs of clouds as though to direct our attention there.

I wanted to find the wonderful jewelry shop where I bought a number of things last year. Carole from Pennsylvania (my traveling companion from last year's tour), Joann and I finally found it and spent a fair amount of money there, but as we stepped out the door, a Tibetan woman street vendor tried to sell us cheap necklaces.

Joann made the mistake of asking how much, just for inquiry, which the woman took as an interest to buy: "150 yuan!" Joann kept walking after me, and I heard the woman calling out progressively lower prices with an equally rising voice. Joann kept saying no, even at 40 yuan. I had crossed the street by this time time, but heard the woman following us and finally yelling with complete contempt: "Fuckkkkk you! You bitch! You whore! " There was a gap in the epithets, and then she launched the most damning insult: "You Chinese!"

I could walk away from all the rest, but I could not let this comment be my lasting memory of Lhasa. Although I had had nothing to do with the incident, I walked back to the woman, put 20 yuan, about $3, in her hand, said "We are not Chinese" and went back in my original direction. She caught up to me and held out an imitation turquoise and coral bracelet. "Gift" she said, "gift from me. I'm sorry."

I have been thinking about this woman: It was about 6:20 in the evening when the incident happened. I'm sure she was tired from standing all day and trying to hustle tourists with cheap jewelry amongst the competition. We obviously were the last straw and she lost it: "You Chinese!"

I realize that I will be able to go home to my nice life, but she will continue to be a second-class citizen in her own country.

Middle of the Night Musings: A Lesson on the First Amendment or Merely Technical Difficulties?

I can't access my blog while in Beijing. Not now, not for three days.

What you are reading is what I forwarded to Clint's email address to post for me. Why can I access Hotmail, MSN.com, PE.com and others, but not my blog? What is the difference? Unless it truly *is* technical difficulties, the difference is that I am in China and trying to post my personal opinion.

We voice our opinion so freely in the US! (While I'd rather go through life without "The O'Reilly Factor," the First Amendment is what gives both of us that freedom.) So what I am talking about is freedom of expression ... and I am in China.

Who remembers quirks in recent history to recall one of the factors in the reunification of Germany? The fax machine! By the use of commonly available and fairly unsupervised technology --- the phone lines --- many people could read the same message at virtually the same time and collectively organize to do something about their situations. Clint and I always say "The Internet is our friend," but obviously it is the friend only of people who are free to access it.

"But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong."