Venturing Outside of Kathmandu-A Different World

Ok guys so I am sincerely sorry for my lack of punctuality in regards to writing this blog...It's not that I have been procrastinating it off like I ususally do but it's actually because I'm legitimately busy and could not find the time to squeeze in and write a blog post. Because of that, now I am way behind on informing all of you lovely people of what I've been doing here in Nepal. Where to start...Well I guess I'll just go ahead and back track like one and a half weeks ago to tell you all about my first venture outside the confining catacombs of Kathmandu. So my fellow volunteer friends and I decided to go rafting and tubing...well not really "rafting" per se because rafting involves multiple amounts of people but this rafting was a single raft usually for a single person. Being the reckless person that I am, I decided that it would be a GOOD idea to trust myself with manning a single raft through waters which I originally thought would be calm- Way wrong! But, I'll spend time talking about that later. Let me just take things chronologically. Ok so basically the most important thing about this trip was the bus ride because, before this trip, I hadn't gotten a taste of the rurual country-side area that encompasses majority of Nepals geography. Rural life and city life, like in most areas, are two totally different things but I think Nepal shows that in a more distinct way. After a crazy bus ride outside of the city which took an hour but, without the traffic, would have taken well under 20 minutes, we started to ascend various peaks across the Kathmandu Valley- Yes, this is the Nepal I have been waiting to see! But at a price...The peaks were certainly stunning but we were literally on them circling through winding roads with no guard rail. I was juxtaposed between two emotions at that time: being stunned by the beauty and being terribly scared of our bus plummiting thousands of feet into the river. I originally thought that if we were to travel outside Kathmandu, the roads might widen up a little bit. Yes, but not on such mountain passes that I was taking. So you basically take into account the fact that there exists only one lane and that protection from falling off is limited (Although I think even if there were guard rails it wouldn't really matter much). But let's not linger on all the negative qualities of this bus trip because while there were certainly scary things, the beauty was something I've never seen before and not to mention the stark noticeability in the lack of pollution and air-cleanliness outside of Kathmandu.  It seems like the mountains are just covered with terraced rice fields which makes for an stunning view from the window of the bus. Also, when the clouds come in and combine with the mountains it's pretty Lord of the Rings-like. clouds cover a lot of the mountain but the peak seems to well peak out. The people that inhabit these areas literally live within the mountain. There were some houses I noticed that I just sat there and wondered: How the hell do they live? From where I was looking, there existed no roads leading to the various mountain houses scattered around the area. But they still do. And that is, I think, amazing that they manage to live with the mountain. It seems like people either walk or walk with a goat/cow/buffalo so they can carry large loads. But usually, the people, especially the women, seem to have no problem whatsoever with carrying enormously large loads. For example, I saw a woman from the bus with a straw basket carrying piles and piles and piles of rice. She had a headband thing attached to the basket to aid her in carrying it. I just could not get over that she was carrying so much weight up such steep paths. . I think these are also present to prevent landslides. Oh yeah, obviously being a mountain dense country, landslides are extremely common here in Nepal. In fact, because the monsoon is coming in, the incidents of landslides are increasing and becoming responsible for more and more deaths and damage. Landslides are probably the big reason for a lot of traffic one might hit along the mountain roads. We drove over many and that was particuarily frightening because it makes for a bumpy passage which leads to the bus tipping back and forth near those high ledges- Ah! But I assure you, it's okay--the bus drivers really know what they are doing here. Other traces of village rural life, such as water taps providing the only source of water, mud huts, traditional clothing, women bare chested feeding their babies out in the open, etc. can be felt. Ok, so after a 4-hour bus ride we finally make it to the rafting are where we are greeted by a friendly guide with a wide smile. He explains to us some of the rules but, quickly, we enter into our individual rafts. This is where I started to get a little scared- I was beginning to regret trusting myself managing my own raft as the river looked a lot rougher than I originally thought. According to my friends, because the monsoon is beginning to set into Nepal, the river will get more and more difficult to handle. In fact, the river guides actually travel to India during the monsoon time in order to find work for the summer months. So while doubting myself chosing to man this raft, we get to these abnormally large rapids for what I was expecting. I then noticed the guides screaming something to me but, unable to hear them due to their thick accents and  the roar of the rapids, I ignored their instructions and went right into this suction rapid thing which flipped me over. After screaming "help" the guides grabbed me back in. Distraught and wet but deteremined to carry on, we kept going but this time. naturally, I was a lot a lot more afraid of falling off again. Alas, I did again. But this time was much worse as I was under for a much longer time than before and it really scared the living shit out of me. After being finally pulled back in, I made sure I got the point across that I did not want to be by myself anymore. Then, I noticed my friend fell off her tube and had a similar, but much worse, almost drowning experience than I did. After all this chaos, we eventually stopped for lunch at this amazing tropical hut thing where there were hammocks and the guides were playing drums and guitar- It was so chill and an amazing way to cool off from the danger we just experienced. Around us stood lush green mountains with tropical jungle-like terrain around us. One of my friends, who lived in Hawaii for a while, said it reminded him so much of Hawaii and while I have never been to Hawaii I could totally see the correlation. The next part of our trip proved to be a much better experience than the latter. For one, me and my friend were no longer alone on a raft or tube. We had the guides with us which provided us with a lot of personal security. Therefore, we were really able to take in all the scenery. After a bunch of rapids we came out to this amazing valley where we saw bridges with curious faces staring back at us, kids fishing in the river with makeshift long fishing rods, and people just enjoying the scenery kindly waving at us as we passed. It was definitly a great moment to remember. After we finally finished, we got out of our boats and enjoyed the water in a calm serene river. Then, instead of taking the tourist bus back to Kathmandu, we had to take a different means of transportation. For around 30 minutes, our guides constantly were waving down mini buses and other buses that passed by to ask if it was okay to let us in. We finally got into one and it was super uncomfortable with very limited leg room. I was okay with it but my friends, who had longer legs than me, were not and seriously were contemplating sitting on the roof (a popular thing many Nepalis do if the interior of the bus is too full). While it would have been cool to ride on the roof, I think I would have been really scared. There was a little kid on the bus collecting the money as a job I assumed. Obviously too young to be working, I was interested. At a pit stop, the kid started talking to me and I found out he was around 12 years old and we had a quite heartbreaking conversation. He asked where I was going and I responded to Kathmandu and, in a somber face, he said that he was stuck here doing this and can't just go to Kathmandu like I can. I'm finding out the more I'm here that illegal child labor is a huge problem in Nepal. I'm pretty sure it's illegal according to the government but because the government is so damn corrupt virtually nothing is actually enforced completely. If you look closely on a walk through Kathmandu, you can spot children in dirty clothes working at places you know should not be working at. According to the amazing book I'm reading, "Little Princes", after the civil war there were a lot of orphaned children trafficked from rural parts of Nepal living in Kathmandu and were subsequently exploited for their labor. It also dosen't help that there is little accountability and prosecution for violators. I'm beginning to figure out that Nepal cannot solve any of the prevasive issues that haunts it's sancitcy without first addressing the issue of corruption within the government. And after a long bus ride and taxi ride back to Thamel, I arrived home exaushted but equally excited for my bungee jumping trip the next day which I'll talk about in my next blog post. Stay tuned!