Who writes this stuff?

I think the Telegraph needs a new correspondent.


In Nepal related news this morning:

The escape of the Czech forester from Darjeeling has raised serious security concerns in the region especially in the light of Nepal’s lenient immigration policy and the largely porous border that it shares with India....
The problems they believe lie in the fact that foreigners do not need visas to visit Nepal. They only have to get the passports stamped while entering the Himalayan Kingdom.

Foreigners don't need visas? My friends and I will be so glad to hear that!!

Hilarious - of course we need visas, oh boy do we need them. A few laws have permutated recently, but until about this past June, we had to report every 30 days at immigration and get a new one. They didn't even trust us with a few months at a time.

Indeed, foreigners do need visas for Nepal. However, visas can be taken either in advance from a Nepali embassy or, more commonly, at the border (or airport) upon arrival.

It's not just a stamp...like most visas, it is a sticker in your passport. Tourist Entry Visa. AHEM.
And it costs all of $40 for 30 days, pretty hefty when you consider that six months in India only costs you $60.

When you get to the Immigration queue at Tribhuvan Irrational Airport, just get in line and be sure to have 2 copies of a passport-sized photo, as well as photocopies of your Passport front page. AND $40....the denominations required keep changing. They used to ask for $40 US and only accept US. Now I hear they won't take USD.

And we're no longer a Kingdom! Wake up and smell the incense, Telegraph "correspondent"!

Still life with vomit

Chatalog: Copied chats are the new blogs
Los Angeles to Kathmandu, Nepal

A Google Talk with my buddy, musician, singer and software designer Amod Dange in Los Angeles.

amod.dange: yo mama
amod.dange is online.

amod.dange: how ya be

sirensongs: oh, man i have been better for sure. just vomited in the bathroom of a japanese rest. and i hadn't even eaten. don't you love hearing this first thing in yo morning?
;-)

amod.dange: awww
sirensongs: cute huh

amod.dange: :)
well it happens to the best of us
sirensongs: sometimes even to me, ha
amod.dange: do you think it was the food?
sirensongs: no, i have been sick for nearly 1 week
off and on....kept thinking it was going away
amod.dange: oh no
sirensongs: got better

amod.dange: did you see a doctor?
sirensongs: then i took the Metronidazole meds. for it---no doctor
we know the parameters
however, i neglected to find out that
Metronidzle is also called Flagyl
and Flagyl makes me puke

amod.dange: honey you should see a doctor
sirensongs: thanks dear....yes my "special friend' keeps saying that
but, there are only 3 possibilities
cyclospora -- the meds. for which i am allergic to--Bactrim that is;
giardia
or amebiasis
giardia and amebiasis req. the same meds--Tinidazole
every year i forget and brush my teeth with tap water during monsoon. it's my fault

amod.dange: do you think that's what does it?
sirensongs: well, it could have been something i ate
bt evidently no firang here in nepal brush with tap water. in india it's always bn ok
amod.dange: maybe you should try gurgling with rum/whiskey after brushing... just a thought
sirensongs: so my foreign friends are chewing me out saying "you BRUSHED with TAP WATER??!?!?"

amod.dange: so much for the pure Himalayan spring water
sirensongs: oh hell, nepali water is disgusting
we are not that close to the mtns here in the valley
anyway i do feel much better after vomiting...i know it was the flagyl
can switch to Tinidazole
if that doesn't work then i have to sit it out.
take ayurveda
hey thanks for the SSBanner
that came out funny
star spangled, that is
SS, Secret Service, sirensongs

amod.dange: :-)
sirensongs: maybe I can find a way to play it at the Embassy 4th July party
amod.dange: i can send you a hi-fi MP3
sirensongs: in 2006 all they played was old Gerry Rafferty things from the 70s, and Billy Ocean. no really
well okay, i can put it on my flash drive i guess
amod.dange: or an audio file that you can put on a cd
sirensongs: dunno what setup they have there
amod.dange: well i can send you a regular audio file that you can put on a regular cd that will play in a system,
i'd really love it if the US Embassy used it
sirensongs: me too.

amod.dange: it will be a big honor :-)
sirensongs: even if they just play it once early in the day. yeah, most expats are pretty preppy, boring types
amod.dange: hahaha
sirensongs: so i wouldn't get too excited, ha
really, they only want clean scrubbed preps working for them.
no one going native or any weirdos like me

amod.dange: hey even if they played it to 2 people at the breakfast lounge i'd still be honored
sirensongs: cool. i think that could be arranged.
also my friends own bars here and i know that's not the same
but they may want to observe.
amod.dange: no bars are better
sirensongs: americans are here despite the travel warning
okay

amod.dange: what warning?
didn't know there was one
sirensongs: oh, the US offiically has an official warning that officially we shouldn't be here
then again Mandela was on their terrorist list till last week

hey, this is fun, maybe i will run this convo as a blog

amod.dange: i know wtf is that all about
sirensongs: for stuff he did with the ANC 30 yrs ago

amod.dange: you know i always thought chats were worthy of being published in their original form

sirensongs: back then he was a terrorist. but he did things like win a nobel pprize since then
amod.dange: i see

sirensongs: they are! chats
dialogue and the whole back and forth thing
is so much fun
much more fun than the ranting monologue stuff lots of blogs are made of

amod.dange: epecially since they retain the spontaneity of the moment
sirensongs: that's what really makes blogs special
like, if you hadn't called, or whatever people are calling it these days,
i prob. never would have written 'i just vomited in the bathroom of a jap. rest"
amod.dange: maybe you can start a new trend - i'd call it a "chatalog"
sirensongs: COOL


is there a bujilt in save on this chat device or must i copy it to word?
amod.dange: use google
cos it automatically emails you the whole chat session
sirensongs: oh right

amod.dange: but never CHANGE anything
sorry the caps should have been on NEVER
hahah

sirensongs: weren't you going to mention yr GF yesterday?
amod.dange: well yes she is awesome
sirensongs: cool
is this the Chinese girl?
amod.dange: she'll be here for the long weekend
yes
sirensongs: who is really young
amod.dange: yes she's 23, I am 35
sirensongs: so, quite a bit diff. of age. i suppose that doesn't matter much anymore
people are more accepting
amod.dange: well 23 yr olds are the lot smarter now than they used to be when i was 23
sirensongs: and a LOT more experienced, dang
kind of scarey
amod.dange: no kidding
yeah she surprises me all the time with her calm about things even I would get stressed about sometimes
sirensongs: wow
amod.dange: she's going to china for 2 months though
amod.dange: and she's not sure if they'll give her a visa to come back
sirensongs: wow, bummer
why would they not?

sirensongs: oh, it is china after all
hmmm

amod.dange: yeah well it's to do with finances for education etc. strange cos she is still enrolled in school which doesn't end for another year
sirensongs: hmm really strange
amod.dange: she thinks that the US govt discriminates between Chinese and Indian students
cos the indians all get 10 year visas
and the chinese only get 1 year
which can be renewed only from China
sirensongs: ah
well, that's prob because india was willing to make a deal with US and china was not, or something
i don't think the US has any reason to keep Chinese out
not chinese students
china would seem to have more of an interest in 'protecting' and being proprietary about its people

oh yeah, the thing about china being 'open ' now is rubbish

amod.dange: nah you think so?
could be i have no idea really
china is certainly not "open" of course
sirensongs: well, after making all the hoo ha about opening tibet and china again for foreigners
amod.dange: open to do business on their terms though
sirensongs: you can only travel in groups and all members of the group must be the same natilty.
which is very unlikely these days. for instance it means you and your GF could not go

amod.dange: what?
sirensongs: together
yep
amod.dange: that makes no sense
sirensongs: of course not
amod.dange: so if husband and wife have different nationalities they can't go together?
crap
sirensongs: my friend runs an Everest tours and they are letting him take 2 nationalities, but one has to be nepali, of course the porters are all nepali
and he is Kiwi
so...what, find 10 Kiwis?
amod.dange: hahaha
this is a joke
sirensongs: AFAIK [as far as I know] yes that's what it means.
then you must submit permission 2 mos in advance
but they reserve the right to reject it up to 1 wk before your intended travel date
amod.dange: how nice
sirensongs: and of course, for such a trip everyone has already bought expensive tickets often non-ref
and third of all
everyone's being really scrutinized
for instance, i might not get to go if they find out sirensongs is me
and biz people who have been going for 5 yrs are being rejected
this is all acc. to my close friend who runs the prof. agency
people who've been many times are being rejectd for mainland.
amod.dange: wow (sorry phone)
sirensongs: kay
your GF has any family in US? or no
Sent at 11:09 PM on Wednesday

amod.dange: back from phone.....
well she has an aunt
sirensongs: k, before you forget send me an MP3
amod.dange: in DC
sirensongs: oh that's good
amod.dange: ok sure
sirensongs: does that help at atll?
amod.dange: what? the thing about the Chinese policy?
sirensongs: with her staying
amod.dange: oh you mean the aunt
sirensongs: yeah
amod.dange: well the aunt is the sponsor
so she is instrumental in having her here
sirensongs: ah
amod.dange: but i'm not sure if the US immigration sees the aunt as also a factor increasing the possibility that she will not rerturn
Sent at 11:16 PM on Wednesday

amod.dange: ok darling i better focus on work - it's getting busier here
you take care of yourself

sirensongs: well great chatting. I will put this up on the blog. yep, i don't get alarmed at vomit anymore.
amod.dange: and i'll send that audio file across tonight
sirensongs: ;-)
happens with altitude, wrong meds, etc
amod.dange: that's the spirit -- well Happy 4th of July!
sirensongs: thanks! you too!!!
amod.dange: stay safe and eat well
and i'll send that audio 2night

South of the border

Or Bored of the South?
Kathmandu, Nepal

Indo-Nepal border to be sealed from March 10
Oh, great. Right in time for me as a I get my visa to return to India. How long is THIS sh*t going to go on?

They may end up having elections after all here in Nepal, but if they do, it will be a Maoist/YCL (Young Communist League)-controlled farce. Reports are already filtering in of YCL assuming "poll protection" duties in the rural areas.

The Election Commission (housed in the former building of the world-famous Hotel Royal) has printed up ballots. On the same page of the newspaper we read that electronic voting machines will be used. So which is it to be?

I THINK (reading local papers, one has to infer a great deal) the print ballots will be used for "practice" and dry-run trial elections - which of course, should have taken place 4 months or so ago.

Yes, Bhutan and Pakistan both recently had successful elections...but in neither case was it their first try. Bhutan went in baby steps... and Pakistan had several false starts for years.

Indo-Nepal border to be sealed from March 10 BAHRAICH, MAR 8 (PTI)--The Indo-Nepal border would be sealed from March 10 and additional barriers and pickets installed on all the passages linking the area with the Himalayan kingdom in view of constituent assembly elections in the neighbouring country.

DIG, Devi Patan, Manmohan Bashal told newspersons here yesterday that policemen in plain clothes would be deployed keeping in mind the sensitive nature of the border.

"A meeting of senior officials of both the countries would be held before the elections for better coordination," Bashal said adding that a close watch is being maintained on Maoists as well as Madheshiya activists.

V for Visa Victory

Yes, I finally got my long-awaited Indian visa for 6 months, double entry. It was a real uphill battle. Basically, they are changing all the rules and regs for second-time / repeat visitors to India from Nepal. I must blog about it soon in detail...just so burnt out right now.

How many times have I changed fonts within this post? At least twice. I tried changing them back and it's not working. Can't deal with it right now...where's tech support when you need them?

Diplomatic license

Irrational International Relations
Kathmandu, Nepal

There just can't be such a thing as a normal visit to the Indian Embassy of Kathmandu. It just IS NOT allowed.

Always, there has to be some kind of extenuating circumstance inserting itself into the few thousand feet between my guest house and the complex of bungalow-style buildings in Lazimpat.

Today's episode featured a blockade of the front gates of the Indian Embassy by members of the Nepal Army, or maybe Nepalis in the Indian Army. What? No one could explain properly; evidently it had something to do with Nepali members of the Indian army striking for better pay and improved conditions.

Guys, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but have you looked around the neighborhood lately? You are lucky to have a job at all, let alone one working for the neighborhood superpower.

So I had to find the "secret" back entrance by a public school. Evidently this strike has been going on for a while, because the school gate has actually been now painted with the name "Indian Embassy Entrance." Armed soldiers come and go along with the uniformed schoolchildren and orange-robed ascetics applying for Indian visas.

When I finally reached the window, I was surprised to see the famous Toupee Man was no more. Toupee Uncle, gone! Now who's gonna smile at me and make playful banter?

In fact, all the faces had changed. Great, now I have to ingratiate myself anew.

A Colombian woman in line next to me had heard, via the expat jungle telegraph, that the previous crew had all been transposed - caught for taking baksheesh in exchange for issuing five-year visas, and sent upriver to some other office.

However, the grace of the avatars was in my corner. The new man at the window was either a Sherpa, or a Tibetan.

"WHY you are coming and going so much from India?" he asked, flipping suspiciously through the - by now several dozen - various stamps and stickers in my passport.

Of course, there MUST be a nefarious reason to want to spend time in India. I love this logic - it's as though they're admitting that no one in their right minds would go there. Come to think of it, they do have a point.

My impeccably chaste reply:
I am following His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

(Note to karma police: Forgive me for name-dropping, just trying to get back to Dharamsala to see Him.... this year he's teaching Dhammapada.)

The guy's head snapped up. "Really?"

Sure. Wanna see?

I switched on my camera and flipped through the close-range photos for him, as his eyes widened.

"You have MET him?"

Yes.

"He KNOWS you?"

Yes. (Not by name, just as that gutsy American woman who bullies around the Indian male news photographers. HH does get a chuckle out of this, I have seen it.)

Would you like some tenshug? I asked, reaching into my bag of silken blessing cords that had been 'zapped' by just two of the 1000 Arms of Avalokiteshvara.

Problem solved. Thanks, HH!

Because of some Hindu holiday (of course, there's one on a weekly basis - but what the hell is 11 February? - oh that's right, Vasant Panchami), I can't retrieve the visa till 14 February.

But Mercury will still be retrograde...maybe this time I'd better bring along some Precious Pill.

All About Vasant Panchami
I'm glad it's Vasant Panchami. If there were ever a patron goddess of Geek Girls, it would be Maa Saraswati.

Saraswati is the goddess of wisdom, art and music. It is believed that goddess Saraswati endows human beings with the powers of speech, wisdom and learning.
She has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning: mind, intellect, alertness and ego. She has sacred scriptures in one hand and a lotus — the symbol of true knowledge — in the second.

(Actually, it's not a lotus she is holding in the second hand...it is a mala, or prayer beads for saying mantra.)

With her other two hands she plays the music of love and life on a string instrument called the veena.

She is dressed in white — the symbol of purity — and rides on a white swan that symbolises Sattwa Guna or purity and discrimination.

Saraswati is also a prominent figure in Buddhist iconography — the consort of Manjushri.

Yaa Kundendu tushaara haaradhavalaa, Yaa shubhravastraavritha Yaa veenavara dandamanditakara, Yaa shwetha padmaasana Yaa brahmaachyutha shankara prabhritibhir Devaisadaa VandithaSaa Maam Paatu Saraswatee Bhagavatee Nihshesha jaadyaapahaa

Translation --
"May Goddess Saraswati, who is fair like the jasmine-colored moon, and whose pure white garland is like frosty dew drops; who is adorned in radiant white attire, on whose beautiful arm rests the veena, and whose throne is a white lotus; who is surrounded and respected by the Gods, protect me. May you fully remove my lethargy, sluggishness, and ignorance."

I fell off

Resolution dissolution
Delhi to Dharamsala

Well, so much for my new year's resolution of blogging every single day. As we used to say Back In The Day, I "fell off" for a while.

Fortunately, in a few weeks it will be Losar (Tibetan Lunar New Year) and I will have a chance to resolve anew.

So as to end the mind-numbing suspense, yes, I was FINALLY granted the (very brief) visa extension, just long enough for me to get out of the country without a fine.

Then I was kidnapped by an emerging colony of underground artists deep in the bowels of Delhi's Lajpat Nagar and am only now emerging from the subterranean lair to tell the story.

Members of this collective include a Japanese public-art pirate and a Mandaya Indian stop-motion filmmaker. We've got Warhol's Factory beat all to hell, now all we need is drugs and money.

Seriously, this was my first experiment with the traveler's space-sharing project Couchsurfing. So far, so good.

Republican Parties
The road to procrastination is paved with good downloads. We had fully intended to attend the Republic Day parades in the morning. But, since we ended up watching the Bob Dylan interpretive-bio flick I'm Not There till about 2 in the morning, this was not to be.

Instead, Indian Republic Day (Jan. 26) was spent pigging out South Indian stylee at the Karnataka cultural center, then hanging out at Tamil Sangam auditorium with fantastic tribal folk dancers from Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Lakshadweep, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Meghalaya, Rajasthan and Punjab.

My favourites were the ethereal dancers from Bhopal, a hybrid of Masai warriors in full dress and characters from the movie The Fifth Element, swirling to hypnotic sounds of a dissonant gong.

As bus rides to Dharamsala ("I Mean McLeod Ganj") go, I had the absolute best 14-hour bus ride ever, crashed out in the cabin (driver's compartment). I managed to nab a 250Rs ($6.00) a night room at OM Hotel with a valley view.

I was miffed to see that the McLeod landmark Sunrise Chai stand is no more. (This place is a real institution on Bhagsu Road.) It's been replaced by - wait for it - a Kashmiri emporium ! Just what McLeod needs more of. The neighboring Moonlight Chai stand remains, but Sunrise will be sorely missed.

Now in Dharamsala ("I Mean McLeod Ganj") for just a couple days on an administrative mission. More news as it happens....

The envelope, please

Land of legal limbo
Delhi

So here's the upshot (not the end!) of yesterday's Foreigners' Office story. (I am so sure you are fascinated....)

I returned (along with many others) to the Home Affairs Ministry at 4.30 pm to await my fate. While waiting I met some Ugandans, Pakistanis, and a Mexican Hare Krishna devotee wearing full dhoti and kasturi tilak. The Mexican man was married to an Indian citizen, but this didn't help his status much within the country.

An Indian-origin woman living in Miami, was having trouble getting an extension because she had now been a US citizen and passport holder for 37 years. The office claimed there was no proof of her Indian origin, which technically, I suppose, was true. Her US passport said "place of birth: INDIA," but "even that is not enough, they say."

All these people, including myself, were petitioning for permission to stay a bit longer on this visa. But one Norwegian couple were desperate just to get out, and couldn't even get the exit permission.

How had this happened? Why was it so difficult to get OUT of the country?

The Norwegian woman, who was in tears, explained the story to me. They had first been in Varanasi, where all their bags, passports and everything, had been stolen. The Norwegian Embassy had issued an emergency passport/travel document - but of course, this did not contain any evidence of their original proper Indian visas. Under such circumstances, you must get permission from Home Affairs before exiting the country.

As if it wasn't enough to be robbed blind, the man had then dislocated his shoulder in a surfing mishap down in Kerala. (I didn't know people surfed in Kerala; learn something new every day.) They were told they could not fly home directly from Kerala, but had to report to Delhi for exit permission.

I could see the lymph fluid (or something) oozing from his shoulder and seeping through his cotton shirt. He must have been in a great deal of pain. They wanted to leave the country for Norway right away.

As it was a Friday, the office claimed they would have to wait the entire weekend till Monday when the case could be reviewed properly. (I think I mentioned before that the office only accepts incoming applications from 9am to 12pm. The couple had made that deadline, but for some reason weren't going to be given a result the same day.)

Finally they were given the fateful sealed plain brown envelope, to be opened only by the FRRO in RK Puram, another part of town. They set off full of hope (and probably full of painkillers) at 4.45 pm in an Ambassador taxi.

The rest of us received our plain brown wrappers with instructions NOT to open them, and to report to RK Puram office on Monday morning. Which for many of us, means an entire weekend without valid papers. Fortunately, I've learned to live with a great degree of ambiguity.

Getting your goat

Dasain Days
Bhrikutimandap, Kathmandu, Nepal

Finally, the weather cleared yesterday, after a weekend of seemingly interminable drizzle and rain and mud. Billowing white clouds now hang over the green hills that surround Kathmandu, and it's hot at mid-day.

On my way to Immigration, I passed an impromptu open-air goat market - the sidewalk was transformed into a musky-smelling barnyard, with all sizes and colours of goats nibbling at green fodder suspended from rope ties. They were adorable! But sadly, all are doomed. They have all been brought in from the surrounding villages to be bought as sacrificial offerings for the Dasain holiday. If all goes as planned, each and every one (all male goats) will have their throats slit and their blood offered to the goddess Taleju Bhavani, a manifestation of Durga. The unwanted goats will go back to the hills.

I had romantic notions of topi-wearing hill-dwellers herding the goats, on foot, over valley and dale into the big city for market - a sort of annual pilgrimage. Actually, the goat-keepers rent a mini-van (for about 500NRs a day,or $7.00 US) and load the goats inside; as many as 20 goats are crammed into the little vehicle. They pick up uncooperative goats by the horns (in one hand) and the back-scruff (in the other) and toss them in.

The hundreds of goats there were distinguished by some numerical system scrawled onto their horns, and sometimes, blotches of coloured dye on their shaggy coats. One shyster tried to sell me a goat for 3000NRs (about $50), but it turned out the correct price was 160NRS for 4 kg.

The goats are weighed (or as they say here, "weighted") across the road on a medieval-looking contraption that is a combination of a seesaw and swingset. The balances are big enough for a couple of humans to stand in - in fact, it looks like the thing they use to weigh the accused with in Monty Python & the Holy Grail ("I am NOT a witch, and this is not my nose, it's a false one!"). There were a few regulation weights there to balance the goats, but they also used a chunk of cinder block.

If the goats had any inkling of their fate, they seemed pretty resigned to it.

On the other side of the road were an especially handsome looking gaggle of goats, with long shaggy coats, twisted ornamental horns, and an extra swatch of shag hanging between their eyes like overgrown bangs. They seemed like the cool, laid-back hippy goats. Turned out they are a special kind of mountain goat called "Changra," but they don't cost any more than the other goats. I scratched them behind the ears, ruffled their fringed bangs and said a silent prayer for them to be reborn as humans (hopefully, vegetarian humans).

Immigrant Song
At Immigration, they told me that in order to stay in the country on a three-month student visa, I need the following things:
-$750 deposited in my name in a Nepali bank account. This is to prove I have $250 a month to cover my expenses for the three months's time;
-a receipt of fees paid and enrollment from the dance academy in Bhaktapur (which means I have to pay the teacher in advance, usually not a good idea);
-Letter of recommendation from the Nepali Ministry of Education (this is known to take a month or more - sometimes tourist visas run out just waiting for it);
-Various copies of my passport, visa and application itself (not a big deal).
-After the initial submission of the bank statement, you then have to show another just to prove you still have the money (that you didn't just borrow it in order to make a false statement).

$250 a month is quite reasonable for living expenses in Nepal; the problem is, getting it all together at the same time (plus the school fees).

They give you a nicely printed list of all these things (guidelines for foreign researchers and students)... in Nepali script! Talk about missing the point.

All this has to be accomplished within the next 30 days, and about 10 of them are official holidays. Nepal maa, din din ne, ek naya mela aunchhu (in Nepal, every day a new festival is coming).