Meat

During our time in the Middle East, we went without pork. Now, since we moved to a Hindu country, we are going without beef. Eating beef in Nepal is illegal. Marijuana, yes; beef, no.

Going without beef hasn't been so bad. Really, we have many other options like these...

As you can see, buffalo tongue is possible to eat (pictured above next to the tasty goat head). The texture is nice, and if it is served with a mix of chicken gizzards, I hear it makes a nice snack. Yummy!

Funny enough, my appetite for something meaty has disappeared since we arrived in Nepal. I have no idea why....

Telephone

Remember the game? I played it yesterday, only using different languages:

English - Axel called to tell me he won't be coming home at his usual 6pm. I needed to relay the message to my guards, otherwise they would be waiting for him at the front gate. Not knowing Nepali, I told Haleni.

Indonesian - When I told Haleni, I spoke in Indonesian. I told her that she needed to tell our new maid, Sureta, the message so she could tell the guards.

Arabic - Suresta is Nepalese but she just arrived from working in Kuwait so she knew Arabic. Suresta doesn't know any English, just Arabic and Nepali. Haleni worked in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years so Haleni told Suresta in Arabic.

Nepali - Suresta then told our guard, who speaks nothing but Nepali, that Axel will be late and they won't need to wait for him at 6pm.

At 6pm, no guard was waiting at the gate. Mission accomplished.

Going Green

Unintentionally, we are the most environmentally friendly family I know. I also now realize how much energy and waste I was contributing to the environment before we moved here. Dubai was the worst. Everyone there leaves their doors WIDE open in the dead of the summer with the A/C blaring. Also, the number of SUV's on the streets makes it apparent that fuel prices are a nonissue.

So, while I live in Nepal I can feel fairly confident that my footprint on the environment is minimal. No guilt trips here from any tree hugger...

We have solar panels to heat our water - So when the sun don't shine, the water ain't hot.

Our solar panels on our roof

We have no electricity from 7pm to 9pm - All the lights are out at 7. We have a few rechargeable lights to read a book and by 9, we are out.

We conserve all our water - Cause if we don't, we have a huge problem. First we need to call the water company to come fill our tanks. Once the phone call is made, we need to wait a couple of days before the water actually arrives. It is a huge incentive not to have those long, soothing baths that I love so much (it does help that the water is yellow and unappealing anyways).

We have 3 of these. Once it is gone, it is gone.

Axel drives a motorbike to work - It cracks me up every time I see him get on this bike and ride to work. But, since our driver typically goes home by 6 or so, it is nice to have this as an alternative. Plus, the kids love a motorbike ride with their dad. If Axel (the motorbike lover) were beside me right now he would make me write that this bike sucks and he is in the market for buying a sweet ride called the Bajaj. I am sure he will argue it is good on gas mileage. I am not sure I care THAT much.

We dry all our clothes on a line - I don't have much choice in this matter. Right now my dyer is sitting at a port in India somewhere, but even when it does arrive, I think it will be only used on special occasions. It takes too much of our energy, which will cause us to have further problems with our battery--a pain in the butt! So, when I am craving a moment of luxury, I will tumble a towel for 20 minutes. It is the simple things, I tell you.

We have an organic garden with all the fix'ns - We've got corn, carrots, peppers, cardamom, peas, okra, squash, snake beans, etc. in the works. In less than a month, no more vegetable market visits where they sneeze and clear out their noses on the veggies. We also have a nice selection of plums, pomegranates, pomelos, mangos, and peaches arriving soon.

Pomegranate tree

Mango tree

We never use the A/C - Although we have one, we never use it. The owners of this house are a Tibetan and Nepalese couple. They consulted a Feng Shui expert before they made this house. He said that the house has a good energy flow and that air will move smoothly. I don't know if that is all a load of crap, but I believe it. This place never really gets hot and it always seems to be a comfortable temperature.

We don't use diapers - Okay, sometimes we do, but since the whole 'rhea episode, Sedona is really comfortable being in the buff. It is all fine with me cause she seems to be more interested in potty training as a result. As for baby Asa, he's constantly covered. I figured one is better than nothing. I just can't handle the breastfeeding poops.

So, now I can watch 11th Hour with ease. Phew.

Do I still get points even if I am forced to be a conservationists?

Pokhara

We have been gone to visit the mid-western side of Nepal these past few days, and as usual, it did not disappoint.

The drive was quite long, 8 hours, but the sun was shining and the music was blaring. We stopped at a little village high in the mountains called Bandipur. Just as I thought the ride couldn't be any more dangerous, we began winding up these steep mountains on a very, very narrow road. In fact, the conversation turned into, "How strong do you think these trees are if we ran off the side of this cliff? Could it hold our van and everyone inside? How tight are the seatbelts on the kids?" Not such a comfortable Q and A session, but truly, a breathtaking view.

We went several miles straight up with the intention of seeing a very cool cave we heard so much about. However, when we arrived we were told the cave was actually several miles back on the same road we came from and required 45 minutes of walking straight uphill. I think we will save that one for when grandma and grandpa come to visit. So instead, we decided to explore the little town and call it good.

Sedona ringing the bell for the god Shiva

Sedona trying to get to know the locals. These kids weren't so friendly.

Exploring Bandipur just as it started to rain

Xaiver was very happy to be out of the van and running in rain. Please notice his pants on backwards (and his shoes)...

On our way up to see a small Hindu temple, we came upon this one room schoolhouse. They were learning about Colorado, and Axel became one of their guest speakers.

Me, getting drenched in the rain.

The little town was really quite cute and it was a good diversion before we got back in the car to push onward towards Pokhara.

When we arrived in Pokhara we encountered, what else? A strike! Surprise, surprise. In fact, the line of cars and trucks trying to get into Pokhara was at a stand still. So much so, that Axel got out of the van and began to direct traffic. He did this twice! He made cars move and trucks get out of the way so we wouldn't get stuck in the jam for hours on end. In fact, he was telling the traffic cop what he should be doing! Everyone was just sitting at a standstill waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Including him...

If you look closely, you will see the miles of traffic going towards the city.

After two encounters with standstill traffic, we finally made it into Pokhara. Pokhara's beauty is the fact that it has lush mountains set in front of large, snow-capped mountains. The view, I hear, is spectacular. Unfortunately, the rain clouds that appeared in Bandipur followed us all the way to Pokhara and didn't seem to want to leave until the day before we left. We seemed to be continually saying, "Imagine if it wasn't down pouring right now, I think this view would be beautiful."

In this photo you should be seeing the massive Himalayan mountain range.

Here is a small peak of the Himalayans using our telephoto lens

Because the city was so wet we decided to explore the outside ranges and see what orchids we could find. On our way we ran into a festival in a small village. They were happy to welcome us to their festivities. It was a lot of dancing and singing. The kids loved it. Still not sure what we were celebrating. In fact, maybe we were crashing someone's wedding without knowing it. Whatever it was, it was fun...

After partying with the locals, we moved further away from Pokhara. The small ride along this road yielded at least 6 different orchid species for Axel, with a little help from our driver, of course!

This tree is actually on a cliff, but you can't tell from this photo. I am sure our driver, at this moment, is thinking, "Um, this isn't part of my job description..."

In the evening, Axel took one of his employees who controls Pokhara out to dinner with the rest of the family. We didn't know the town well, so we just picked some random restaurant that seemed to be close to the lakeside. As we approached the restaurant we heard our dinner guest say, "I'm not sure this is a good idea. Why don't we try somewhere else." Axel wasn't ready to go hunting for another restaurant and said, "This will be fine." The restaurant had two areas, an indoor section and a place outdoors, on the roof. We decided to stay on the roof but as the sun went down, music began to play from the indoor section. The kids were curious and so the maids took Heavah and Xavier downstairs to see what was going on. After a few minutes, I followed and this is what I saw...

The 'girls' seemed to take a liking to my kids so they came up on stage and danced. Notice the pole...

"Mom, aren't her boots so pretty!"

These were the girls who were 'dancing'

Luckily, it was early enough that the place wasn't 'hopping' quite yet. In fact, I think (I hope) it was just a rehearsal for the 'real' show. As we left Heavah said, "Those girls had ALOT of makeup on and not much clothes." Um, yep.

The problem with living in Nepal is it isn't quite clear where the 'questionable' areas are. It seemed like a normal place to me, but when I told Axel what it was like downstairs, our dinner guest confirmed that it said 'Night Dancing Show' in Nepali outside. Gosh darn it, I have to learn this language!

The rain continued most of our trip, but we really had fun exploring. We visited a beautiful waterfall called 'Davi's Falls'. The name came from the fact that in 1962 a Swiss couple decided to bathe in this water. As they did, a rush of water came through and swept them away. Yeah, so they died and now they have a falls named after them. p>

We also got to finally explore a cave, which was dedicated to Shiva and Ganesh and had a weird cow in the middle that pooped out marbles. That is, for 10 Rupees.

We also got to visit a sacred temple in the middle of the lake. The ride over was fun and the kids were asking if certain things in the lake were as a result of crocodiles eating people. Luckily, there were no crocodiles in the lake, but why tell them that? They again, sat very, very still.

We then took a ride out of town again to search for orchids, or whatever else we could find. We saw a ton of waterfalls, one of which beckoned us to play for a while. The kids could not have been happier. The only slight downfall of the frolicking was the fact that leeches were abundant in the wooded area surrounding the falls. Every one of us had encountered at least one and Axel 's foot was bleeding several hours afterwards.

Even though we were unable to clearly see all the beauty Pokhara had to offer, we had a blast! The rain wasn't so bad either. It caused me to be more lenient on the kids getting wet and they got their very own umbrella as a souvenir (who knew they could be sooooo much fun!).

We will do the trip again, no doubt. However, next time, we will definitely check the forecast!