Today was basically a travel day to get us to India... but, we managed to squeeze in a surprise detour to visit Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. Lumbini features Buddhist temples from many countries in a manner similar to Expo or Epcot. Our cycle-rickshaw driver should have retired awhile ago, so Lisa and I took turns doing the job. WE MADE IT TO INDIA!!!
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Chitwan National Park is situated in the central Nepali Terai, a huge nature reserve protecting hundreds of square kilometres of grassland and marshes. Home to over 700 species of animals in total, it's a fantastic place to see wildlife.
After our walk in the jungle, we returned to watch the elephant bathing. The afternoon featured a jeep safari to the wetland area of Bis Hajaar Tal ("Lake 20000") where we saw more of the same species of animals.
We had our introductory group meeting yesterday evening, so today is considered day 2 of our 82 day Dragoman overland tour. We will be traveling in a counter-clockwise direction, circumnavigating the whole of India before returning to Nepal. After an included breakfast, we drove approximaely 200 kilometres down to the Terai grasslands and on to the Royal Chitwan National Park. We stopped at the Royal Beach Camp (where we will stay overnight in March) for lunch beside the river. The main road between Kathmandu and Chitwan is in poor condition and requires many switchback turns through the mountains. To make matters worse, we encountered several long delays due to accidents and breakdowns (mostly of local public buses), so we arrived later than anticipated after what turned out to be longer than an 8 hour drive. We are staying at the Rhino Lodge just beside Chitwan Park and our meals are included. We went to see a cultural dance show that was rather boring and repetitive, until it featured a bizarre, but amusing peacock dance. After dinner, our guestlodge had a surprise visit from a wild bull elephant that caused some commotion. Unfortunately, Lisa and I are sick again/still (?)... hopefully we're getting this all out of the way now and we'll have no problems once we arrive in India.
We saw the Palace of 55 Windows and Sun Dhuka ("Golden Gate") while navigating ourselves around the busy square and its surrounding streets. Today's lunch proved to be too much for our systems... We didn't even make it to India before becoming sick - forget "Delhi-Belly"; we've got "Kathman-Doodoo"!
We woke up to the above view of the sun rising over Kathmandu's Durbar Square from our room at the World Heritage Hotel. We started our day by walking around the square in the daylight, taking in the sights of this UNESCO site. We had a simple, traditional breakfast of aloo chana (potato and chickpea) before heading to the Pashupatinath Temple. We explored Kathmandu on our own today, walking from site to site in the morning, then taking a taxi to visit a little further afield. Our next stop was the largest stupa in Nepal and the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet, Bouddhanath Stupa. Finally, we wandered once again around Kathmandu Durbar Square and explored some of its nearby streets, including Jhhonchen Tole, known to tourists as "Freak Street" due to its popularity with hippies in the '60s.
Getting to Kathmandu from Vancouver is not an easy task. After all of the hassles we had leading up to our departure, we were glad to be on any flight, though. We first flew over 12 hours to Shanghai where we spent 4.5 hours in the airport before transferring to Kunming, China. This time our airport wait was more than 13.5 hours! Finally we caught a flight to Kathmandu and saw our first views of the Himalayas. By the time we arrived at the World Heritage Hotel it was already evening and we were quite tired. We did head out for our first authentic momos (Tibetan-style dumplings, the most common food in Nepal) and a quick look around the Kathmandu Durbar Square area before calling it a night.
We had one more dinner at Debbie & Shaun's before they set off for Hawaii. Lisa got a shorter hairstyle in preparation for our own travels. Shaun and I took the quad up the mountain to the snow, but the very next day, the snow came down to our place. It looks lovely, but in my mind, a little goes a long way. I miss summertime and am looking forward to warmer weather during our upcoming travels in India. We headed to the Lower Mainland five days prior to our departure in order to visit with family. The continued snowfall forced us to reschedule our driving expeditions and limited the number of people we were able to see in person. We visited with Elliott and his family over turkey dinner at June's and briefly saw Auntie Janet at her place. We once again stopped in at John's en route to Langley. We went out for dinner with my parents, Alison (and her friend Tara), and Katrina. We spent an entire evening together and then Lisa and I returned to Burnaby and read (in my parents' annual Christmas letter) that my sister is expecting her second child in early March - no one even told us! This comes as a shock. I then logged on to my computer to discover an e-mail informing us that despite the fact that I spoke to a representative confirming our flight details just yesterday, our flight bookings made more than four months ago for our trip tomorrow morning, have been cancelled!!! All offices are closed and no one is answering their 24 hour assistance number... Despite being confirmed 24 hours prior to our intended departure, our flights were cancelled with 18 hours notice. We didn't know to be checking our e-mails after having received "final confirmation", so we didn't see the notification until 11 hours before we were set to leave. This began a domino-effect of difficulties. The airline and booking agent thought that the cancellation was okay since they agreed to completely refund our money. Since we had already paid for a three month tour and all of our accommodation, this obviously wasn't reassuring. I went on-line to find replacement flights. I booked new flights and all seemed well, until minutes later we were notified that the transaction could not be completed since I was trying to reserve seats for the same day. I phoned the booking agent and explained the situation, but was told that for fraud protection, I couldn't book flights for that day. I moved on to selecting flights through yet another on-line site. This time, ten minutes after receiving confirmation that our flights were booked and confirmed, we were notified that our credit crad had been declined. Several frantic phone calls later, we learned that the MasterCard fraud protection had prevented the transaction since it was the second major purchase attempted in a twenty minute window. I once again explained the situation and had the ban lifted, but they said that I couldn't purchase through the same vendor as it had now been flagged. Eventually we decided that our best option would be to have June charge the flights to her card. This meant she had to deal with similar phone calls to verify her identity and get approval for the charges. I ended up spending nearly 8 stressful hours on the telephone and internet before we had new, more expensive replacement flights that would still work with our schedule. It was now time to head to the airport!
We spent a typical November at home: reading books, watching movies, sports, and television programs, and monitoring the weather for long enough breaks from the rain to head out walking. We saw many good "based on a true story" dramas, including: "Woman in Gold", "The 33", "War Dogs", "Snowden", "Sully", "The Finest Hours", "Hands of Stone", "Jersey Boys", "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi", and "Steve Jobs". We once again spent some fun evenings sharing laughs, meals, and beers with our friends Debbie & Shaun. We were grateful to be included in a belated Thanksgiving celebration at the Ostans' home in Victoria, where we also watched the Pacquiao fight. We had to have a toilet replaced in a rental property and have hired a roofer to put a new roof on the same place. We continue to work our way through our pre-trip to do lists, but keep thinking of more errands to add to them. We are both excited about our fast-approaching holiday.
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