Ghorepani April 16, 2001 Evening. Reached Shikha last night in rain had tea and tarkari with some nice ladies from the village on account of an old wise man's funeral. I sang some Nepali songs for them but they were not too interested. This morning I had a nice shower, watched the funeral puja (offering ceremony) of the same man, (This puja basically consisted of treating a bull calf like a king) and started off hours after the Dream Team (lets say IDT for short). Worked my way up the trail through increasingly cool forest. Stopped several times to record the sounds of birds and water. FIlled my belly up for less than a dollar US on massive amounts of Tarkari (curried veggies) and Roti (fried bread rings unlike donuts). Like back in East Nepal the woman trotted out the tired "lets ask this foreigner repeatedly for one of his nice metal trekking poles" routine. Reached beautiful Rhododendron of red then pink blossoms just in time for a massive hail storm. Found the IDT straight off and got a nice warm room right at the Snow View Lodge over the stove (the chimmney evey ran through my room) for one dollar US. The mountains showed themselves at sunset and were shockingly tall and conical. The IDT's guide Santosh set me straight when he said the Annapurnas are Nepal's Disneyland and accordingly things cost five times what they cost elsewhere in the countryside. I got 100 grams of yak cheese and munched it as we all sat around the stovebarrel and read in the hadin and rain of evening. Cross between Gruiyere and a hard Parmesan. I read a passage of Tolstoys - Levin's baby born: the sense of urgency he creates passed over my brain like fireworks. I have to read this passage to Shar when I get home. The passion and immediacy: what and experience the birth of a child! We will be awake tomorrow at 5 AM to be at the peak of Poon Hill by sunrise to watch the show. All say it is 7 hours down to Naya Pul and the road. I am going for it anyway.

April 18, 2001 Yesterday I want up to Poon Hill in the dark, lots of other people up there. The main show was the creeping of first orange then white light accross the broad face of Daulaghiri (8300+ Meters). Annapurna South was also an impressive cone nearby immediately to the North. The most spectacular were the bright red and pink blossom bunches filling the Rhododendrons all around. Found a cheap tea place after settling my bill at the Snow View and beat it down the track with a Canadian Hydro-Geologist from British Columbia. He is sure he is moving to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory when he is finished with his year of travel throughout Asia. He says that all salaries over $ 70,000 Canadian are taxed at 52% by the government. He said he is willing to pay this for the privilidge of living in Canada - a country with great public services (and which he feels is moving forwards progressively on the environmental front). He has fallen in love with Whitehorse through successive bouts working there, describes it as a little cultural mecca of 20 thousand people who are "just open minded and nice, always excited to meet a new neighbor."

We reached Biranti at 1:30 PM and checked out of the park (it only took 5.5 hours down). Here are the stats: - in the months of March and April of the year 2000, 6000 trekkers checked out of the park at Biranti - In the months of October and September that number is 10,000 per month - The top nationalities this number is composed of are British, USA, Japan and Germany We made it to Naya Pul at 1:30 and rode the top of the bus to Pokhara looking at the hazy warm sky and iliciting cheers from all the kids we passed by the roadside. The guy next to me on top of the bus was from Paris and now lives in NY - he studied in the USA and won the visa lottery. In Pokhara I did email for 2 hours, read some heavy message from my sister which I assidiously replied to and ran into several people I had met before on the street including the IDT. Ate dinner with the IDT, studffed myself silly to the tune of $9 US and then crashed. It appears that Kathmandu is the place to go for visa extensions and Shand and Heather will be there till Friday morning just so we can meet up again (how cool!). Hopefully the man from Peace and Heaven tours will show up shortly and open his storefront so I can buy my ticket for the 8:30 AM bus. Got on the bus. Riding through the terraces eastward now. Air cool and misty. Terraces. We westerners seem to have this idea that all terraces are used to grow rice. Fact is, in a hilly place terraces are the only sensible way to grow anything. Reading the fight between Anna K and Vronsky near the end of Anna K. I cannot help but think of Jessica and I and how we used to quarrel. The same struggle of the man trying to assert his independence - she took every such move as a demonstration that he did not truly lover her and had fallen for another woman. Jessica ws mothing like the brilliant and coquettish Anna but the bynamic between the two of us was similar. I should write my sister and tell her if she wants to understand the badness of the former J&J connection she should read Anna Karrenina part 7, section 25 and 26. When Tolstoy wants to catch what a deep funk is like - boy does he succeed.