Nepal Trip  December 2000 - page 1  

Bob Schmidt & Rupa Hamal

Family Background

Rupa and I had talked for some time about visiting Nepal.  Most of Rupa's relatives live there, including her mother, grandmother, two brothers (Rakesh and Rajesh), and sister (Rita Singh, her husband Ashok, and daughter Astha).  Rupa's most recent trip back had been December 1997.  During 1999 only Rajesh had been able to travel from Nepal to attend our wedding.  Since Rupa's sister Rita said she would have some free time during December to spend with us, we decided to visit then.  We spent some time during October and November dealing with travel planning and paperwork.

17 Dec 2000 - Philadelphia

After I flew to Philadelphia, we packed for the trip.  Rupa's other sister Rekha and family visited from New Jersey to give some last minute advice and a pep talk.  The weekend featured some odd weather for December - 60 degree days and powerful thunderstorms, followed by a late cold front.  We were concerned about the flight, but a window of opportunity came during the afternoon, when the skies cleared for a few hours.  Our neighbor Angelo Cappuccio drove us to the airport.  We flew Air France from Philadelphia to Paris, which encountered considerable turbulence when passing over the storm front, making sleep difficult.  The flight did feature very good food.

Connecting in Paris early Monday morning, we had to wait in several lines to get the next flight.  The cavernous, modern terminal suddenly reverberated with loud chanting and drumming noises while we were trying to talk to the airline clerk.  At first I assumed it was crazed devotees of Reverend Sung-Yung Moon getting warmed up early, but instead it was a group of airport janitors who had called an impromptu strike and wanted everyone to know about it.  Didn't realize it at the time, but this was an omen.

After connecting in Paris, we flew to Amsterdam, arriving around 8 am.  Rupa figured out the storage locker system, and we took the train to the central station.

18 Dec 2000 - Amsterdam

Our itinerary gave us a full day in the city before catching an evening flight.  Amsterdam was chilly and overcast, but fortunately not raining while we were there.  Cyclists ride everywhere on old heavy bikes, many with tires nearly flat.  I had to resist the urge to tell them to please, pump up your tires.  Some cyclists were smoking, eating or balancing objects while riding.  I didn't see any racing bikes on the road, even very few bikes with gears.

We walked past the canals and old buildings toward "Coster Diamonds" - which was a cluster of old houses converted into Diamond cutting, wholesale, and retail center.  It must have been a slow day since they buzzed us right in despite our jet-lagged appearance and lack of money-filled briefcases.  The diamond polishing equipment looked surprisingly rough and old-fashioned - like an antique 78 RPM record turntable, except the "record" was a disc coated with diamond dust.  The diamond itself was held at an angle in a crude "stylus", and repositioned periodically by the technician, who added crude home-made weights.  Rupa asked him to evaluate her engagement ring diamond.  The elderly white-haired gentleman examined it in a hand lens for a few seconds, then spoke to her in an animated fashion for the next 5 minutes, alternately frowning and smiling.  Unfortunately it was all in Dutch and the tour lady was otherwise occupied, so we never got a handle on whether it was a positive or negative assessment.  At least he didn't put it in his grinder for more polishing.  Rupa heroically resisted a sales pitch for buying more diamonds, fortified herself with coffee in the gift shop, commented on the periodontal needs she observed in the saleslady's teeth, and we went on our way.

We visited the Rijksmuseum, which contained large exhibits of Dutch history and art.  The historical exhibits included model ships, king's thrones, and paintings of Dutch military conquests.  Waterloo was the largest painting; a major victory over the French.  Seems like most European art museums feature large paintings of military victories by the "home team" but paintings of the defeats tends to be sparse.  Interesting story about the Dutch at one point owning colonies in both Manhattan and Suriname, but they were forced to give up Manhattan to the British after a military defeat.

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Upstairs was an excellent collection of Rembrandt and other Dutch masters - bright and vivid.  This museum was well worth seeing.  An interesting film in English discussed the proliferation of fake "Rembrandt" paintings, with the result that the Dutch formed a more or less permanent commission to keep identifying the fakes that surface periodically.  Rupa bought a nice coffee table book on Rembrandt.

Walking back through the Art Gallery and Antique district, we passed shops with art reprints of Rembrandt and Van Gogh, ceramics (especially blue and white kitchen tiles, and Marijuana memorabilia.  According to a history of the city, hippies basically tried to take over the city during the 1960's and nearly succeeded, before order was restored.  Rupa especially liked some of the small cars, unavailable in America, designed for narrow roads and tiny parking spaces. We eventually tired of walking and returned to the airport to catch the evening flight.

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19 Dec 00 - Flying to Nepal

The Transavia flight mostly carried younger (20-something) European people bound for Nepal to go trekking and backpacking.  We spoke with some people from Florida who were missing their trekking luggage.  Many lighted towns were visible from the plane, which might have been portions of Iran we were flying over.  The flight stopped in United Arab Emirates for refueling and crew change.  The airport had Arabic architecture, grey uniformed security guards carrying guns, and TV showing early morning Koran readings.

Taking off from UAE at dawn, we saw oil storage facilities, and large stretches of desert with regular criss-cross patterns of vehicle tracks in the sand - perhaps remnants of oil exploration.  Crossing in the Arabian Sea, dozens of oil tankers were anchored around oil pipeline facilities; from this altitude, they looked like a pod of small fish coming to feed in an aquarium.  The day was clear and sunny, with excellent visibility as we crossed the Black Sea into Pakistan.  Here the land looked dry and bleak - a few small towns around dried-up river valleys, surrounded by rugged mountains.  A single road extended for miles across salt flats, passing small walled towns.  It was hard to see how anyone makes a living, since no grass or farm fields could be seen, there were few trees, and no evidence of water.  The plane turned south, perhaps avoiding crossing Afghanistan.  Finally the mountains receded, and some green fields could be seen, as we crossed from Pakistan into Northern India.  The fields extended for a time, then receded again as we crossed a large desert area in Northern India.  Finally the desert ended and fields, towns, and irrigation canals could be seen again.

Crossing the border into Nepal we could see rivers, forests, and the snow-capped Himalayas in the distance.  The approach to Kathmandu was one of the most scenic plane rides I had ever taken.  Nepal has an incredible variety of landscape in just a hundred miles or so.  In the Southern region (known as the Terai), rice fields and farms are next to rivers and jungles in the lowlands.  Rivers flow south, carrying snowmelt from glaciers in the Himalayas, to meet the Ganges river in India.  The rugged hills of the central region include Kathmandu, the major city.  Farther north you can see the mighty Himalayan mountains.  Nepal is home to 8 of the 10 highest peaks in the world, including Mt. Everest.  It all makes for spectacularly varied terrain in a relatively small country.

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