Traditional methods in Bhaktapur: the drying of fired pots

A friendly man on a motorcycle asks me where to go. “Bhaktapur”, I reply.
“I can bring you, doesn’t cost anything, I must go there anyhow”, he replies.
It seemed to me more attractive to take the bus: it’s probably safer and if I am in Bhaktapur it’s easier I find my bus back for the return journey . I thank him kindly and some time I again step into such a great diesel-roaring, smoking and pounding bus. Read the remainder of this entry »

Tags: culture, Travel

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I ….
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Tags: reflections

Dust and traffic at Gwarko, Patan, Nepal

Back in Nepal again, but I wasn’t really in for a stay in Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu. Patan seemed like a good alternative and via the internet I had found Sanu’s House in Patan, which was recommended with very good reviews.

My visa for Nepal was still valid and after arriving at the airport, I could go straight to the counter for a date-stamp. Outside the airport, they were there again: the many taxi drivers looking for customers ( TLWH wrote a very good article about arriving in Kathmandu Airport ). Read the remainder of this entry »

Tags: Buddhism, Travel

Ratna' place

I apparently was arrived in onion-season, because almost immediately after my arrival in “Ratna’s place” I was asked to help preparing onions to make them suitable for sale. Actually the onion-work wasn’t too bad, maybe even quite entertaining. I usually did this work with Rudy, the “old man”, as he often was called. Read the remainder of this entry »

Tags: Travel, voluntering, WWOOF

The village of Parapat

I was a little bored of being the tourist all the time, so volentering on an ecological farm seemed a good idea to me, also because in in everyday life I do a kind of similar work. Via the Wooff-project ( worldwide opportunities on organic farms) I decided to go to an ecological farm on the volcanic island of Sumatra Samosir.
To get there, I first had to go to Medan, the capital of Sumatra, and from there I could take the next day the bus to Parapat, from where the boat to Samosir leaves. Read the remainder of this entry »

Tags: Travel, voluntering, WWOOF