Saturday, March 22, 2008//12:19 AM

yakyakyak.Nepal!!Part 1

Boo! ok i decided although im still sick and i abhor long hours typing or even staring at my laptop, the wait is enough. i have tortured you poor souls who're longing for my slice of nepalese adventure long enough. thank your grand highness!

Lets see...From the 13th to 18th march, me, lydia, brenda, sharon and uncle BOONANN flew off on silkair to Nepal. i was like kinda mentally prepared for it cuz it was a 3rd world country and all. and to my dismay, i was right. Uncle boonann is like the funniest old dude i've ever met. ok he's not old. just as old as my dad. hhmmm..ok i shant debate over age now. OMG! tom's in cali! i am SO JEALOUS! nvm, back to nepal. The people there were really simple and contented with life, sigh i wish life here was like that. save the low hygene standards. its like theres no pressure to conform, dress well, sit a certain way, behave properly, or NOT litter. Nope, in nepal i call it legal littering. the health conditions there really bad, but aside from that, its really beautiful.

The people are beautiful (inside and out), nature there is awesome. (i managed to get a peek of some mountain ranges thru the clouds) And one morning we even drove thru the clouds! like how cool is that.

Alright i'll try to summarise my trip. Overall, we went to 2 places: kathmandu, the town area and Gorkha, the village. Once we touched down, we were greeted by Pastor Rinzi and his wife. They were super hospitable. We all had luau's like the hawaiians and we drove off to their house, which was above the Nazarene Church and New Creation Orphanage. The children there were sooooo adorable! Especially Esther and Jothi, which i learnt means light. how cool. Just like shanti means peace. So anyway, once we reached there, mrs Rinzi (i dunno how to address her) started fattening us up. Sweet! she gave us a taste (a taste is by far an understatement) of nepalese snack, which was essentially fried rice crisppies with salt and sugar. It was delicious. tasted like popcorn. Then she fried us all an omelette. heaven~~~~

Then blahblah we drove for like 5 bloody hours after meeting pastor Sam to Gorkha. There we checked into the hotel. But it was like really shabby. Good thing they had cable TV and me and Sharon's watch Fashion TV everynight till we slept. The place was quite dirty, abd the toilet couldnt flush. Great, just like my grandma's house in Penang kampong. But there was hot water available. phew. So we roomed at Gorkha on thurs and fri. I think i bumped my head on the toilet door frame once. Ouchhh. stupid low ceiling. On fri and sat, we visited the Gorkha Bethany Church and ministered to them. The people were ultra warm, and pleasant. But the way i got there was hilarious, if not perilious.

After like a half hour car/van ride fron the gorkha hotel, we got out and started walking cuz it was un-drivable. This was the same for sat morning. The air was so cold that when we spoke puffs of air would come outta our mouths! so cool! ok call me mountain tortoise all you want i dont care. i have never been to a remotely cold country b4 ok. you people better thank God and count your blessings. Right after, we had to climb up and down this bundle (or more like many many bundles) of rockes tied up with wire. The kinda wire that barricades schools, only they're not green. On friday while climbing, i tore a hole in my cheap $7 pants. It got snagged with the wire. oh wells, i meant to dispose of it anyway. After which we walked over many beautiful glittery rocks that looked like they were sprinkled with stardust. We started picking stones. whee! We came up to the dam soon after; it was cold but the scenery was perfect, Like something outta a postcard. We took loads of pictures. We had to cross this rickety wooden bridge over the dam and it was enhilariting! So anyway, next we walked over fields and fields of rice fields. You'll NEVER get to see this in SIngapore im telling you. Oh yeah, throughout our entire journey, Nepal was littered with cows and goats which lydia was fond of calling Billies. And Brenda loved taking shots with her ah niu's. Yes cows. I simply called them moo moo's. baby talk! OK back to our journey to gorkha bethany church. Here's the scary bit: we all had to climb up slopes so steep you don't wana fall. Don't even try thinking about it. We had to step on sturdy rocks embedded in the ground as guides. if it was all just sand, then i'd suggest hurry climbing up or else your soon-to-be frictionless shoes would make you slip off. Phew. climb climb climb. The team kept saying i was the noisiest but i was by no means the paris hilton among them!

GBC was so warm and friendly, and some of the songs they sang were similar to the english songs we all knew. Songs like Thank You Jesus, Hosanna, and From the Rising of the Sun. And one more thing: They love dancing. Dancing during praise, dancing during offering even! The cool-hip-ol' dude was dancing as he collected offering in their cute little crochetted bag. Village dance is beautiful. really! We played games with them like Jesus says (which is actually Simon says), and pass the parcel (bottles, actually). The people there were more sporting than Singaporeans, but the youths were similar. Always afraid of losing face. muahahahx!
The pastor there was cute and tiny. Oh! and i noticed that the tallest of them there were like around our height. haha! being 160cm doesn't suck so bad in Nepal! And the people there didn't have overhead projectors, they had songbooks. Either that, or the sheer power of memory. Some didnt use books. cool. shame on us spoiled people! Now we even have laptops and powerpoints. I can imagine them going "power wha..?" We shared stories there, did a skit on Daniel in the Lion's Den, Lydia did this really rad balloon sculpture story on the gospel and we taught them English songs.

So anyway, it was what i expected. The village. Toilets with no place to wipe, or flush. Just a container of water to flust and possibly wash your hands. Which i reclined. i used wet wipes and sanitary gel instead. On saturday, we even went to one member's house for lunch. BBQ chicken and rice with dhaal. yummy. But due to my shoe losing its sole, again, (deja vu i tell you! first it was sec3 camp, now in nepal?!) i had a hard time scrambling up. While the rest had a laugh riot. yes, im always the entertainment. sighs. eventually i got pulled up (thanks guys) and the vliiage looked awesome! it was just liuke the backdrop of those safaris. Haystacks on a stick, huts for chickens, small enclosures for the billies, chickens and ducks wandering freely..so, so rad!

Eventually, it was time to leave. On the way down friday afternoon, i slipped on one of the rocks and my entire left nike was covered in mud. Talk about being glamourous please. So i had to wash my shoe in the dam, which was pretty fun while the rest went stone picking again. I sat on oone huge boulder and used a stone to scrape the mud off. Like a native washing clothes! It was pretty hot by then so i was grateful for the cool water. ok actually it was icy cold. But it felt goooooooood. So thus marked the end of thursday, friday and half of Saturday. We returned, checked out of Gorkha hotel (which wasnt so bad in the end cuz we had like a small dining room attached which we could order our meals and was really yummy) and drove for another 5 hours back to the city. (kathmandu)
Along the way we stopped for snacks and i kinda liked my vege grilled sandwhich. There was this dish which wasnt bad. Something like fried vege fritters, and it tasted like muruku, that indian snack. Another dish was called momo, its actually fried dumplings. Good good food there, great sceneries. Oh along all our van/car rides, sharon, lydia and brenda were our photographers so they were trigger happy, capturing some pretty awesome shots. Whoots! Some looked good enough be appear on National Geographic zine and on postcards.

Theres still half of saturday, sunday and shopping monday plus my airpost adventures both in nepal and back home on tuesday to share. Lets just say being adventurous brings weird situations. neh

The girl squealed. Ooooh, look! another cowdung! This one looks like a Famous Amos cookie! Take a picture! And brenda did.