I love you, Kathmandu

“I must find peace in the only place possible in India. Within.”

This quote from the amazing book called 'Holy Cow' essentially sums up my trip to India. That, and “The north Indian men on the streets stare so hard and are so sleazy that I often feel like I've somehow starred in a porn film without knowing it.”

The last 10 days in India, since my last post, were really nice. Udaipur is definitely one of my favorite places that I visited in the country. I also met up with some other travelers and we had a great few days of eating thalis in the best restaurant I've ever been to – think Fogo de Chao meets spicy Indian food and my inability to eat rice with my hands. The people in Udaipur were much less aggressive than in northern Rajasthan, so it was nice to only have to say 'namaste' to half the shopkeepers instead of every single one of them. I finished my trip to India with a camel safari in Jaisalmer, two night trains to get back to Delhi, and a Bollywood film where all the white girls were strippers in a seedy theater. I see where the men here get their ideas about Western women.

I feel like I must also add a little commentary on Delhi and the Commonwealth Games, and how absurd the whole thing is. I took a bus through Delhi a few days before the games were scheduled to start – the city still looked like a construction site – I can't believe they had enough buildings for the events! When I drove through Delhi again, this time to the airport on the last day of games, the city was like the Twilight Zone - police barricades everywhere, street cleaners with uniforms. Uniforms! What happened to the women in brightly colored saris?! There was almost no traffic, and special lanes for Commonwealth Games cars. Wherever there were slums along the roadside, they just put big billboards advertising the games in front, to hide them. Shame these billboards occasionally fell down and showed the world their tricks. The preparations of the Games were so marred with corruption and missed deadlines, but during the Games they managed to make Delhi into a somewhat livable, European-style city. The organized chaos was gone, and was replaced by soldiers, police barricades, and express lanes. Although it was nice that my lungs didn't hurt after an hour-long auto-rickshaw ride, I think I like the real India better.

On Thursday, I got to Kathmandu. My first taste of Nepal: I gave the lady at the visa desk five $20 bills for my visa. She drops one on her desk and tells me I only gave her four. She insisted the other bill was not on her desk, which was hidden from me, so I had to fork out another $20. Welcome to Nepal?
Other than that, I really like this place. I've spent the past few days discovering Kathmandu and hanging out with Ross, which has been fun. if we get the required permit, we're hopefully going to go trekking for two weeks in a really remote area near the border with Tibet, which should be really fun.
I love the vibe Kathmandu gives off – you can just tell why hippies were so attracted to this place back in the day. Old temples are scattered throughout the city, it's beautiful, and without all the cars and tourism infrastructure it must have been the best place in the world! I wish I knew what this place was like before it became so touristy – it's now full of middle-aged Europeans and Americans with massive calf muscles and camera lenses.

I'm excited to immerse myself in a new culture, to be out of my comfort zone again, and to learn new things about myself. This trip really has been teaching me more about myself than anything else. I think it takes a great amount of confidence to travel alone, to eat in restaurants alone, to deal with problems that arise on a daily basis, alone. The fact that I was able to do all of that in India without any trouble has just increased my confidence in myself. It has made me reassess what I'm capable of (everything?) and what I want to do for the next few years (discover the world and myself in the process). It's so true that the only place you can find peace in India is within, and I really think I have. I also think that the Peace Corps is a natural progression to my travels, life goals, and inner path. As I wait for my invite and contemplate where I will be in two months, six months, 2 years, I know that I can and will learn from every experience, good and bad, easy and difficult, close to home and far from everything familiar. I was talking to a friend recently, and he was saying that until he's 30, he just wants to fill his head with memories, rather than his wallet with money. No one can take those experiences away from you. They are more 'yours' than anything you could ever buy. As I listen to older people talk about their crazy life stories, travels, amazing people they've met, challenges they've faced, the more I hope to have stories like that to tell my grandkids one day. At this point in my life, I want to take every opportunity for an adventure that presents itself to me, and every opportunity to learn more about myself and the world I live in. Right now I can't imagine going home, getting a job and settling into a regular routine. I definitely need a few more years of traveling and adventures.

I will end with some words of wisdom from India.Arie (in honor of my girl Amber):

I was always too concerned with what everybody would think
But I can't live for everybody, I gotta live my life for me
I've reached a fork in the road of my life
And nothing's gonna happen unless I decide
I choose to be the best that I can be
And I choose to be authentic in everything I do