Now repeat after me…”Never let your mind write cheques your body can’t cash “…don’t worry…I’m young and fit, I hear my teenage brain telling me…the other part of my brain (obviously distracted at the time) was too busy agreeing to properly process the information.
It was a lovely sunny day, just ideal for a stroll to Swayambhunath, http://www.sacred-destinations.com/nepal/kathmandu-swayambhunath-stupa which is about 3klms from Thamel, on top of a hill thrust up and transformed from a lotus flower when Kathmandu was still at the bottom of an ancient lake. Hey..it’s been there for 2,000years..shouldn’t be hard (that alone should have made me very wary) so off I set swinging my camera and whistling jolly strolling tunes…eeeww conjures up images of fat englishmen with pith helmets..nevermind…all systems go..found the river without too many problems..it was even where I expected it to be. As it is the dry season (winter) the water level is very low and, as one of the lowest points around amasses rubbish ranging from the evil plastic bottles to dead cows, live pigs and other scary stuff.
(Bagmati River, Kathmandu)
As I wandered in what I thought was the general direction I was comforted by actually having a map with me..although this still didn’t stop me wandering off track a bit…not to worry..I’m in no hurry and eventually got to the bottom of the hill that Swayambunath crowns. The whole side of the hill facing Kathmandu has been extensively remodelled over the ages and it is surrounded by shrines and the inevitable trinket sellers shops, along with a good few ‘guides’. Poor people, most of the tourists desert Nepal for a month or so around Christmas so their income dries up. Other useful things to remember are that there are 365 steps up the side of this hill and Nepalis walk up vertical trails just for fun…bit like Australians walking to the fridge for another beer. I figured that, as the steps had been there for about 1,500 years or so they would be worn down a bit and so easier to navigate. HAH.
I missed the sign saying ‘deluded Australians stop here and take a cab (bloody idiot)’and headed off up the side of the hill. Started counting stairs for about the first 50 or so..then decided I’d better conserve energy. At about the 150 mark I couldn’t see the bottom and the top was shrouded in mist and mystery. Possibly just blurred vision. Roughly half way up and it was the point of no return. Stranded, heart running at about 500bpm, sweat (possibly burst blood vessel) pouring off, breath laboured..people walking past me carrying their babies, prams, grandmothers and chatting on their mobiles whilst having a smoke…took no notice of me as I called, weakly, for an ambulance. Having failed to get anyone’s attention, apart from a few sniggers (hehe..that’s the first fat tourist casualty of the day..hehe) I struggled on..and (this is not even a slight exaggeration)…the last 50 steps are the steepest, they require climbing tackle to ascend and are strewn with the bodies of the fallen..
Talk about having to struggle to gain enlightenment. I have achieved this…shrugged off my old, not quite fully functioning body, and burst through with a fitter, leaner, tireder version, that probably needs a new heart. I have so much respect for those people who climb mountains or trot along Kokoda for fun. Of course I was regaling someone with my exploits when I finally got back to the hotel (stretchered) however they’d had just got back from a practice climb to 6,100m. Even the damn monkeys were laughing at me as they rolled my body over to get at any goodies I might have hidden in my pack. Luckily I had had my rabies shots before I came to Nepal and was able to bite the monkeys with impunity. I hear they are now suffering from the, not so rare, exhausted tourist syndrome.
Damn..it’s just as hard to get sympathy here as it is at home.
(Buddhist dog smirking at me)
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