We arrived into the Kathmandu airport and encountered the most shocking thing we had seen in weeks; A SMILE. Everyone was smiling. The man working border patrol, the woman pushing a luggage cart even the soldiers with M16s flung around their shoulders were smiling. Smiles! We love smiles! We felt genuinely welcomed into Nepal within minutes of stepping off the plane.

What a huge difference that makes. When traveling and being on the receiving end of customer service everyday for months you really begin to appreciate the small things that companies and individuals do that make your day a hell of a lot better. But I don’t believe it was the airport’s customer service trainings that gave us this experience. People genuinely seemed happy in Nepal, publicly, you can see it on their faces. What wonderful thing.

Ofer had set up a tour guide for us during our stay in Kathmandu and we were delighted to see our names being held at eye level as we left the baggage claim area. Two sweet young men took our bags and led us to the car. As we drove they asked us where we were from and were eager to practice their English skills with us. It was late at night but it seemed SO dark and peaceful, abnormally so. Then I realized there were NO STREET LIGHTS. Needless to say it was very hard to see our surroundings. Within twenty minutes we were checked in and relaxing in a beautifully spacious room just outside of the center of Kathmandu.

The next day we met with our tour guide early in the morning for our first introduction to Nepal. Driving out of the lodge property and into the streets of Kathmandu was like driving into a Hollywood set. All of the characters were there: a women in a brightly colored sari selling freshly slaughtered chicken, a man spinning a stone wheel to sharpen a knife, cows and chickens lying in the middle of the street, naked children sitting on the ground occupying themselves with the dirt between their toes. I looked back beyond the car to the lodge and watched the 21st century fade in the distance.

Ofer and I spent the drive tapping each other with our mouths gaped wide and pointing to things we had never seen before: a family of four on a motorcycle, an elderly woman carrying what looked to be 20 pounds of potatoes on her head, garbage piled up so high in the street that we could smell it through the closed window, the monk dressed in traditional robes talking on his cell phone, babies sprawled out sleeping on the concrete.

This was the first time in my life that I truly wished I was a photographer. Everywhere we looked was like a picture out of National Geographic. We felt like we had stepped into what we only imagined the world must have been like hundreds of years ago (of course minus the coke advertisements and cell phones). It was hard to believe people lived like this in the year 2010.

Much of our time in Kathmandu was spent looking at temples, shrines, ancient architecture and religious figures. Our guide provided us with a constant stream of information from religious stories to current political events. We were in total sensory overload. It was difficult to take in what our guide was telling us because we were still in total culture shock. I completely missed stories about Lord Vishnu and the date that they reconstructed a certain shrine because I was too focused on the MONKEY that was standing right next to me as if he was waiting for a bus or the woman who looked to be in her 100‘s squatting smoking a cigarette and showing off the last tooth in her mouth.


This was also the first time that I saw children begging. They would come try to stand in our pictures and then ask for money, or walk with us saying some memorized phrase over and over again with their hands out, one even came over and tried to hold my hand in order to in order to entice a sympathetic dollar out of me. Ofer and I had talked about this and the way we saw it was if we give money to these children we just feed the problem. Some of these kids are put out on the street because their families know they have a better chance of making money than the adults in the house. Therefore the children are kept out of school and put on the streets to beg with their older siblings. It was difficult to see but in our opinion if we were going to give anything it was going to be food, not money.

We couldn’t have been more awestruck. There was so much to see, so much to learn. By the end of our first day of sightseeing as we were being driven back to our lodge we convinced our driver to drop us off downtown so we could walk around on our own. We just couldn’t get enough. The neon bright saris against the crumbling walls of the temples, the packs of motorcycles with toddlers standing helmetless on the back, the smell of raw fish and chai tea. Despite the handful of tourists we saw throughout the day and the street aimed for tourists in the center of town the people of Kathmandu seemed relatively untouched by the western world. People seemed to spend much of their time attending to their religious practice, selling or buying in the markets, sitting on the floor eating and playing cards and games in abandoned temples. There was a level of peace among the people despite the chaos. People appeared to generally be happy with their lives.

From what we understood a life in Nepal is a very pious life. In fact Nepal has the largest majority of Hindus than any other country (Although Nepal is also considered the birthplace of Siddhartha (Buddha) on which the Buddhist religion is based). Most people dedicate hours of their day to worshipping their gods, visiting their temples and doing traditional blessings for themselves and their family members. Ofer and I have various feelings and thoughts about this which I’m sure we will address in another blog.

**This section may not be appropriate for those of you who are reading to young children**

One of the sites that our guide took us to see was the Bagmati River. As we followed our guide through the streets dodging sleeping dogs, swamis and sacred cows I started to piece together from his broken yet modern English that we were heading to the place where they cremate their dead. He in no way prepared us for the sight, it was just another part of life to him, nothing worthy of alarm, just one more stop on the tour. Ofer and I held hands and wondered how we would emotionally and physically react to the sites we were about to see.

We were lead to a path high above a river with a ledge and seats overlooking the scene. Across the river from us we could see slabs of concrete jetting into the river with awnings overhead. On each slab was stacked wood and and straw and on top of the piles were bodies wrapped in white sheets. We learned that as a family member is nearing the end of their life they are brought to this area for their last moments of life. The dead is first dipped three times into the Bagmati River, then eldest son, with shaved head, lights the funeral pyre. When the cremation is completed the ashes are then swept into the river rushing below. The eldest son, and sometimes the family members then enter into the river to sprinkle the holy water on themselves. Now the water in this river is not what we Americans think of river water; blue currents with splashes of white curls as the river turns. No, this river was mud brown. Brown from the earth, brown from the garbage that was floating in it, brown from the ash and sut from the cremations.

We stood there and watched. As Americans we assumed there must be so much pain and suffering watching your loved one die and be cremated in front of you. Our tiny perspective didn’t begin to give us an understanding of what this place means to the family and the community. I fought my American urge to choke on the sut and smoke rising from the river mingled with the constant reminder that this was not just wood they were burning.

The mourning families were not the only only ones who used this water. Floating right past the corpses were children from 5 to 10 years old swimming in the water. They would climb on the bank of the river, nude with smiles on their faces. They would flip and fling themselves into the water trying to outdo their friend or brother before them. Then they would let the river do as it pleased and charge them down dips and turns. We were told that as a family is cremating their loved one a coin in placed on their chest. After the burning the coin will have been melted but will be swept into the river. These boys dive and sift the river looking for the remains of these coins. I could hardly wrap my head around the concept of a 5 year old drifting in a river of ash looking for what could be the only money his family makes that day.

Such an amazing sight to see. Death is such a fascinating concept. I would have been so interested and I hope someday to learn more about how the Nepalese view life, suffering and death. It was a grounding experience to see first hand how one act can be seen so differently depending on upbringing, culture and religion.

Nepal was one of the places on this first leg of our trip that I was excited to see but also quite apprehensive to go to. Where would we sleep, would it be clean? Would we feel safe? But from the first moment of driving out of the gates of our lodge all of my anxieties fell away. We were in complete awe. In Nepal we discovered our curiosity, we were humbled and our eyes were opened in a way that they had never been before. Kathmandu is a place we would highly suggest and we hope to visit again someday.

For those of you who have not been to the Great Wall of China, we have news for you: it is huge. I know you have heard this all before, that it is the longest wall in the world, you can see it from space blah blah blah, but let us tell you: it is massive. And it isn't just that it is long. There is no way to take a 'stroll' on the Great Wall of China, not even hike it, nope in fact you stair-master, full-speed treadmill up it and ski down. Some areas you can take a break and just walk at a small incline but other areas are made of up intermixed small and huge steps that require controlled breathing and angry 80's music in your head to get you through (at least in my case). The steps were so steep that I held onto Ofer with one hand and the side of the wall with the other.

Not to mention that the steps were incredibly slippery from millions of feet and years of rough weather wearing them away. And this is not just on the way up, the Wall is just as steep and slippery coming down. I almost fell multiple times and saw a few people take some pretty big spills just when they thought they had mastered the terrain. I swear, if this Wall were in the USA there would be some governmental release of liability form to sign before you can access it. And just when you think you've done the toughest set of stairs you pass the guard post on the top just to see the next guard post in the distance on another even more treacherous hill. I spent a good amount of time explaining to Ofer how it would have been much smarter to bore tunnels through the mountains instead. Ofer would proceed to tell me that this would completely negate the purpose of the Wall. Details. The views were absolutely incredible and it was overwhelming to imagine how much work and how many years it took to build this World Wonder.

During our stay in Beijing Ofer and I lived in a Hutong. A Hutong is a neighborhood made up of narrow streets and many courtyard houses. Our hotel was a beautiful courtyard house renovated with plenty of space to sit outside and relax away from the bustle of the city. Beijing is made up of concentric circles surrounding the Forbidden City. Some Hutongs were for distinguished people in the society and as you got further away from the Forbidden City the status of the inhabitants lowered to 'commoners'. You can tell which kind of Hutong you are in based on the size of the houses, streets and the decorations on the doors and entrances to the homes.

At one point Ofer and I took a tour of a different Hutong than our own and learned about how to distinguish between the houses of different ranking individuals, it was fascinating. One of our favorite things we learned was that all entrances to the houses have a small plank of wood blocking the doorway, in order to walk into the residence you needed to step over it. We learned that the reason for this was it was thought that bad spirits had no knees, so the boards were put at the front of the house because the spirits wouldn't be able to step over them.

One of the most well known sites in Beijing is the Forbidden City and we were very eager to visit this historical place. The Forbidden City which is called the Palace Museum by locals is at the center of Beijing and was built during the Ming Dynasty. We had the impression that it would consist of one very large courtyard and maybe a few palaces but we learned that it was made up of 980 buildings, housed 24 emperors and spans over 7,800,000 square feet. Every building was incredibly ornate and some of the rooms inside had been reconstructed so we could get a concept of how the royalty lived.

Of course on a trip to Beijing we needed to see Tiananmen Square which is the largest city square in the world and the location of many historical events in China. Over 30 years after the death of Mao it was incredible to see what a huge hold he still has on much of the country. It was hard to believe that we were standing in the spot of so much ancient and current trials. We opted out of going to the mausoleum to see Mao's embalmed body.

One of our favorite things we did in Beijing was join a group in the park to do Tai Chi. They first did a performance for us and then took the time to teach us the beginning part of their practice. After just the 15 minutes of doing it Ofer and I both wanted to seek out places to do Tai Chi, it was incredibly relaxing and it felt good to take time to move slowly and be in tune with our bodies.

Our time in was Beijing jam packed with temples, tea ceremonies, Peking Ducks and strolls by the water at night. Sometimes we had to pinch ourselves to realize that we were't just in the biggest Chinatown we had ever seen, we were actually in China. Now when we see pictures or hear stories of The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and traditional Chinese performance we will be able to draw back on our memories and recall the times we saw them with our own eyes. These are gifts that we will be able to share with each other for the rest of our lives. We couldn't be luckier.