While on a bus from Kathmandu to Pohkara today, a young Nepali Buddhist monk sat next to me. He and his fellow monks had come to one of the main monasteries in Kathmandu, Swayambhunath, for training and were now headed back to their home monastery in the mountains. Our driver was actually quite good and cautious, so without the normal sounds of horns and screeching brakes to keep one awake (driving here is really a bit tame compared to India, but that’s probably a good thing), one by one the passengers slowly fell asleep as the sun rose higher and the bus temperature rose with it. The monk next to me drifted off, and as the bus turned on every sharp right mountain curve, he would lean over closer and closer to me in his sleep until finally he rested on my shoulder, still sleeping. What to do? In Nepal, men and women do not touch in public. Women can hug women and men can hold hands, but inter-gender contact is rare and frowned upon as it is seen as being sexual. If this were any other man, I would have just moved him off of me, but since he was a monk I wasn’t quite sure what the unspoken cultural rules were. I didn’t want to embarrass him by waking him up, but I also wasn’t sure if it was right to leave his head on my shoulder. Unable to decide, the eight-hour journey continued on, with the monk swaying away from me on each left-handed curve and then back to rest on my shoulder with each right-handed curve. Nepal is a land of hills and mountains (“a little bit up, a little bit down, Nepali flat,” they say), so the road was constantly curving. Every once in a while the monk shook himself awake and sat up, but then a few minutes later he was asleep and falling over again. I guess if it didn’t bother him it shouldn’t bother me . . .
Travelling in Nepal and India has given me a greater appreciation for just how complex human cultures are. By that I mean that there are so many intricate, rich, and unspoken patterns in every society that are quite foreign, and often baffling, to the outsider. Children from those societies grow up surrounded by these norms, whether it be that when you share a drinking vessel, your lips should never touch it (even amongst couples), or that tucking in your sari a certain way means you are from a particular region of India. And I haven’t even mentioned much bigger issues such as trying to understand gender roles or the thousands of Hindu gods! Even if I lived here for years and years, I wonder if I could ever truly understand it all. I discussed these thoughts with a Nepali friend, Narayan, in Bhaktapur yesterday, but I’m not sure that my ideas were communicated quite right. He told me that if I dyed my hair black and wore Nepali clothes, I would fit it quite well as a very pale Nepali woman! In any case, I am continually fascinated by what I can learn just by watching people and talking. It also is interesting to reflect on how many and which unspoken cultural norms we have at home that must seem crazy to visitors to the US.
I will leave my musings here, as we have just arrived in Pokhara and it is time to explore the town. Anne and I leave tomorrow for a six-day trek in the Himalayas. It is part of the Annapurna circuit, a loop called Ghorapani (Poon Hill) to Ghandruk. We are going with a Nepali guide named Dipak, who seems to be filled with more calm and happiness than I thought possible. We’re gearing up for spectacular views, meeting mountain villagers, and eating lots of dal bhat (stewed lentils and rice, a Nepalese staple). Should be great!
Never Ending Peace And Love (NEPAL),*
Julie
*Acronym courtesy of Narayan. He has many of them, some even more amusing.
Posted by julieanneluthien 
