Come, Fly With Me

April

Namaste!

 

When you arrive at Dhaka international airport, you’re faced with the “Human Mural” This consists of hundreds of people with their faces pressed against a glass barrier staring at arriving passengers.

 

I don’t think they are there to pick up passengers, but rather to catch a glimpse of those Bengalis who were lucky enough to leave and daft enough to come back.

 

My April was spent mostly in Bangladesh with 10 days of relief in Nepal.

 

Believe me, relief is needed from a place where:

 

No one sees anything wrong with hauling a rickshaw piled high with 50 foot-long bamboo poles down a darkened highway.

 

Everyone drives with their high beams on, always.

 

One hand is typically playing with itchy genitals and the other is probing deep in the nasal cavities.

 

It doesn’t make for a hand-shake-friendly country.

 

I realized that I had inspected that factory in Savar that collapsed recently. By the way, the official death toll is off by about 300.

 

Common sense is not so common.

 

It would appear that terrorism is the least of their problems.

 

I have been involved in 3 accidents since I arrived. The first one involved my taxi. We broad-sided another taxi. Totaled the other guy’s car. Hurt my neck.

 

Just as my neck was feeling better, a tire on a large transport vehicle exploded beside my car. I ducked down at the sound of the explosion and then the tire hit the car with such force I thought we were being shot at. My knee-jerk reaction hurt my neck again.

 

During a thunderstorm my car was right beside a hydro pole that exploded. It was like being inside a Chinese fireworks factory on a bad day.

 

Of the 10 jobs that I would never ever want to do, all of them are here in Bangladesh.

Here are a few in no particular order:

 

Guy pulling rickshaw with household furniture strapped to it

Guy carrying a ridiculous amount of stuff in head basket

Guy banging a rod

Guy breaking bricks

Guy on ladder fixing electrical wires

Guy selling raw meat in 40 degrees sunshine

Here’s a Day In My Life in Bangladesh:

Wait 20 Minutes for toast and coffee

Wait hour and a half for the factory staff to pick me up. “Oops, sorry we forgot.”

Find out that they have done nothing since I last visited and only now do they realize (and care) that the US won’t accept their exports. Now I have their attention, but it’s too late.

Livelihood has been snuffed.

Only one computer in the hotel business center, and it doesn’t work.

TV cable company is on strike because of a war with rivals that has actually resulted in several killed cable guys.

So, no TV.

Observe a house-keeping staff gorge himself on the leftover chicken I put outside my door.

Hotel tries to charge me 80 $ for a bottle of Johnny Walker.

Learn how to vote several times and cheat the polling stations in the upcoming Mayoral elections.

Power shuts off every 10 minutes, thereby drawing out the final 20 pages of my Paulo Coelho book, making it almost seem exciting.

The “Quiet” setting on my air conditioner is so loud and obnoxious it startles me out of my sleep and gives me an irregular heartbeat.

 

For these reasons, and many similar ones, I flew to Nepal to celebrate Buddhist New Year.

 

Nepal is the birthplace of Buddha and more significantly, the Abominable Snowman.

 

It’s a place that also hosts more deities than people.

 

The watchful eye of Buddha followed me around town. It’s painted everywhere. Watching my every move:

I flew into Thin Air with a “Mountain Flight” over the Himalayas. My tiny plane flew around Everest, Hotse and all the other big names.

 

Absolutely stunning:

Kathmandu attracts a variety of different people. The hippies, the Dalai Lama wannabees and the mountaineers.

 

The place is over run with Scandinavians. If we ever locate the elusive Yeti, he’ll probably have a Swedish accent.

 

The King has sacked the government for not dealing with the Maoist rebels, so now the country is run by a dictator and under attack by communists.

 

Surely it must be time for the Americans to invade Nepal?

 

I lost several golf balls thanks to thieving little monkeys. That’s my excuse anyway. This little monkey wouldn’t get off the flag pole on the 18^th green:

 

Those were the friendly ones. This next picture is taken moments before I became the latest star on the Discovery Channel’s “When Monkeys Attack”.

He was hungry and wanted my chocolate bar. He didn’t say please, but I gave it to him, wouldn’t you:

 

An early morning walk to the Java House yielded another wild moment as a flute-playing idiot with dancing Indian Cobras and a Python in his basket surprised me as I walked by.

 

I thought he wanted to sell me a basket. So I leaned down real close, and when the lid came off, a cobra poked it’s head up to say hello.

 

So now I know better, they don’t sell baskets in Kathmandu.

 

And now I own a cheap flute. And a snake skin.

 

I have learned the importance of a Yak. I still don’t really know what a Yak is, but I do know there’s Yak Cheese, Yak soap, Yak massage oil, Yak belts..it’s a multi-purpose animal, and every family should own a Yak.

 

I leave you with this popular mantra: Om Mani Padme Hum.  It should protect you from Maoist rebels, wild yeti and the odd bit of bad yak cheese.

 

I wish you a happy 2062!

 

Yak Yak Yak,

 

Lars