Little Monkeys

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Fergus

Yesterday we finally got through enough of the necessary recovery sleep and last-minute organisation to do some sightseeing in Kathmandu. The girls were thoroughly fed up with getting their final rabies and Japanese encephilitis inoculations, finding a new, cheaper guest-house, changing money and buying air tickets to Lukla (which took longer than buying our tickets to Nepal!), so we took a taxi up to Swayambhunath, also known as the Monkey Temple.

The temple used to be on an island when all of Kathmandu was underwater but now stands on a hill to the west. It is also home to thousands of (rabies-carrying) rhesus monkeys which locals consider holy to the Hindu god Hanuman. Which is why no-one beats them off with sticks when they steal ice creams and generally bother the pilgrims, tourists and groups of cool, posing Nepalese teenagers.

I’m not sure my three monkeys are holy to Hanuman but no-one seemed to beat them off with sticks either, so I guess they might be. And they certainly had a great time at the temple. They weren’t too bothered about the statuary or carvings I tried to point out but they liked spinning the Tibetan prayer wheels, chasing the pigeons and, of course, the monkeys, but we did have an interesting chat about who the Buddha was, enlightenment and reincarnation (they were particularly outraged at the idea that women who behave well might just be lucky enough to reincarnate as men).

For myself, I found the temple fascinating. It has been in constant use since Europe was in the Dark Ages and, apart from the teenagers, is probably largely unchanged, and is packed with a mixture of Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu iconography. Wherever I looked, there was something I would have loved to examine more closely if I hadn’t also been realising that I could no longer see my children and leaping to my feet in panic.

And a few of us:

At the top of the Greeat Eastern Stairway

Jemima

A monkey

Dad

Ice cream thief

Mum

Stupa

Monkeys watching monkeys

Triplet attention

We’re Here!

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Janet

Well, we made it! All here, all safe and all just about sane.

The plane to Mumbai was amazing, I’ve never been on a flight with so few passengers, we had 3 seats each so managed to get some sleep. However, the in flight entertainment package was so exciting that the kids didn’t sleep much at all, apart from Evie, who’s always needed more sleep than the other 2.

The challenge was always going to be the 12 hour wait in Mumbai. On the plus side, we packed travel sleep mats in the hand luggage and managed to find a couple of lounger-chair things in the ‘sleep zone’. On the downside, the neon lighting and the lift style ‘musak’ were enough to make me wonder if the 12 hours would have a long term impact on my mental health. We did all get some sleep…but no where near enough. Never have I seen my children look so pale, they all in turn felt sick with tiredness, as did I. But we saved £1000 v’s the direct flight so it had to be done.

Final stretch was fine, the kids slept bolt upright in their seats and have no memory of the flight. I think my personal highlight has to be the admin clerk in Nepal airport trying to match up the passport photos of the girls (for their visas) with the passports and just giving up and handing it all over to me to do! I love going through passport control with identical triplets, it really stresses them out.

So what do the kids think of Kathmandu? After our first 24 hours (bearing in mind we’ve slept for 16 of them) Evie seems contented and says she is enjoying everything being weird, Scarlett is a bit unsure and worried (mainly about being run over or electrocuted) but managing to remember to be optimistic and enjoying the treats, and Jemima seems no different to her usual jovial self, enjoying the food and window shopping.

I’ve had a few moments of wondering if we’re crazy to bring our kids here, there’s certainly not many western kids around, but I think we’re going to be just fine. Reassuringly, some Scouts from Torquey have turned up to do a Himalayan trek, so we’re not completely alone in thinking it’ll be good for the kids! Can’t wait to get into the mountains, it’s what we came here for and we’re moving to a new guest house tomorrow (we’re in a lovely but too expensive place right now) that has a roof terrace with mountain views on all sides. Mission for tomorrow is to find an agency and book flights to Lukla and start shopping around for a porter. And maps. And a compass (how did I forget that?). The adventure is just beginning.

Plenty of Planes!

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Fergus

by Jemima

I was very excited about the plane but it was very long and boring except that they had TVs on the plane and we could play games, watch films and do other interesting things on them.

When we got off the plane we slept for a bit in Mumbai but we didn’t get enough sleep. In Mumbai we had a sandwich from Subway and it was slow but scrumptious. Tettie didn’t like hers because it tasted too much like curry and it was meant to be Italian. The cheese in the sandwiches was not very nice but my cucumber, tomato and olive was nice. The music that was playing in the sleeping area where we didn’t have much sleep was not very good at first but then it got into real piano music and it got much better.

After twelve hours there we caught a plane which didn’t have a TV because it didn’t need one as the flight was much, much shorter. I slept with my head tilted up and my mouth wide open. When I woke up we were landing in Nepal and I had no idea that I had been asleep. I kept thinking the plane was going to crash.

When we got off the plane to Nepal we went to the Hotel Blue Horizon in a taxi. At the Hotel Blue Horizon we had a choice of two rooms. One was small with not much light, the other was bright, big and more expensive. We chose the bigger one. On the way to the hotel we saw loads and loads of interesting things such as buildings which were interesting colours such as blue, green, pink, yellow, orange and purple.

On our first night we slept sixteen hours which means that we slept until dinner time. It was a lovely hotel and they are very good.

The food is filling.

Left Luggage

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Janet

Considering that one of the ambitions I had for the trip is to learn to live with less ‘stuff’, it’s been a challenging couple of weeks.

Having to move out of our house and into a friend’s for 2 weeks (thank you Kate) with enough luggage to ensure we could send the children to school in clean uniforms, plus clothe ourselves and remember everything we needed for ‘the wedding’ (more on this later), plus of course everything we want to take travelling, and having to manage all the overlaps (things that we need for the wedding but not for travelling, things we need for the wedding and travelling, things we need for travelling but only after trekking, things we need for travelling but can’t pack till they’ve been washed and dried, and all possible combinations of the above), has required a level of organisation that is beyond even my spreadsheet skills.

The upshot is that I write this on a train heading from London to Preston, where I will meet my long suffering parents for 20 minutes who will hand me a small box, then I’ll get back on a train to London, get the tube back across town and get a lift back to Ferg’s folks’ place by about 7pm tonight.

The reason for this rather expensive and time consuming journey less than 24 hours before we fly? The guilt that I have packed Jemima’s thumb guard brace in the wrong bag so it has ended up in Preston instead of in a rucksack, and she is beside herself about it. The dentist has warned she may need surgery to correct her bite if she can’t stop sucking her thumb, and the fact is that this thumb guard brace seems to be doing the trick.

Fergus thinks I’m crazy to be spending our last day in the UK on a train all day, perhaps he’s right. And I know we should be preparing the girls for the fact that things will sometimes get left behind on this trip and we have to say ‘never mind’ and live without them. But I just can’t quite bear to spend the day relaxing knowing that I could have gone back for it if I tried. So back I go, this time…!

The Wonderful World

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Fergus

by Evie

I’m not going to believe that we’re going travelling until we’re at Nepal. Or that we’re going to London until we get there. I think we’re very lucky children because we get to go travelling for a whole 10 months or maybe longer! I keep thinking about it and I can’t get it out of my head. I mostly think about swimming with tropical fish and riding on an elephant and trekking in the high mountains in Nepal. I feel contented.

When we left Megan and Susie at school they cried their eyes out but at least we’ll be able to email them and Skype them because I’ve got Megan’s Skype address. I’m going to talk to them about what time of day it is because obviously it might be very different. I’m probably going to ask them what they’ve been doing at school, and what day it is. Also, I’m going to ask them how much fun they’ve been having when it’s the weekend (for them).

I feel very nervous about the flight, also I think it’s going to be very boring. I’m probably going to look out of the window most of the time on the plane, and sometimes I’m not sure but I think we’re going to play games and read Kindles.

I cried when we said goodbye to Nanarara because I was so sad.

What I Think About Travelling

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Fergus

By Scarlett

I feel weird about going travelling. It will seem so strange being out of home. I am looking forward to travelling but I don’t quite believe it’s going to be real. I think I am going to feel travel sick if it’s going to be real.

I’m looking forward to Thailand most of all because mummy and daddy keep saying how good it is. I am looking forward to the views, they will be quite beautiful. I think that the countries we are going to will be a tiny bit the same as England. At the moment I can imagine a picture of 5 people, who are us 5, walking along a Thai beach with big rucksacks on and the shadows are long and the sun is setting over a blue sea, and the sunset is reflecting on the water. There is no one but us there.

I can also imagine big beautiful mountains covered in snow with the sun setting in between them, and there’s a river running up to the sun with ice floating on it. All the snow on the mountains is melting. I imagine it’s so beautiful in Nepal.

There’s a few things I will not be able to imagine until I see them. One of these is a rainbow in Thailand. I can’t imagine a rainbow in Thailand at all. Another one is a car in Thailand. And Thai voices and clothes. I can’t imagine any of the countries voices, but I can imagine all of their clothes apart from Nepal’s and Thailand’s.

I am so glad we were born before our mother and father set off travelling! It means we have more money because we’ve had longer to save up, and it means we (us 3) get to go!

The Wonderful Wedding

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Fergus

Here is what Scarlett wrote in her diary about the wedding.

Dear Diary,

Today is the day of the wedding.

At first we got changed into wedding dresses which looked beautiful. Then, we went to the wedding and explored. After that, us 3 went to the crèche. In the crèche, we ran around and did some colouring. After the crèche, we went outside and played a game where we lived in a bush. My sisters wouldn’t let me join in. After that we saw Auntie Lou Lou in her wedding dress, she looked absolutely beautiful. After that, there was a disco in the crèche, we danced the night away.

Keys

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Fergus

Today we left Leeds – a step that has proved surprisingly difficult.

Surprising, I think, because I have always thought of myself as someone who isn’t too bothered by material possessions. I generally own one pair of shoes which I wear into the ground (literally), I couldn’t care less what car I drive as long as it gets me to work and back, I use the cheapest phone money can buy, and my clothing reflects a natural scruffiness which I long since gave up trying to fight. What matters to me is my family, my wife, experiences. Not things.

Which probably explains my surprise at finding how much stuff I actually have, and how fiddly it has been to disentangle myself from the attachments of everyday life.

On reflection, I suppose it should have been obvious that you cannot reach the age of 39, have a family and a wife and a home and a job and not gain a great number of attachments. A home needs a house, a job needs a car, kids have school (and a pet!), and there’s bills and insurance and mortgages, bank accounts and registrations, lawns and hedges and 10’ trampolines… all of which roll happily along on the assumption that their owners are not going to disappear off around the World for the best part of a year. So the fact that we are disappearing off around the World for the best part of a year has meant disentangling ourselves from all those things.

Over the last month, as we arrange all the necessary letting and selling, storing and donating, dumping and packing, painting and cleaning, and mending, painting and mowing, I have been gauging how successful I have been at disentangling myself from all our material possessions by watching my key ring.

First to go were my 3 work keys, then our house and garage keys, then one of our two car keys. Now all I have remaining is one car key. And after we drive to the airport on Tuesday, my Mum will kindly sell it (the car not the key) and my Lego Gandalf key ring will be all that remains. Then I guess I’ll also have to give that up, too, as there’s not much point to a key ring with no keys.

One of my lasting memories from last time Janet and I went travelling was how liberating it was to have everything I needed in one backpack. In a few minutes, I could be packed up and ready to move on and explore somewhere new, or arrive somewhere and be settled in in no more time than it took to string a hammock. It felt wonderful to prove how much of the stuff I normally surrounded myself with just wasn’t necessary.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to carry everything you need when you’re in a hot country where you can wear sandals every day and never need more than one layer of clothing.

And there’s a certain amount of illusion to the backpacking life. Pure luck and historical inertia gives us the exchange rates that make us relatively rich in other countries, even when just starting out in life. And this money allows us to hire the stuff we need at a moments notice: roofs over our heads, transport, prepared food. It’s just we don’t carry the stuff around.

And I guess youth also helped. Back in the UK, I rented my room in a house, I had no car, I’d just finished university, and, of course, Janet and I only had one rucksack each to carry, not three extra small ones and their attendant children.

So perhaps it’s no surprise after all that it’s proven tricky to get going. But it’s almost done. There’s just that one key left in my pocket (and Gandalf, of course), and in a few days I won’t even have that. It’ll be just us, our rucksacks and the open road (well, Heathrow Terminal One).

Homeless

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Fergus

So that’s it. We now officially have no house. It’s taken weeks to do it but everything we want to take with us is in rucksacks, everything we want to keep is in storage and a lot of other stuff that was filling up our house has been divided between the bin, the tip and local charity shops.

Janet and I sat in our empty house for the last time this morning, listened to the echoes, marvelled at how clean it was, promised not to let it clog up with junk again, left a welcome note and a bottle of wine for our tenants and walked out of the door.

Now we just have two weeks of spare rooms and hotels then we get on our flight to Kathmandu, and the adventure that we’ve been saving up for since the year 2000 begins.

Moving out has been a lot of work – not just packing up and throwing out, but decorating and cleaning ready for renting – so it’s not until now that I have really been able to have time to feel properly excited. But now the trip is close and we’ve uprooted out family, I can feel it the elation starting to build. It’s here, rIght before me. Nearly a whole year of no work, being able to spend all day with my family, new places, new experiences, opportunities to grow and be challenged… an adventure. And to do it all with kids, while probably more difficult at times, will also let me see everything afresh, through their eyes.

I can’t wait.