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This log is current to November 12, 2009 October 5, 2009 When this is updated in Nepal (or at a stop enroute), you’ll learn that Becky received a late birthday present. Nepal is our first country of four. We’ll spend most of our Nepal time in Kathmandu, Pokhara (where Becky will trek part of the famous Annapurna Circuit) and Chitwan Park. Arriving at Bhradapur by air, we’ll cross into India for a tour of Sikkim, India. More, as this 54 day trip (our shortest to date) pro October 8, 2009 in Kathmandu, Nepal We gave her a locket and a globe, so, when she grows older, she’ll know there are people far away who love her. October 13,2009 in Sikkim, In Darjeeling is perched on a steep mountain ridge in West Bengal. It is crowded, noisy and features very steep streets and walking paths. Still, it has a beauty and charm that is captivating. With no airport, this city is difficult to reach. One spends many hours on frighteningly narrow “highways.” The result is wort October 15, 2009 in Pelling, Sikkim A special permit is required to enter, a completely ridiculous vestige of tense times after India absorbed this once autonomous region. This gives both Indian and Sikkim government employees ample work processing worthless forms -- and to obtain bribes from everyone possib As we entered Sikkim, a group of foreigners ahead of us had just paid to be allowed to enter, even though the Sikkim “inner line permit” is free. Our guide was also forced to fork over cash to secure our entry, an offensive and counterproductive practice, in our opinion. This was out of mind once we witnessed Sikkim’s incredible beauty and fascinating history. Roads descend narrowly and endlessly into deep canyons and climb thousands of feet up the other side. Str One of the most stunning things we have ever seen was sunrise over Kangchendzonga, the world’s third highest mountain. At more than 28,000 feet, this mountain challenges Everest. It’s size is boggling -- more than 14,000 feet higher than America’s famous Grand Teton peak in Wyoming. We shot picture after picture in high resolution as the sun rose further. We also recorded a great deal of high resolution video, which will be posted on this site after our re There are many fascinating things yet to report about Sikkim, but our view of this incredible monster mountain on a crystal clear morning is hard to put out of mind. We’ll soon post larger photos in our galleries. The entire region is famous for tea production. We found Darjeeling tea prices ranging from US$1.60 per 100 grams (less than 4 ounces) to $22 for that amount. It is said to be the finest tea in the world. October 18,2009 in Gangtok, S Yesterday, at a temple at Rumtek, Sikkim, we witnessed a training ritual for young monks. We have shot a great deal of high definition video, which we will post when we have access to a more powerful computer, back home. Tea grows everywhere. Tea is a big deal here. It grows on steep slopes in sandy soil, and this area provides an abundance of bo Sikkim is 70 by 90 miles, or 6,300 square miles on a map. However, if spread out flat it would be a great deal more. In the entire region there are only a few places flat enough to land a helicopter. That keeps Sikkim isolated, which is not all bad, in our opinion. We are about to be driven from Gangtok, the state’s capital to Bagdogra, near the Nepali border. We’ll cross over, and fly back to Kathmandu. By far the best vehicle to use here is a short whee base jeep -- and even then it has been difficu It proved to hire a car, guide and driver here. We made the arrangements through KarmaQuest in Half Moon Bay, California, and we highly recommend their services. October 10, in Pokhara Becky has an Iridium Satellite phone and will send progress reports, While Becky is doing that, Don is in Pokhara working on his book and occasionally taking hikes along the lake shore. October 28,2009 in Pokhara, Nepal After trekking for days, Becky and Sandup arrived at her village, where a tense scene developed at the makeshift shack in which the parents, the girl, and her baby brother lived. In this picture, Sandup (right) is listening to the father threaten his wife with a violent beating as so The little girl, often left alone for long periods and subjected to violence, malnutrition and deplorable conditions, is pictured on the left. The family has virtually no money, and the mother spends her days begging for food, money or odd jobs. Both parents are illiterate, and the father is an alcoholic who -- with an ex-wife -- already abandoned one daughter. At one point, after the father repeated his threats, the mother approached Becky and tearfully said, “You take this baby -- right now. Go to Kathmandu. If you do not, I will abandon her and my husband right here, right no That evening, Becky and Sandup sought counsel from the village elders, for the protection of the girl in the years to come, so there would be no doubt that the father agreed to give up parental rights. To the mother’s delight, when the meeting was convened early the next morning, the elders were on hand to witness the agreement which would remove her daughter from her family. In this picture, the illiterate father is applying his inked thumbprint to a document releasing his daughter to Sandup’s custody. Becky helped adjust contract to provide for various contin With this development, the mother was now joyful. She didn’t hesitate to make place her thumbprint on the agreement. The mother was overjoyed that her daughter would have a chance at a life better than hers, and would not grow up unable to write her own name. In this picture she is holding her breastfeeding son as she accepts the agreement. The mother was told clearly that she would always be responsible for her son, and other future children she will have. Becky had several heart-to-heart conversations with the mother about birth control, which is available for free in a very nearby village (daily pills or three-month depo injections). At first, the mother promised Becky that she had indeed been taking the pills every day. To check it out, Becky and Sandup went to the clinic and learned that the mother had never visited and never received birth control. When the mother admitted being dishonest, Becky insisted that the mother p The next morning the mother and villagers tied a kata (a scarf intended to carry blessings of safety with a departing person) around her daughter’s neck. She carried her to the footbridge at the edge of town and set her daughter down. Becky and Sandup watched as the father, “encouraged” by the town elders to carry his daughter on the several day trek to the nearest point with public transportation, picked her up. After a ceremony in which thornbranches were wav In this picture, the father is carrying his daughter from the village. She has no idea whether she will ever see her transient parents again. Expediting their downhill trek, near the end Anna had never before seen any form of motorized vehicle -- or traveled more than a very short distance from her village -- and suddenly she was on one. After they spent a night in Besisahar, Don arrived from Pokhara in a van. The father put another kata around the daughter’s neck and stepped away. The others boarded the van. As it drove away, the father was walking toward the Annapurna Circuit trail for the l It is not easy suddenly finding oneself in a position to help determine a child’s fate. Becky found it extremely difficult. But after observing the deplorable conditions being suffered by this child -- physically and emotionally -- and witnessing the violent behavior of her father and desperation of the mother -- and after verifying with neighbors and the town elders that this situation is long-term and unlikely to change, and he had already abandoned one daughter who now lives in a home in Kathmandu, she agreed with the others. Picture: Ann on her first vehicle. On their last night together, Becky and Sandup gave the father every last chance to say that he would make a new start, that he would stop drinking, stop being abusive, be responsible, and and take care of his family. He refused. Little Anna hasn’t inquired about either of her parents since leaving them, which is an indication of how much time she spent alone, with strangers, and locked in the bedroom of their shack while parents were away. Over the course of three days, she brightened up and it was clear that these we At our first opportunity to buy new clothes -- on the drive to Pokhara after she threw up in the vehicle -- we threw her ratty, filthy clothes away and bought her new ones. We took her to a doctor and had her tested for HIV infection and contagious diseases (the only time she cried for more than a few seconds was while giving blood). All the test were negative. We bought m When she left the salon, she wasn’t entire certain she liked the experience of being held over a sink so long. In the matter of four days, she was transported into a new world and new life. She saw and rode in her first vehicle, hung around sober adults who didn’t yell at or threaten each other or her, and slept in a clean bed that wasn’t shared with her whole family. Before, she sat on the ground, ate off a rock, and spent hours by herself daily. Over those days, the only world she knew was the one she could see. And slowly, she was transformed into a little girl not afraid, not hiding in a corner, not cowering, not existing but not living. She began ta Before we took her to the airport for her flight to Kathmandu and her new life with Sandup’s family (where our own Meena will now be her sister), we took her to a little playground. Before long, she was running and jumping and laughing. We accepted how completely this little girl’s world has changed, and the magnitude of our role in bettering her life. For the first time in her life, she had learned to play. A friend in Red Lodge, Montana has agreed to provid November 6, 2009 We’ll see Meena and Anna as much as possible before flying to Bangkok, Thailand and on to H November 10, 2009 Looking back over the emotion of our final two weeks in Nepal, nothing characterizes it better than this document. In the moments it took two parents to imprint their thumbs on this piece of paper, they had given away their four year old daughter. Becky was involved in the process, and wanted desperately to avoid making a mistake. After all, a little girl’s life was hanging in the balance. Anna Lama is now living with our friends in Kathmandu. Because of Becky, her life will be vastly better than if she had been left in a dangerous and abusive family setting in her village. Together, we have changed a life, and given the realities of the matter, we are proud to have done so. Temp end |
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illings, Montana to Salt Lake City and on to Los Angeles. We’ll rent a car and run down to the beach before returning to LAX for our late night China Airlines flights to Taipei, Taiwan (13+ hrs) and on to Bangkok (3.5 hrs). We’ll change to Thai Airlines for the last leg to Kathmandu -- 11,200 miles in all.
gresses.
dia
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le.
aight line distances are small, but roads can be 20-30 times as far between points.
turn to America.
ikkim, India
th.
lt to make sharp turns in Sikkim’s narrow mountain roads, and to climb slopes exceeding 30 degree incline. 
traits, If she and her guide (our long term friend Sandup) that this little girl is in situation so horrific it must be changed, they will bring her down to safety. It will take her four days to reach the village.
lent situation in a remote village on the Annapurna Circuit, Becky and our friend Sandup have negotiated to bring a four-year old neglected girl, to Kathmandu for education. Over two years ago, her young, low-caste mother first begged Sandup to remove the girl from her miserable and violent home, and give her a chance at life by living in Kathmandu and becoming educated.
on as the outsiders leave. Becky and Sandup struggled to remain calm and levelheaded throughout the drama.
w.” She was talked into staying another night.
gencies. 
romise to receive birth control immediately and take it indefinitely, or she wouldn’t remove the child as requested. There’s no way to ensure that she will continue birth control in the long term, but they tried every method of coercion. The mother repeated Becky’s mantra, “No more babies.”
ed over the departing individual’s heads to keep the village demons and evil spirits from following them down the mountain, the group of four (Becky, Sandup, a porter and the girl now renamed Anna, in honor of Becky’s mother) started trekking down the Himalayas. Following local beliefs, Becky crossed the bridge then turned toward the village and spit three times, receiving further protection against the demons.
of the second day, the group arrived at Bhulebule, where they boarded a bus for the remainder of the journey.
ong hike home. He was crying.
re already the happiest times she has ever had. Suddenly she was being well fed and, also importantly, that people were paying attention to her and were kind.
edicine to rid her of intestinal parasites, and shampooed her hair with anti-lice shampoo. A new haircut got the hair out of her eyes, and shampooed twice again. The treatments will continue.
lking more, and warming to us. She was becoming, for the first time -- happy.
e financially for little Anna Lama. One week ago none of us knew Anna. Whether it was fate or happenstance, what happened this week changed, and perhaps saved, an innocent life.
anoi, Vietnam.