Browsed by
Category: travel

Fernweh and Heimweh

Fernweh and Heimweh

Comments 0 Comment

Homesickness is when you long for the place you know best of all. But what about its opposite? Wanting to venture to a place you’ve never been? It’s a feeling deeper than wanderlust, stronger than attachment. Until the other day, I didn’t know it has a name.

Farsickness —or “fernweh” from the German “fern” (far) and “weh” (pain) is when you yearn for a place you’ve never been, for the faraway. I heard about it on the radio, and a quick Google search shows me the word has been out there for a while. There are “Fernweh” t-shirts and “Farsickness” travel blogs.

Digging a little deeper I learn that the word “homesick” also entered our language from the German — “heimweh.” It comes from a Swiss dialect and can also mean longing for the mountains. Ah, I think, just like Heidi. Remember when she’s sent to Frankfurt and entertains Clara but all she wants is to go back and live with her grandfather on the mountain?

To have “fernweh” we need “heimweh.” The familiar propels us to the faraway — then brings us home again.

Reminders

Reminders

Comments 0 Comment

I grew up on road trips — long, car-sick journeys to Cincinnati, Greensburg or Natural Bridge. Kentucky is rolling country, so driving through it is not for the faint of stomach. Dramamine was my friend.

None of this dampened my love of travel. In fact, it conditioned me to rigor. Which brings me to these wonderful trips I’ve taken the last two years. They haven’t been easy either — once I get there. But the fact that I can board one plane, then another — and wind up on the other side of the world …  will never stop being miraculous to me. 
So in honor of the miraculous, and because I want to keep reminding myself I was there … a few photographs from Nepal.
Workday Travel

Workday Travel

Comments 0 Comment

Travel has many advantages, one of them being how it shakes me out of my routine. It forces me to take a few risks, talk to people more than I would otherwise. It’s hard to be bored when I’m traveling. Tired, nervous and hungry, maybe. But never bored.

Sometimes, even traveling to work will do that. Today was one of those days.

With the two main subway lines coming in from the west partially shut down due to smoke in the tunnels, I took a bus I’d never taken before.  It was a jolly crew of commuters and travelers crammed together, many of us standing.

I chatted with a young couple from Slovenia. She was model-caliber gorgeous. He spoke excellent English, had a pierced eyebrow and wore a button that said, “Ask me how to lose weight.” (I didn’t.)

“Slovenia is small, but we are mighty,” he said, reeling off names of some of its famous citizens, including First Lady Melania Trump and various sports figures I’d never heard of. But he was so proud of his small country that he made me want to go there immediately!

All this is to say that when I got off the bus at Rosslyn, I barely knew where I was.

The Sacred and the Profane

The Sacred and the Profane

Comments 0 Comment

I snapped this photo on a walk around Nagarkot, the hill town on the cusp of the Himalayas. It speaks to me, summarizes the way Nepal combines spirituality and chaos, how it mushes up prayer life and real life until you can’t really tell the difference.

And isn’t that how it should be?

I looked up “sacred and profane” not really knowing the origin of this dichotomy, and learned that it’s attributed to the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Sacred things are those forbidden and set apart; they represent the interests of the group. Profane things are individual interests, more mundane concerns.

While Durkheim believed that all religions contain this dichotomy, other scholars disagree. It’s a western way of looking at faith, they say.

After visiting the temples and stupas, seeing the Ganesh statues in taxis, and of course, the prayer flags … I would agree with those who disagree with Durkheim.

Easter Monday

Easter Monday

Comments 0 Comment

Easter has its own rhythm, different from Christmas or Thanksgiving. Church comes first.

Yesterday, through some miracle of timing, Suzanne arrived only minutes after we did, which meant she could park her ambrosia salad, backpack, running tights and jogging shoes in the car and slide into the seat we saved in the big sanctuary.

The sermon was more honest than others I recall. It was as if the priest was trying to convince himself of the significance of the empty tomb. His conclusion: there must be something to it, because of all the good people we know who are gone, and because of the incompleteness of life.

A cynic — heck, even a realist — could easily counter these arguments. Of course, there are good people in the world, but that doesn’t mean there’s a God and an afterlife. As for incompleteness, that’s why we have irony.

But I was touched at the honest homily. The priest is one I’ve seen for years, and he looked noticeably older this year, walked with a cane. Maybe he’s working out some things in his own mind. Whatever the case, I appreciated his candor.

In the end, he said, it all comes down to faith.

And so it does.


(Detail from the Cambodian monastery at Lumbini, birthplace of the Buddha)

Brain Drain

Brain Drain

Comments 0 Comment

I’m up early. Too late for Nepali time. Maybe it’s Dubai time. Speaking of that place … my airline out of Kathmandu was called “Fly Dubai,” and it carried a crazy mixture of tired trekkers and migrant workers headed back to the Middle East.

Ads in the Kathmandu Airport featured the money transfer service “Himal Remit,” with an older man on a tractor waving his hand in glee. The check has arrived! The check from my son or daughter who can no longer live here because there are no jobs.

One issue I heard from all quarters in Nepal (from bank execs to taxi drivers) was the brain drain. It’s difficult to find a family that has not been affected. Two interviews in a row ended with stories of children in college in Iowa or Massachusetts. Will they return?

As the world shrinks and problems grow, populations are on the move. One-quarter of Nepalis live outside Nepal. I’d like to think this country will remain its lovely, spiritual self. But what is a nation but its people? This is a question every world citizen should ask.

Coda

Coda

Comments 0 Comment

Jumbo jets are seas of humanity, hundreds of people jammed into tight quarters, each with their own pasts, presents, futures — and languages. Some travel in pairs: old couples with their heads tipped together in sleep; lovers on honeymoons. Others travel in groups: families and babies in the bulkhead. Many travel alone, as I did.

When I arrived home this morning, I looked out the window of the bus taking me to the main terminal to see the craft that had just borne me home. We flew up and over from Dubai to Dulles, crossing eastern Europe and Scandinavia, Labrador and Nova Scotia.

And now, miraculously, I’m home.  The busy boulevards of Bangkok, the dusty thoroughfares of Kathmandu, are behind me now,  alive in photographs and memories. How improbable it all seems, to travel to the other side of the world and back. How very lucky I was to have done it. How grateful I am to be home.

Hospitality and Hope

Hospitality and Hope

Comments 0 Comment

Last night we visited Boudhanath. Pilgrims walk three times around the stupa, touching the prayer wheels, burning incense, sometimes even prostrating themselves. We walked three times around, too.

As I prepare to leave this wonderful country, I’m remembering something my colleague and friend Chadani said to me last evening as we were leaving Boudhanath.

“In my culture, we treat our visitors like gods.”

That’s exactly right! I’ve been fed and gifted and given far more than I can ever return.

The culture of hospitality gives me hope. If we can treat the visitor, the stranger, with such loving care and concern, then can’t we ultimately learn to live together in peace?

Consider the Courtyard

Consider the Courtyard

Comments 0 Comment

We don’t have these where I live, these vine-draped, sun-splashed oases of calm in the midst of busy cities. But the courtyard at my hotel is, I think,  one of the most enchanting places I’ve ever seen.

Wisteria vines hang heavy over tiled roofs. Something fragrant — frangipani? spirea? — blooms by the pool, which is filled by spouts of cool, piped-in water augmented by a sculpture spring.

A bird I’ve never heard before chatters in the shrubbery. Incense wafts from a small shrine, and water trickles from a quiet fountain.

To enter this courtyard is to feel an ancient spirit, tapping the inner peace of a place designed for tranquility.

Since I’ve been in Nepal I’ve considered the courtyard, the haven it provides, how it soothes the soul. Considered it — and coveted it, too.

Luckiest Dog in Kathmandu

Luckiest Dog in Kathmandu

Comments 0 Comment

This morning I spotted a new friend at the hotel, a dog named … Maya — which astute readers of yesterday’s post will recognize as the name of the safa tempo driver I described yesterday. It’s a lovely name and this seems like a lovely dog.

Maya knows how to work the room. She walks around the hotel lobby and outside in the courtyard where there are tables and tidbits. She is fat and happy. She is not your typical Nepali mongrel.

Kathmandu has a wild dog problem — this in addition to its mean monkey problem and its abandoned cow problem. Packs of wild dogs roam the streets and alleys of Nepal’s capital city, and they carry rabies and (from the looks of it) mange.

The cows are especially pathetic. Since Nepal is primarily Hindu and cows can’t be killed, some people simply abandon their animals when they’re through with them, especially since the earthquake in 2015. Cars must swerve to avoid hitting the animals, this in a bustling city of three million people. Sometimes people take pity on the cows, but more often than not, fate is not kind to these beasts.

But back to Maya. The wild dogs I’ve seen run in packs, bark at cars, and (especially in the warm afternoons) curl up and nap wherever they like, including the street. But Maya walks proudly … and alone. She is plump and well-mannered.  I’d love to know her story. Is she a favored pet? She’s the only golden lab I’ve seen here, so I don’t think she’s ever been on the street.  Maya is, at least as far as I can tell, the luckiest dog in Kathmandu.