nepal

in april 1987, my mother my brother and i went with some family friends to nepal: Kathmandu and Pokhara, and then trekking.

trekking is like walking, in nepal it takes you places cars can't go. you walk all day with all your stuff and huffing and puffing, dangerously short of oxygen, you reach scenic misty exotic vistas. nepal is in the himilayas, or some himilayas are in nepal, something, anyways, the mountains were real pretty and some were hard to climb. like mount everest, but we didn't climb that one. we lost enough wind trying to make it up "tiger trail"

while scrawny spindly local guys, "sherpas," bound up the hill ahead of us in flip flops, carrying three full duffels and a full table and chair set tied to their backs with twine.

i went when i was 12, so i don't remember specifics. we did all take photos, slides, so there's some nice looking photographic footage that now is lacking storytelling context.

(large is a blowup of around 140k, huge a blowup of around 400k)

yak chick
this picture is authentic because there were yaks everywhere. no kidding. either them or their dung. besides the proud profile of a gorgeous yak here, there's a rooster, and some hay. i like the order.

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here's the young justin in the streets of probably kathmandu, judging from the sign here reading "wel-come and look at our original nepalese modern batik-art show-room". maybe not kathmandu, but some city - but still the ever present hulking hairy mammal.

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'tude
terraces
i loved the terraced landscapes there, crazy texture. people flattened out little long strips of mountainside to farm; entire valleys looked like inverse ziggurats. that's a lot of work! agriculture!

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i don't know what is going on here, but it's somewhere between art and ritual. there's paint everywhere, and little bowls, and metal wands, and flower petals, and two dudes sitting opposite each other. i wish i had asked what they were doing, or i wish i remembered. if you figger it out, let me know!

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ritual
kali
this must have been my first view of kali, the blood sucking death goddess of hindu mythology. i later went on to make a web page about her, unknowing that this full frame big tall statue slide awaited in my family archives. did the woman in the purple in the corner know? did she want to be photographed?

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this is one of our sherpas, preparing to feed our group. i wish i remembered his name. he's got a least seven eggs frying in one pan here, one pan that this guy carried up the mountain with the metal kettle and the stool he's sitting on.

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eggman
guardian
here is my brother, colin, on the left, and me, justin, in the middle, and a temple guardian dog lion creature on the right. this is in kathmandu, at some place where there were a lot of temples and statues. i think kali was near this guardian. my brother was sixteen at the time.

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i don't know who this boy is, or whether he has his own web page or not. he's coming out of some sort of exciting looking gold thing, but i don't know what that is either. i do know that between his red boots and his looking left and moving forward-right, this picture has some dynamic composition. and that's why we're here!

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goldboy
pack pony
my mom loved checking out these ponies. they carried as much or more as the sherpas, down and up the narrow-ass muddy himilaya trails. they were often highly adorned, with bells and mirrors and baubled and all sorts of jangly metal pieces that announced their wide-carriage presence on the path.

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this picture is authentic because there were yaks everywhere. no kidding. either them or their dung. i enjoy the proud profile of a gorgeous yak here, climbing like i was. i like the composition.

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climb

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