So! I land in Kathmandu and move back in time an indeterminate amount of decades. One thing I noticed was several Anglos sporting bandages on their foreheads. I thought this must be a really rowdy place with lots of drunken brawls for these guys to have black eyes and damaged heads. It took a few weeks to see that it was from the low hanging lintels of the hotel doors in Nepal - as the average height is 5'4" or something like that. These poor guys, mostly stoned from too much ganja (weed) didn't notice they were running into door tops, being 5'10" and +6' in many cases. They were the Kareem of the mountains.



I set myself up in a hotel to see what was up, what was to eat, and most importantly what was to smoke. The cafes (I think I remember that they were called pie shops because they served western style pie) were set up for foreigners to eat pie, drink chai and smoke ganja. The preferred method of smoking was a chilum pipe which is a smoke stack looking affair, made of natural clay that was filled with leaves of pot and hashish was placed on the top. It was held with two hands, some what like making a whistle with your thumbs and using the palms as an echo chamber although instead of blowing and making sound one puffed on the pipe smoke you were pulling into your hands and inhaling massive amounts of grade A ganja and hash. The smoke was so thick in these places that one never needed to touch a chilum and they would get a buzz. The flies were so stoned they could be petted - if anyone cared to pet a fly. There were people from all over the world. Australia, Germany, Holland, USA of course, England, Ireland, France and Italy to name a few. A mish mash of people smoking and tripping out in Kathmandu.

I hung out in the pie shops and had my room over the shop directly facing the street. There were times that I just held onto my bed and thought that if I just stay here and don't move, it will all clear up in a matter of time. How I had any ability to think at all is the grace of God. I will spare my revelations - and they were many and unraveled many ideas I had in my head - which was the purpose of my trip in the first place. I never was one to indulge in anything but that which was supposed to expand my mind and spirit (however misguided that was). There was a morning I woke up from a sleep to the sounds of people in the street below. I looked out the window and saw a line of men squatting and having their morning bowel movement and smoking cigarettes, chatting away as if this was a social occasion. I went back to my bed as I really didn't want to watch a bunch of guys taking a shit. About 30 minutes later there was a squall of squealing noises and the sound of animals running down the street. I got up again and looked out to see that the swine had been let out of their pens and they headed for the poop to gobble it up like it was desert. I couldn't pull myself away from the sight of these pigs with crap running out the side of their mouths and eating up every bit of crap that was deposited from the guys who work in the pie shops and cook our food daily. Whoa that was a sight I shall never erase from my mind.

I understood why there wasn't the human waste lying around in Nepal like there was in India. Not enough pigs, I guess. It was a daily routine that I just learned to stay on the bed until it was all over.

I moved from the first hotel over the pie shop to another place that didn't have a shop under it that was cheaper and less noisy and set myself up there. It was on the Swayambu Stupa line of sight over the river. We always called it the Swayambu river but doing a search now I found there isn't a river actually named that. I'm lazy and will refer it to the Swayambu river because that is the way I think of it. The Stupa is a Shrine to Buddha with the Bodi tree and the eyes on all four side of the top that is one of the symbols of Kathmandu. It is an active temple with chanting monks and blowing of their horns making the most haunting music ever.

There was a division of the area by the river - those who were in Swayambu and those in Kathmandu proper. I was a Kathmandu person - never living over on the other side. I was 22 years old, smoking waaay more than I ever thought I would ever partake of the weed and then at the same time someone gave me some acid (LSD) straight from Berkley, at the same time I was swallowing opium balls to control the dysentery (remember the guys cooking my food taking a communal crap? they use their hands to wipe - just wrap your mind around that for a minute), and that day truly "blew my mind". It was in May, a holiday to celebrate Buddha's birthday and without thinking of what I was doing - it all went in to this very little person. I was and still am 5'3" and have never weighed more that 120 unless I was pregnant. I was out of my fucking mind!!!

The monks were chanting, the army was marching and I was standing in the river trying to get a grip on reality which was running away from me at a rapid rate of speed. I started holding on to the ground for dear life hoping this wasn't the trip I would never return from like Charlie on the MTA (old song - look it up). I couldn't get a control of my head for love or money and did the only thing I could think of.

Standing in the river I called on The Lord Jesus Christ to help me. Now mind you, I have been in India, immersed in yoga, Theosophy and Vedanta (the deepest form of Hinduism) during my stay and before I even got there. I always thought Jesus was just a collection of stories about a guy that maybe or maybe not walked around much like the Holy men of yonder years. One thing I always believed though was that God was real and for some dumb reason, He loved me personally. So - I made my plea.

I sensed a voice thought inside of my mind and heart that said "why are you calling on me?", to which I answered, "everyone says you are the Savior and I need to be saved and I need it now", to which I sensed that I was through seeking through mind expanding anything - except study and the drugs were over for good. So it was. Never did I pick up a cigarette, pot, mushroom or acid again - it was over and I was delivered!

I would like to say that the misery of the "trip" was over but it wasn't. I still had to go through the whole mess of the drug trip to the extent that I ended up talking to a Catholic Priest looking to join a convent to escape my life. This didn't make me any smarter, it just "put the fear of God in me", in such a way that I knew I would never go back.

The Priest was (as most of my encounters with Priests have been) kind of weird. I wasn't a Catholic - it isn't the kind of organization that one just joins - so there was lots of stuff I needed to do first. He talked to me for awhile and I wandered off. Thinking I would do what was needed if that was the path I was to take.

I managed to get back to my room and hold on to my bed until it was all over - the Monks chanting over the river and all the energy that was vibrating though out the universe and me. I finally came down to some sense of normalcy and started to piece my life back together that had been blown apart. The first thing to hit was bronchitis from hell. I coughed up gunk that I could never thought could come out of my body. It made it for sure that I would never smoke another thing - at least up to now and I can't imagine starting up again now.

This all happened within the first month of my time in Nepal. I stayed for 4 months - so there is much more to tell but this is all for now. This is the Passover story where the Last Supper is the Communion and on the third day Christ rises. I never think of it as Easter (which is pagan in origin) but the end of the Passover where the Blood was put on the lintel of the houses and the Angel of Death Passed Over and the Hebrew children were spared. All this other stuff is not in my mind set. Anyway, I need to get to bed before I fall apart. Tata for now. I hope to get back with the rest of the story because this is only 7 mos in to a 24 month journey.