Gairidhara is one of those little neighborhoods where you can find just about anything, from skin lightening cream to motorcycle seat reupholstering shops. This suits me well — because whenever I return to Nepal, I prepare myself to take advantage of a quality that has not changed a bit since my Buddha-shopping days: the Nepalese ability to fix anything. In the late 1980′s, I delighted in snapping photos — admiring photos — of umbrella repair stands and disposable lighter refilling stations. For a few years I sheepishly brought my old lighters back to Nepal to be reconditioned, though I never got as far as umbrellas.

Since then, I’ve abandoned all pretense of shame and generally fill a suitcase with items that would have to thrown out, or replaced, in America. Among the personal possessions rehabilitated on this journey: a $65 ThermaRest pad, leaking at the seams (repaired at a bicycle tire mender for 15 rupees, about 20 cents); my Timberland expedition hiking shoes, which, though incredibly comfortable, are separating at the soles (20 rupees), my carry-on computer case, in need of a new leather carrying handle (60 rupees), and my $125 Sennheiser collapsible noise-canceling headphones, with amazing electronics but wires so cheap they’re worn down to a few copper threads. The minimum repair charge for these babies on the Sennheiser site is $55, plus postage. I paid my friendly Gairidhara electrician (who fixes everything from toasters to laser printers) 50 rupees, no bargaining involved.

All of which brings me back to my long-held conviction that millions of dollars could be saved if the United States government got a clue, and started a variation of what the British did with the Gurkhas in the 19th century. The most ingenious and efficient Nepali street repairmen should be found, and recruited — not as soldiers, but as astronauts. Launched into orbit, they could repair absolutely anything — from faulty space station toilets to the Hubble Space Telescope — using needle nose pliers and few paper clips, for a cost of about six bucks a pop.

They say that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. I say, if you can drive a motorcycle in Kathmandu, you can drive one anywhere.

Granted, the bikes are small — my 150cc Bajaj Pulsar is about average — but that’s okay, because you can’t really go faster than 40 mph anyway (and that’s when the city streets are clear, at about 3 a.m.). During the day navigation is a surgical skill, accomplished with precision along narrow lanes, many of which were not made for anything wider than a cow. That’s about the width of my scooter; but I’m also sharing the streets with vagrant dogs, taxicabs, the occasional SUV, and a chaotic mix of kids, women in saris, rolling fruit, rickshaws, ice cream carts, balloon sellers, schoolgirls, buses, baskets of onions, and many other (far more aggressive) motorcyclists. All of the above move in what amounts to Brownian motion. The concentration required compares to the most austere Zen practice. There’s no room for error; if I show the slightest bit of indecision, other vehicles roar past me within a hair’s breadth, weaving like drunken bees. If I go down, I won’t be getting up again — one reason why a friend referred to the enterprise as “meditation at gunpoint.”

Twenty-five years ago, in 1983, I arrived in Kathmandu for my first extended stay, and wrote Mr. Raja’s Neighborhood. In October of that same year, I trekked to the Khumbu, the Everest region. A lean, mean 29, I carried a huge pack and spent weeks above 15,000′. This year, I’ll be returning to the Khumbu–this time with adventure travel pioneer Leo Le Bon, who founded Mountain Travel and helped open the area to trekking 40 years ago.

This year is also the 20th anniversary of Shopping for Buddhas — a story based on my search for the “perfect” statue, set here in 1988 against the backdrop of fast-changing Kathmandu. Now, 20 years later, I’m on a mission to write a story about how the past two decades have affected my relationship with Nepal.

I have to say right off: there have been countless changes here, and very few of them have been for the better. “Modern” Kathmandu seems to be the result of fifty years of bad choices, one on the heels of another. Somehow, though, I still love the place, and the crippled sister it has become. As the days pass, I’ll post some vignettes from the Valley. And I’ll try to do some shopping — if I can think of a deity that might be appropriate for this time and place.

So it begins: the 10-hour flight to Tokyo; the 5-hour layover amid the cutting-edge consumerism of the Narita Airport mall, where I escaped the tsunami of irresistible electronic temptations by falling into the pummeling embrace of a coin-operated massage chair; and then the surreal, seemingly endless final leg: 7 hours on to Krung Thep, where the gray cityscape belied the warmth and comfort of Jock and Annie’s eternal abode. Arrived under tumultuous rain, the taxi throwing up sheets of water as it pulled off Rama IV Road and onto Soi 26.

Still amazing, that in a total of 27 hours I was able to transport myself from door to door: from my Oakland, California abode to this Bangkok oasis, the much-loved “Wooden House” that has sheltered so many kindred nomads.

During last year’s visit to Asia, I returned to Kathmandu for the first time in five years – and vowed to make Nepal a regular part of my life once again. I’m keeping my word. After a long weekend with my great friends Jock and Annie – and a road trip to Chaloem Rattanakosin National Park, with its famous cave-dwelling barking toads– I’ll be flying on to Kathmandu. From which point, for some reason, writing this blog seems so much more… essential.

One final note. Just before leaving the Bay Area, a friend took me to see one of the most inspiring and unforgettable films I’ve ever seen. Man on Wire instantly took a place in my all-time Top 20 Films. Beautiful, audacious, maddening and jaw-dropping, this documentary says just about everything there is to say about risking everything for one’s art. Don’t miss it.

And hey… while composing this entry, I came across this cool website, definitely worth a look: “Walking as Art.”

A Dakini – according to the Shambala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen – is a “wrathful naked female figure,” a benevolent demoness often found in the company of gods. Her job  is to inspire Buddhist practitioners; her nakedness symbolizes “knowledge of truth unveiled.” Dakinis are also known as women who “fare through space,” able to dance across the sky in their muse-like role as collaborators of contemplators. 

 I don’t know about all that. The Dakini I’ve recently connected with is seldom wrathful, only occasionally naked, and certainly not predisposed to hanging out with gods. But she’s a pretty good writer (check out her Flying Hobo Girl blog) and, sure enough, she flies. Someday, I hope, she’ll teach me – but until I’m ready to sign up for paragliding lessons, we have to content ourselves with high-altitude hikes in the Sierra and quasi-weightless dips into mountain hot springs and alpine lakes.

I like her July 22nd entry a lot; I was, after all, the friend who came up with the  Constructivist wilderness  moniker. So in a way, hers is sort of a proxy blog for me, in light of the fact that I’ve lately been too busy — or lazy — to produce one myself. I’m not sure that’s what dakinis are supposed to be provide, but hey… I’m  grateful all the same.

It’s unusual for me to do this, but I recently received an email directing me to a website created by artist/travelers Todd Berman and Lauren Girarden. Todd and Lauren attended my show at The Marsh on May 17th, 2008. I thought i’d noticed someone sketching,  front row center, during the performance — but I had no idea the result would be such a playful, kaleidoscopic portrait, which brilliantly captures the spirit of Strange Travel Suggestions. Visit Ephermerratic, and see for yourself!

 “To travel,” Aldous Huxley wrote, “is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” It’s also a way to discover that you’re wrong about your own country.

 Sort of wrong, anyway.  Sort of right, and sort of wrong. Going in, I had a bundle of preconceptions  about Arkansas. Friends who knew about the trip hummed the theme from Deliverance (the musical equivalent, geographically speaking, of confusing Danny Boy with Frere Jacques).  And despite my own awareness that Johnny Cash, Bill Clinton and Mary Steenburgen all hail from Arkansas, I was unprepared either for the profusion of Barack Obama bumper stickers or the amazing quality of the breakfast burritos at The Oasis.

The most savvy among you will know, from those hints, that I was not in Little Rock, but Eureka Springs: an enclave of  like-minded beings in the northwestern part of the state. I’d been invited there to perform Strange Travel Suggestions at the Grand Central Hotel; itself a strange travel suggestion, kited by local residents Dawn Hagin and Faryl Kaye (owner of the stately Peabody House, which hosted my stay). Dawn and Faryl had seen me perform the show at the Book Passage Travel Writers’ Conference in August 2007, and made good on their threat to bring me to The Natural State.

  It’s two worlds, Eureka Springs: a close-knit literary and artistic community, where local band Mountain Sprout rocks the Chelsea with hillbilly porn and vans disguised as space shuttles smoke up Spring Street during the annual ArtRageous Parade; and a bastion of fundamentalist conservatism, as witnessed by the irresistible Bible park on the outskirts of town. One highlight of my trip was a visit to The Museum of Earth History, where I learned why carbon dating is bullshit, and how dinosaurs were squeezed onto the Ark (see blog title). To the left is a picture of us gaping, enaptured, at the 3rd-largest statue of Jesus in the world (right up there with Rio and Santiago).

Another terrific afternoon was spent along the Buffalo, the first U.S. river to be  designated “Wild and Scenic.” Hiking along the limestone bluffs far above its banks, I was amazed, as I so often am, by the almost inexhaustible number of fabulous parks in this great land of ours. When it comes to vouching for America’s scenic beauty, I’ll wave that flag as wide and high as any Pabst-swilling patriot.

 For me, though, the runaway highlight was the performance itself. The audience was terrific, the Q&A was a blast, and the show witnessed the maiden spins of my brand new Wheel. At 40 lbs, fitting into a 30” x 36” x 6”box, the suddenly portable prop – always the centerpiece of my show, thanks to the brilliant artist, Mark Wagner –now makes it possible for me to take Strange Travel Suggestions anywhere. And I will.
                                                                                    

 On March 18th, just before 1 pm PST, my dear friend Arthur C. Clarke died of respiratory failure in a Sri Lanka hospital. It was an event that his family and  close friends had dreaded for years, though it was of course inevitable. Aside from his advanced age — Arthur turned 90 in December — the futurist and science fiction grandmaster suffered from Post Polio Syndrome, which had confined his lanky, once tireless frame to a wheelchair.

Many of you are aware of the strong bond Arthur and I shared, ever since he generously consented to meet me, a babbling 16-year-old fan, at his writing retreat at New York’s Chelsea Hotel in 1970. Over the past 38 years, I’ve written many stories about our encounters, which usually took place at his home in Sri Lanka (and often included my utter humiliation at table tennis). A story about our last meeting currently appears on the online version of Wired, under the title Sundown with Arthur.

Words can’t adequately express my fondness for this man, or how profoundly his writing, humanism, humor, warmth, and vision — and what a vision — influenced my life. As a tribute, I hope to practice the advice Arthur himself offered me after the death of my brother Jordan, in 1990. "Don’t mourn that you lost him," Arthur wrote. "Rejoice that you knew him."

All of humanity should rejoice and honor the long tenure of this kind, brilliant man, who maintained a crazy confidence in the redemtion—and  transcendence—of the human race. He left us with scores of wonderful books, food for thought to nourish generations to come, and the most useful tool ever placed into human hands: the communications satellite. Farewell, my friend. What we owe you is beyond evaluation.

This is a Special Bulletin! If you happen to be in the Bay Area between now and March 22nd, you have the amazing good fortune to see two of my  favorite performers. Prince Gomolvilas and Brandon Patton are staging their fabulous Jukebox Stories: The Case of the Creamy Foam in the intimate but non-threatening confines of  Impact Theater in Berkeley. Gomolvilas is a high-octane story-teller who blends Asian angst with universal pathos; Patton an absolutely brilliant guitarist, sort of an R-rated cross between Alan Sherman and The Shins. This show has a couple of things in common with my own Strange Travel Suggestions (see Events!!): every show is different, and it’s always a trip. Check it out!

I’ve been bad. Very bad. It’s very bad, and rather sad, when a travel writer goes off on long, interesting journeys, and fails to blog. How could  this be? Am I getting lazy? Have I lost my spark? Wasn’t it Yours Truly who created the very first international blog, in 1993/1994, with my Size of the World dispatches for GNN? (Hey, if you don’t believe me, see Wikipedia!)

Truth is, I prefer writing live blogs when I’m not on assignment – writing them from places like Kathmandu, where I can spend a lazy morning eating mango pancakes and pondering 10-rupee bills (see previous blog). In Tasmania, it was non-stop action: from tripping over fairy penguins (in Stanley) to picking off leeches (Cradle Mountain). This happened in December, which is summer Down There, for Islands, in a Lost Ozzie World that amazed me with its chaotic coastline, exotic star clusters, and scrappy wildflowers.

But the detail was in the Devils. That’s what I love about this profession: in the space of a couple of weeks, distant points of abstraction  become visceral reality. Before my visit to Tassie, the only Devil I’d seen was Taz, the voracious dervish of Bugs Bunny fame. Never dreamed I’d meet—and come to  adore—the actual item.

Real Tasmanian Devils are fierce, charming marsupials the size of small pit bulls, jet black with white markings and pink ears. My desire to see one took on a quasi-mythical intensity: as if it were a tiger, or unicorn. I’ll never forget the night I spent in a coastal shack with Geoff King, a rancher-turned naturalist on the island’s west coast. King had scraped a dead wallaby off a nearby road, tossed it in his pick-up truck, then staked out the road kill behind his cabin. We drank chardonnay inside, and waited. At about 10 pm, a gutteral snarl alerted us to a visitor. Sure enough, a Devil had appeared, and was tearing apart the carcass. Hey – if There Will Be Blood, I’d rather get it from a dead wallaby than Daniel Day-Lewis.

Like so many charming things on this planet, Devils are in trouble. A strange and mysterious cancer, Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), threatens to drive the indigenous animal to extinction within two decades. In November 2007, Devils were officially listed as an Endangered Species. If you’d like to learn something about these amazing animals, and the efforts to save them, check out the work being done by Wade Anthony at his Devil orphanage: Devils at Cradle. Look for the May 2008 issue of Islands, too.

No one wants to read a blog longer than 600 words, so I’ll stop soon. More in a week or so, with a report from my very recent trip to Peru. Meanwhile, let me recommend a book I’m reading. She sort of came out of nowhere — writing, directing, and starring in the effervescent indy film, Me & You & Everyone We Know — but Miranda July seems to be everywhere these days. In 2006, she did a terrific solo performance at San Francisco’s Theater Artaud, and she turns out to be a captivating writer, as well. I’m halfway through her first book, No One Belongs Here More Than You. (Which, as readers of my 2004 ThingsAsian blogs may recall, is the travel slogan for Israel.) I have no idea (yet) why Ms. July chose this as her title, but her short stories are brilliant and haunting and dreamy, and she writes like… well, no one else, but think Richard Brautigan on estrogen.

If you want to know what the Nepalese think of their king, you don’t have to look any further than  their 10-rupee notes. The sage-green and pale brown bills – worth about 16 cents – show the sunken-eyed, scowling monarch glancing off to the right, as if wary even of the portrait artist (as well he might have been). On the new bills, the portrait of the king is printed over with a bouquet of red rhododendrons, the national flower. But locals delight in holding the revamped bill to the light, proving that the monarch is still hiding behind the scenes.

 As Nepal bides its time, caught between a lame monarchy and a failed democracy (not to mention a despised, splintered Maoist movement), tourism remains an important revenue source. “Welcome to Magical, Mystical Nepal” declare banners strung across avenues choked with diesel-spewing trucks and crowded with ramshackle, earthquake-bait buildings. I have to laugh, imagining how ludicrous this must appear to first-time visitors. The banners are right – there’s still magic in Kathmandu — but getting to it involves frequent transits of hell. Traffic and pollution are so bad that the high-end department stores do a booming business in particle filter masks –though the good ones cost the equivalent of a week’s salary.

So why do I love this place? Because as soon as I get out of the city – and it doesn’t take long –  I’m reminded of where the magic really is.

 Just an hour’s drive north, the hamlet of Nagarkot faces out toward the middle hills and the central Himalaya. The lights and smog of Kathmandu are out of sight. My old friends Tom Kelly and Carroll Dunham – check out their books and films –  have built a small house here, and from this base (and the nearby Vajra Farmhouse) I’ve been taking short treks into the countryside. It’s mid-autumn, and every village is busy with the harvest: wheat, potatoes, cauliflower, bright red chili peppers, popcorn, tangerines, apples. Though the festival of Dasain is over, high bamboo poles –which served as scaffoldings for home-made swings — still stand in the village squares.

The changes in these villages since my first treks, 27 years ago, have been huge; there’s  electricity now, and motorcycles are parked outside some of the shops. Aquifers are channeled through brass nozzles (instead of carved naga spouts), and gush onto cement platforms. There are more schools, and trucks carry 50 kg sacks of produce to the markets in Asan and Kupondole. But it’s the little things that get me: men taking pictures of local pujas with their cell phones; writing pads emblazoned with Spider-man; porches decorated with glittering CDs, which dangle and turn in the breeze.

I cannot believe that I’ve got just one day left in Kathmandu. Two an a half weeks seemed like a  long time, but it’s been the shortest eight months of my life. Equally hard to believe is that this Fall marks the 20th anniversary of my “Shopping for Buddhas” trip (and that, after all these years, I’m still shopping). If the blessings I’ve collected here bear fruit, 2008 will see the publication of “Snake Lake” – a book as close to my heart as Nepal itself.