Cranky German

Author: cranky

  • The Himalayas Are Rising

    As if to announce the quadruplet of 7000+ meter Ganesh peaks soon to emerge from 3 days of mist we were awoken by an earthquake at 2 a.m. this morning. The vibration lasted a few seconds, noticeable but much too weak to break anything in our vicinity. The epicenter of this 4.9 magnitude quake was…

  • Swing

    Large bamboo swings that were erected for festival week are everywhere.

  • Kathmandu Airport

    Fifteen flights to Lukla everyday and many other destinations are reached from below the yellow lights.

  • Flying Kites Over Kathmandu Valley In Nagarkot

  • Nhyokha Tole

  • Swayambhu

    We’ll be polite and won’t call it monkey temple, especially as this is the most holy Tibetan site outside of Tibet. We could however tell you a lot about the monkeys’ diet and their lack of fiber … Not much comes easy in Kathmandu and every day spent here leaves us more awed with the…

  • Kathmandu

    Kathmandu I’ll soon be touching you And your strange bewildering time Will hold me home. – Cat Stevens Much has changed since the bard held court in the Snowman Cafe down on Freak street. What used to be a one-car town in the 40s is now terrorized by motorcycles coming horns ablaze from every direction…

  • Driving Down To Kathmandu

    As you descend from the Tibetan plateau to the border town of Zhangmu the vegetation turns lusher around every bend of an incredible deep canyon. Zhangmu is a one road town, only this road barely clings to a very steep hillside and has many hairpin turns. The road is clogged with Tata trucks bringing hand-made…

  • ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ

    You may ask ‘What’s the big deal?’ but reaching the Everest North Base Camp at above 5000 meters was so cathartic that Cranky had to shed some tears. As a kid Cranky had read Reinhold Messner’s account of soloing up the North Ridge and immediately decided to toughen himself for a future career as a…

  • Gyantse

    Afraid that Russia would overtake Tibet the British under Colonel Younghusband fought a battle here against the underequipped Tibetan army in 1903. Of course this was based on bad intelligence. Sound familiar? You can make out the yellow hat monastery Pelkor Choede in the background.