India Travel Journal---Part 2

I prepped this journal before leaving on the trip with color.  I do not like to work on white pages as I find they are inhibiting.  But I do use a water reactive color so if I decide to do some painting in the journal I can lift off (most of) the color to give myself a workable surface.  The pages are watercolor paper, so using water media is not a problem.

I find ephemera along the way that is larger than the journal, so I fold them to fit and add them anyway.  I do like to come home with a fat journal.

The handsome Nepali man pictured here is my old, old friend Chheduk Man Lama.  We met in 1983 when Nonie and I took our first trip to Nepal.  Chheduk Man was our guide on our first trek and we became fast friends during that trip.  We returned in 1985 and again in 1987 for more trekking.  Since those early trips, Chheduk Man has become like a brother to me.  He come to the U.S. in the late 1980s and stayed with both Nonie and my family while he was here.  We tried to show him our country as well as he has shown us Nepal over the years, but I fear we are not the guides he is!

We were able to see him while we were in Kathmandu, Nepal, on this trip.  It's been a long, long time since we three were all together.  I worried that perhaps we'd be awkward with each other, but NO!  It was just like before.  He is a wonderful man and I am so very happy we were able to reconnect, if only for a very short visit.  I felt like we just picked our conversation where we'd left off, almost 15 years ago.

It still amazes me that Nepal has changed so much since our first visit there.  We have been keeping in contact and sharing news by email for a number of years now, where in the 80s it took at least two weeks for an airmail letter to travel between our homes.  The world is surely getting smaller!

Chheduk Man is the owner of High Camp Trekking Pvt. Ltd.  If you are thinking of trekking in Nepal, you really should take a look at Chheduk's firm, as he and his sons could provide you with the trekking adventure of your dreams.

 I like to decorate the spines of my journals with items that are related to that particular journal.  This India/Nepal journal has a prayer wheel, a Ganesh, a Buddha head and some bone beads that are representative of Indian design motifs, especially designs we saw over and over in Rajasthan.  I like how they clank together and make a happy noise.  I did not add them until I returned home, however, as it makes it very difficult to get the journal to lay flat and that would have made working in it while on the road nearly impossible.