Don't drink the water!!!

Being a writer people are always trying to show you things. Maybe their brother owns the hottest new dance bar, or their mum makes the tastiest momos, or their village has the best view of the mountains. I don’t mind, it tends to make my research easier but it’s also natured in me a tendency to think everyone is full of crap.

The exception is things of a supernatural or unexplainable nature. I badly want to believe that there are fantastic, unexplainable things in the world so at times when people are showing me things that I SHOULD be skeptical of a large portion of my common sense walks out the door.

I love it all ghost stories, haunted houses, men who talk to dead people, girls who speak to gods, monsters, swamis who don’t eat. Anything unusual and unlikely. 

When a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to see the spiritual healer at Jawalakhel I thought why not. The Spiritual healing room gets its guidance from Guru Hirokazu Kobayash though most of the healing is done by others. Individuals who have received training take healing power from photos of the guru and special water. The guru isn’t actually at the center most of the time.

I know what you are thinking, photos which give people healing powers and water which cures sickness. I thought that too but then I got there and everyone was sitting reverently waiting their turn, not just smiling at the photos of the guru but positively beaming. All these sick people just sitting and smiling and waiting to have water splashed in their faces.

It wasn’t the stories of miraculous healing or the praise himself that impressed me. I guess I got caught up in that fantastical hope. They demonstrated the power of the photos with some experiments then I was asked if I would like to try some healing. As a gora I am very sensitive to water. But this was ‘healing’ water… I didn’t even consider the possibility it might make me sick.

A week later and I am still having serious stomach issues, I actually had to go home half way through writing this because I needed to make an emergency Wak Wak. Maybe it is a coincidence but the water sure didn’t cure me.

I am not saying this is or isn’t real. I need to do some research and actually talk to people who go there. All I am saying I have definitely learnt not to drink any water which wasn’t handed to me in a sealed plastic bottle!

** If you want to read more about stomache problems in Nepal (hey i don't judge you for your reading taste) check out Gaffadi's post for a very entertaining read. Or if you want to go one step fu rther and read about goo try She Thinks To Herself.