Kitten Heels in Kathmandu, Adventures of a Female Vagabond

By Mary Bartnikowski

About Mary's Writing:

"Wise, warm, witty, it ripples with rude, righteous fun and at the same time offers profound insights. It resonates from top to bottom with deep and abiding humanity. Here is an irresistible book jam-packed with practicality and spirituality alike. It is essential reading for all true souls of light who love literature."
- Prof. Richard Walter, Screenwriting Chairman, UCLA Film School

“The only problem with the book is that it ended too soon. I can't wait for the next one. Encore!”
- Tom R. Myers, USA

“A blast of fresh air, a more in-your-face Erma Bombeck.”
- San Francisco Chronicle

“Candid and edgy”
- San Jose Mercury News

“Along the lines of Virginia Woolf but in an irreverent voice akin to Annie Lamott.”
- Palo Alto Weekly

“From Silicon Valley Artist-Mom to Solo World Traveler.
I have a huge appreciation for the leap of faith it took, after 20 years of marriage and then divorce, to reinvent a completely new, totally freeing, radically self-reliant lifestyle. We all need the nudge to find our own courage. Mary, and her book, can provide just this kind of nudge. Whether your calling is to travel the world, or just to be more adventurous in your own backyard, Mary's stories of the people, places, animals, foods, and pure joy of embracing life will remind you to LIVE MORE FULLY!”
- Lisa Chu, USA

“Warning--this book will change your life! This is a visual documentary of a woman traveling the globe on a shoestring, it makes you realize that you can do it too. This author connects with sea turtles, baby elephants, sacred places and indigenous people. God love her for her open heart, her courage and her simple way of being human. If you are feeling a little afraid and disillusioned, read this book. It’s witty, fast-moving, and every episode is backed up by amazing photos taken by the author. Get the book it’s priceless!”
- Catherine Ramsey, New York, USA

“The only problem with the book is that it ended too soon. I can't wait for the next one. Encore!”
- Tom R. Myers, USA

Want to quit your job and travel the world? Mary, photographer and solo mom, newly minted as a lone warrior after raising her son, breaks free of the USA, and takes her gumption (and her business) on the road learning how to be a professional vagabond and CEO of fun.

Like a martini mixed with metaphysics Mary pokes fun at life and laughs at the holes: from dating after two decades in Italy to living in a temple in rural Thailand learning from an enlightened master to meeting her 18 year old son on the rooftop of the world in Nepal. Sheer terror, bewilderment and sex are also covered. With no big bank account and very little electricity she photographs the Dalai Lama in India, learns how to surf in Peru, and teaches kundalini yoga to Buddhist nuns after riding elephants bareback in the jungle. Drop-shipped into new worlds, she comes to know herself through the eyes of new cultures, foreign money, exotic food, and ancient ways to worship the divine. She finds a way to communicate, play, and work in the remotest regions of the world's most exotic countries and realizes that living out loud and laughing is the prescription to life’s monsoons.

Across 27 countries on 4 continents by train, boat, chicken bus, motorbike and rickshaw she learns that courage takes practice and wanderlust costs less than it does to stay home working.

What’s your divine blueprint, your spiritual DNA? What is written on your heart? Be inspired to do something scary every day even if it’s just erasing the chalk marks off your car when the meter maid isn’t looking. Do one thing that makes your hands shake. Try not to get arrested. It can be making a phone call, writing a book, speaking your mind or moving to Morocco. Be valiant, vulnerable, and scandalous. Get dangerous and step off solid ground. Reach into your soul and pull out your dreams.

This is Mary’s 3

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Bartnikowski
• Release date: Feb 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465917140

Mary Bartnikowski

BiographySuddenly I sold everything I owned and launched myself into a new life. 35 countries and 12 years of solo travel later I'm still going strong and loving it.Yes back in 2005 people told me I was crazy to leave Silicon Valley where I had my photography business for 22 years.I did know one thing.I needed to leave the valley and discover the world now!My son was out riding camels in Morocco on his own dime so I figured why can't I have a traveling life? It should be easier for me I'm older than him.You need a kick in the pants on a new life?Readers have said:"This book will inspire you and open your mind to what you believe is possible to achieve on minimum money and oodles of passion and vision.""Mary's stories along with her stunning photographs depict so well the true story of one woman's love affair with the world. Traveling on a shoe-string by bus, boat, motorcycle, and rickshaw she is the living example that you can dust off your dreams and reinvent your life today.""Mary connects with animals, sea creatures, people and leaders of all walks and backgrounds and conveys it all with an open heart, laugh out loud humor and down to earth, genuine story telling which will have you sometimes in tears."- Catherine Ramsey"This book will help give you the courage and confidence to believe in your dreams and will have you realizing; if one woman can do this on her own, then anything is possible."- Lynika Cruz, Author and Speaker"If you are a woman (or anyone else, I suppose) looking to travel the world but have some doubts or reservations, then this book was written especially for you!"The author tells us her story of chucking it all and deciding to find true happiness...wherever it may lead her. Her travels bring her to the most interesting places and she meets some of the most interesting people on the planet (including the Dalai Lama himself!)"The writing and tone is fun and the photographs (she a pro) are spectacular...really."- Marianne DavisMary Bartnikowski is now living traveling the USA, writing books and teaching photography workshops in Italy, Hawaii, and Mexico, and California. She has led programs at Apple, Stanford, Intel and worldwide. Contact her for speaking requests here, [e-mail]

Book preview

About Mary’s Writing:

A blast of fresh air, a more in your face Erma Bombeck.

- San Francisco Chronicle

Candid and edgy.

- San Jose Mercury News

Along the lines of Virginia Woolf but in an irreverent voice akin to Annie Lamott.

- Palo Alto Weekly

Wise, warm, witty, the writing ripples with rude, righteous fun and at the same time offers profound insights. It resonates from top to bottom with deep and abiding humanity."

- Richard Walters Chairman of Screenwriting at UCLA Film School

Raw emotion, a good read.

- Library Journal

Gratitude and Love

For my beautiful Mom in heaven—I feel your love and guidance every day.

Daddy, for your humor, strength, and loving me and letting me be who I am.

Wolf, my dear son, you inspired me to reinvent myself and live life at a higher octave. I love discovering who you are!

My teacher, Luangpo, at Tubmingqwan Temple in Thailand, for his patience and wisdom in guiding me.

My wonderful sisters Barbara, Nancy, and Vicki for always being there for me, and my dear brother Walt who I’ve known for many lifetimes.

Thank you Marc, for always sharing your zesty spirit with me and for your love, care, dolmas, parties, and laughter.

Lisa, your encouragement and inspiration make me fly. We will always have our Ritz Carlton picnics and infinite vistas ahead of us.

Nidhi, little did I know when we met in India how much you would bless my life. We’ve had barrels of worldwide fun with more to come, best ever birthday in Bangkok.

Galina, for your encouragement, love, kindness, generosity, you are my sister and I knew the minute we met I would fall in love with you. Thank you for your inspiration.

To bitmeunu for kindness, skill, and distribution of this book online.

Wolf Price, for your artistry and skill on the book cover, wanderwolf.com.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Ecstasy (Not the Drug)

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, India

Life in Bali

Wild Thing You Move Me, Nepal

Swimming with Sea Turtles, Mexico

Courage in the Grand Canyon

Happy in Pai, Thailand

Surfing in Peru

Night Train to Italy

Professional Vagabond

Everything Must Go! Including Me

Happy Inside my Skin, Mexico

Highlights in Laos

Bohemian on the Mekong

I Am Rich in Thailand

Oasis of Peace, Guatemala

Cuzco, Queen of the Sacred Valley, Peru

Border Run to Burma

Culture Shock in the USA

Transformed by Travel

Nuns Just Want to Have Fun, Nepal

Full Tilt Frolicking, India

My Life in an Ashram, India

Varanasi, Land of Burning Bodies, India

Angels in Bolivia

First Day in Buenos Aires, Argentina

New Year's Eve in Nepal

In Search of the Mystical

Floating in the Himalayas

Temple in the Bamboo Forest, Thailand

New Year’s Day, Thailand

Mystical Medicine

The Temple of the Chosen Women: Concubines on Hold, Peru

Mind Altering Machu Picchu

Inside Machu Picchu

After the Stone Fortress

Silent Meditation, Lumbini, Nepal

Blessed by a Holy Man, Argentina

Fly Free: Epiphanies from the Road

Be Here Now, Thailand

Dalai Lama’s Digs, India

Delighted in Delhi

Yoga in India

Roaming in Pokhara, Nepal

Little Known Facts About Colombia

Luminescent Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

This is Where God Gets Drunk

Hippie in Paradise, Sardinia

Sardinia by the Sea

Next Door to Bhutan

April in Sikkim

Thoughts from a Mountain Peak

Leaving Italy

Advice on Traveling Solo

How to Capture Stunning Portraits

About the Author

Introduction

I was sitting around one day and noticed there was no one to make dinner for. My son was riding camels in Morocco and meeting holy men in caves, on his own dime, when suddenly light entered my brain.

I need adventure and the unknown! If he can do it at age 17, I can sure as hell do it - it should be easier for me I’m older than him.

So I went on my first three-week vacation in fifteen years to Italy and Spain. The Italians said I was plumb loco for waiting so long. They checked my head for fever and suggested there may be cellular damage.

But I had an epiphany in Florence walking under an umbrella in the rain. I was ready to leap into life and not look back. I felt utterly at peace and so happy that I didn’t want to ever leave. I felt each hour in a blissful state of not knowing what will happen next. I took my hands off the steering wheel and let the journey take me.

I was happy being hit on by handsome men in Italy. Probably would have married one of them if I’d stayed another week. One man’s dimples were divine. I swam in them with my eyes.

That was just the beginning.

My son then informed me that he was going to Asia for nine months—no problem I said as I cried into my pillow. But I wiped away my tears and decided to take the world by storm and live a life I was excited about.

I always wanted to be a nomad but didn’t have the user manual on how to do this.

I raised my son to be adventurous and to express his heart’s desires. To reach out to the world and love it. He flew over oceans, continents, and the Himalayas spreading his wings so wide it felt like an umbrella for me and the wind caught me and I floated like Mary Poppins.

It carried me to Nepal to teach photography to the staff of the Nepal Youth Foundation.

Kathmandu felt like third rock from the sun. Everything was different; the light, the food, the faces, the language, the clothes. The way people worshipped God. It changed my life and made me see my purpose.

I was off and running. Drunk on my own freedom.

I continued to take 6 to 10 month solo trips every year and after going around the world twice, and teaching and traveling in 27 countries I knew this was not just a trip. This was my life.

So I sold my furniture, my car; all my stuff. I gave the rest away. No more stress, insurance, car maintenance or rat race. Poof—all gone.

It was liberating.

Now I’m a professional vagabond. I teach photography worldwide, shoot for businesses, non-profits, and ex-pats. I teach kundalini yoga and meditation, play with people, and love elephants. My title? I’m an artist and CEO of fun. Projects find me, travelers want to learn photography and yoga, and invitations arrive for me to volunteer my skills. It’s a big wide world full of people who need help and inspiration.

I used to spend over $500 a day on vacations. I drove a new car, bought cashmere and silk clothing, lived in a swank apartment, and went out to eat and drink at posh places. I worked incessantly so I could afford this style of living. Now I spend $500 in a month and live a happier, richer, and simpler life.

I don’t need a car; third world countries provide cheap and good transportation. Yes, it can be colorful to sit next to a large box of baby chickens with a fresh caught flounder at my feet in Ecuador. I do sometimes travel in air-conditioned buses; in Thailand where I live like a queen.

Solo travel makes me stronger. It’s a learning eye-opening incredible journey. I wouldn’t be growing like this if I stayed at home stuck in the safe and swank suburbs. I’m meeting dynamic people from all over the world and having my eyes pried open and wits sharpened. I’ve learned how to trust my gut with unflappable certainty.

And now I can sleep on a plank with my camera as a pillow or under a table at the airport after a cancelled flight with my backpack bolted to my thigh and just to be certain a table leg as well. Squalling babies and rock-hard mattresses don’t annoy me; air turbulence lulls me to dreamland.

Traveling into the unknown has transformed me on a cellular and spiritual level. I no longer see life as black and white—there are a lot more gray areas and I’m not just talking about my hair. I’m talking about being opened up and deeply changed by new people, foreign money, fresh ideas, and new spirits.

I’m not in a rush anymore. Now I just wait. The answer will come.

Sometimes I want to be alone with my own soul to see what is in there. I never know what I will find so I am just letting it be. Letting the world come to me as I quietly get on a plane and fly to a new country then hit the ground running and travel overland to feel the energy of the place bubble up from the soles of my feet into my heart and explode out the top of my head. How will I change from it? I never know. That is why I travel not just to take photographs and capture a place on film. It is to know myself through the eyes of a different world; the rarified air of a new culture with new customs, new souls, and new faces. And food I can’t identify but it sure tastes good.

The best places never seem to be in the guidebooks. They just pop up in a friendly face, an accidental discovery, or a change of plans. Nothing is set in granite and that is also why I travel to see that everything is impermanent—this could all be over in an instant. We could die suddenly, get sick, or be annihilated. If the world is going to hell in a hand basket why not see it before the basket breaks?

I live outside the USA to stop thinking about myself all the time—it’s exhausting. And reaching a hand out to someone who needs it is fulfilling.

There are worlds to discover in our own souls. I’m digging with a shovel to get to those layers inside me. To change and to keep on changing.

I’m rich with experience, seeing how the world lives out side my former bubble of a life devoted to the almighty buck, cashmere, and comfort. I've been stupid, smart, lucky, well off, broke, mocked, and loved. And I’ve learned something from every second of it.

I’ve had an astounding education in life: being a professional photographer, a published author, a hitchhiking hippie, teaching Buddhist nuns kundalini yoga, leading programs at major corporations in the USA, photographing the Dalai Lama, riding elephants bareback in Nepal, learning how to surf, ride a motorcycle, and scuba dive, living in a home for abandoned people in Argentina, exploring the Himalayas and the Andes, teaching and shooting photography in humanitarian foundations, a swank boarding school and ashrams in India, nunneries in Thailand and Nepal and in my own private sessions worldwide.

I’m on an open-ended global adventure. I’m grateful for the blessings and every moment of the ride. I didn’t set out to have a nomad life—this life found me. But when it did I was ready to take the leap.

Kitten Heels in Kathmandu is not linear—you can pick it up anywhere and just read it.

Even in the bathtub.

May you enjoy the fun, frivolity, and at times daunting adventures of a female vagabond. Write and tell me your thoughts.

For my Mom and Dad

Ecstasy (Not the Drug)

The leap is the thing and the thrill of it as we free-fall through the empty sky with hardly a thought of what will happen next.

- Ma Deva Padma

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, India

The sky opened up, divinity came thru, God noticed and let it happen. I have my own press pass to photograph the Dalai Lama at the handicapped children’s school and the nunnery for western nuns on Sunday.

I am so happy I will just float until the weekend.

Two Days Later: May 22

I photographed the Dalai Lama. How many times do you get to say that in life?

He gets up early so I had to also but it’s not an exact science where the Dalai Lama will be and at what time. Only his bodyguards know for sure and they probably get surprised too. I heard from the Dalai Lama’s official photographer that he’d be at the nunnery at 7AM. When I got there I was patted down for weaponry by the guard at the front gate.

You’re late, he said. (Who is he?)

I had hired a taxi driver who didn’t know where the nunnery’s front gate was located. I ran down the path to get to where His Holiness was speaking and at the door a big bodyguard looked at my press pass and shook his head, You can’t go in, too many people now.

My thought was, hey Bub, you’re going to have to kill me to keep me from getting in. As soon as he glanced in the opposite direction I slipped in and went to the front of the fifty people in the room to sit down by a post right in front of the Dalai Lama five feet away.

I had to claim my spot pronto otherwise the bodyguard could have removed me. The angle was better than I had hoped to get so I didn’t dare move, as it would have been snatched if I did. I felt weightless. I was so happy sitting there with him like it was normal—yes normally supernatural.

It was a challenge to put my camera over my eye between the Dalai Lama and me; I just wanted to look at him with my naked eyeballs. But I knew that I could help others get a glimpse of him by being there in the flesh taking photographs.

After I sat down he looked at me and said, Go get her some tea.

That’s how aware he is, in a room full of fifty people he noticed me sitting there with my camera but no teacup. Then he smiled at me. I was tingling.

He asked where we was from and I was the only one there from the USA. The room was swaying with happiness as everyone was high on his sparkly spirit. He has a joyous peace shining from him. It’s catching.

But the best part was being near him and seeing him move afterwards, as he race walked out of the nunnery to get to the school of the handicapped next door.

He has a lot to do in one day.

It all happened so fast. At one point I was photographing him leaving the nunnery and he looked right in my camera and blasted me with his brilliant smile. I wanted to stop and take his hand, put down my camera, and just be with him.

I felt his spirit and soul: I was almost levitating.

This moment will flash before my eyes when I die; we were enjoying the now moment. He looked into my heart and radiated love into my soul.

He is used to being a public figure slash celebrity but I am not used to being bathed in holy brilliance. I was zapped with the electricity and power of love. It was a sweet kind of electrocution. Sparkling and igniting.

After I saw him speak last year at Stanford University, he held my hand and looked into my eyes. He saw my soul. I thought I’d never wash my hand again, his DNA was on it.

But here in India I was afraid of his big Tibetan bodyguards and I wanted to get the photograph. Now that it’s over I know it’s more important to go with the gusto and

risk being hurt by a bodyguard for a taste of divinity.

I had to run to catch up with him. He is a 76-year-old saint but he moves like a 20 years young man, there is a floating quality to his walk. His feet bounce lightly on the earth like he’s going to rise into the ethers any second.

I was jumping over rocks and hillocks of grass trying to get a shot of him as he rapid-walked by the backdrop of the snowy Himalayan mountain range while four other photographers maneuvered to get an angle. I was in a pod of paparazzi that had been cleared like me with their own press passes.

After H.H. got in his car I had to leap over a stream and slosh through mud to get to the school of the handicapped next door. There wasn’t time to hail a cab. And there were none in sight as security had cleared the premises.

He was driven to his next location even though it was close enough to walk—the security around him is tighter than petite pantyhose. I was hiking thru slippery mud following a Tibetan girl who said, I’ll show you the way.

I got to the school and elbowed my way past the other photographers to get a good spot.

His main bodyguard told me, Stop getting so close to him.

That’s like telling a moth to stay away from the light. I couldn’t obey him.

Then he barked at me, This is not a press opportunity.

I motioned to the videographer in front of me who was even closer than me and said, Well, he’s shooting?

For an answer the bodyguard mentioned the word, punishment. That’s when I realized this man is 10 inches taller than me. A few years ago I saw a bodyguard pick up a monk near the Dalai Lama and move him out of the way, and this one might be the one who did it. Since the light was too dark to shoot with film I sat down and drank the Dalai Lama in. A saint was in front of me and I decided to inhale his aura and let his divinity drift all over me.

His love vibe is off the charts. Thank you God, Buddha, and the universe for allowing me to be blessed by him. His sweetness permeated my soul. Being near him I could not feel anything but love, it was impossible to worry or be sad.

He is a powerhouse—powered by love.

My heart felt bigger. Let’s get along and love one another and not have these flare-ups of ugliness like war and famine. Let’s heal the planet and be kind to people.

The Dalai Lama was asked if he could be anything else what would it be? He said a wild bear or animal in the woods alone. That is not his life here on this planet. He is always out there loving people.

Tenzin, the Dalai Lama’s official photographer, met with me and suggested this opportunity. He gave me the gift of photographing the Dalai Lama. He also told me to attend his teachings in Ladakh to photograph him there.

It all happened so beautifully. I got the calling to go over to the Dalai Lama’s house and phone his personal secretary. I got him on the phone and tried to persuade him to let me photograph the Dalai Lama.

He said, We can’t set anything up over the phone from California.

I said, Well I’m in your front yard right now.

Oh I’ll send my associate out, and he sent the Dalai Lama’s official photographer outside for me to meet and we had a profound talk.

Tenzin, a kind Tibetan man, carefully looked at each page of my World Adventures photography book and then said, There is an unpublished event coming up this weekend and you can get a press pass to photograph him.

Touchdown! I wanted to jump in the air and click my heels but my heart was doing somersaults. I felt the extra cartwheels would lift me into the clouds and I wanted to stay right there and not drift away.

All those days of hanging out in his front yard paid off.

I will keep doing what I am doing now—teaching photography and taking photographs. Enjoying my friends and eating olives, cheese, momos, and homemade yogurt with fresh papaya here in Dharmasala.

Lately I am floating when I walk. I’m in a dream state.

I do not know when I will go back to the USA. I am not sure when I would like to. I am open for the universe to show me where to go next. I may go to Goa—I may go to Bali—I may do a lot of things.

But right now I like living down the street from the Dalai Lama.

Life in Bali

I‘m sitting in a fully padded lounge chair on a white sugar beach after the hotel attendant said, Would you like your same spot as yesterday, Madame?

I said, Well I’ll have to see, let me take a look.

I have a full view of the Indian Ocean right beyond my toes.

Sometimes I need a shot of glamour with cushy comfort thrown in for free. I usually rent rooms or houses for $10 per night and then go hang out at the swank hotel down the street. In this case it took almost an