Free business idea - Nepal against animal cruelty (NAAC)

Organization name: Nepal against animal cruelty (NAAC)

Objective

To stand up and advocate against animal sacrifices in the temples and religious houses in Nepal.

Goals

To achieve and raise awareness on:

• Animal cruelty, specially in the name of religion
• Image of the country in the eyes of the world with existing sacrificial rituals and traditions
• Pass on good traditions to the next generation

Solution

In order to bring an end to cruel and inhuman traditions of animal sacrifices in Nepal, we feel a need for a holistic solution that will address the issue from views of different stake holders:

• Advertising in the media about the issue to raise awareness
• Address the issue with the animal executioners and their employers 
• Lobby the government to ban this nationwide
• Work with neighbouring  and International governments to put an end to the heinous tradition.

Project Outline

• Create a founder group
• Register NAAC in Nepal
• Create a web site
• Design campaigning and advocacy strategy
• Involve support of prominent individuals - celebrities, politicians, social services big names.

Seeing values in things

Getting to the offices of my recently change new job
is bit of a distance by both car and train. Driving is a
nightmare no matter how early you start from home,
traffic in Sydney has a slim chance of getting better,
its a utopia that we can only dream of. By train, it
requires a changeover at Town hall station, in the city.
Its partly due to the main office being located in a
slightly inconvenient location, by which I mean a
bit far from everything - shops, train stations, people,
eateries and so forth. And that basically also means
its slightly in the 'middle of nowhere'.

One of the main customers that I am working is based
in the border of CBD. So my time is divided between
the company head office and the client premises. I use
a company provided laptop, a touch screen, mid size
Lenovo with a bulky power pack from the IBM days.

Getting from home to work means carrying the backpack
with the following:
- the hefty laptop and its power unit combined
- my iPad for commute
- lunch box and fruits, as the head office has nothing
but a ground floor fast food run by an arrogant bunch of
bogans from probably Eastern suburbs ( I suspect Maroubra)
- a notebook (paper)
- company phones
- cables for network, phones and so forth
- coins bag - for coffee
- occasionally spare jacket when its hot
(taken off due to heat) or cold

The weight totals nearly ten kilos.
For the first few weeks I thought I was going to break my
back. I even had to go see a physio, it hurt that bad.  I thought of buying
a wheeled backpack and shared the idea with a colleague,
who laughed heartily at it, he went 'You are young!'
Well  I had no choice but to push on.
Unexpectedly and discreetly, after a month, I started
to notice a bit of change. Unmistakably, I was getting
toned! Not because I was doing any extra exercise. It
attributed directly to my daily commute of about half an
hour from home to train stations and work, with the
ten kilo backpack mostly on my hand. I stopped hanging
it on the shoulders, since then the back and neck pain
started to disappear. I would shift arms and even lift the
backpack as if it is a weight, in gym, from time to time.

I no longer needed to use my home treadmill, not sure
if that can be added as a benefit. But here you go, life
sort of adjusted, and evolved around the situation, like
a tree branch grows around the obstacles in the way of
its natural growth.

One evening on my return from work, I found son of
a neighbor at the main door waiting for his parents
to open it from inside. Shockingly, I looked at the bag
he was carrying and noticed it was actually as big as
mine! The boy is hardly twelve, and is about four and a half
ft tall, not very encouraging by Australian standards.
Nevertheless, I asked the podgy dude to take the bag off
his shoulders and lifted it myself, it was as heavy as mine!
I told him what's inside, he replied 'Books'.
I couldn't imagine if anyone would carry books
anymore, sign of total conversion into digital from my own
'book, book' days, to ebooks now. I couldn't help imagening
the little guy's vertebra screaming and grinding under the
mountain of books he was carrying.

For myself, I now look forward to my gym session every day
and back. No complaints.

Good morning Saigon

After touring the central Vietnam towns of Hue and Hoi An
we descended in Saigon. A smooth and comfortable
flight in Vietnam Airlines originating from the new economic city
of Da Nang made a touch down at the Ho Chi Minh airport.

We were pretty much sold with Hoi An and were still
reeling under the influence of the mesmerising ancient town,
we did not expect Saigon to throw up much flare. We were
wrong. From the moment we touched down, Saigon felt
buzzing with energy and captivity rest of Vietnam seems
to be missing. We were received by another extremely
nice tour guide from Handspan travel at the airport arrivals
and were started our journey straight away, with a visit to
the site of Cu Chi tunnels, little far from town. This area
showcases the tunnels that the North Viet Cong fighters
used against the Americans during their war. Boobie traps,
chambers, maze of underground passages used by the
Vietnamese to fool and kill the American soldiers are
displayed with vivid live demonstrations, by young
boys and girls dressed as soldiers.

The show did not really amuse us,
but surprisingly, it did not depress us
either, mostly due to the way it is presented, it is kept
short, exciting and just amply informative, rather than
being over cooked into a vengeful history monologue.
Well, we were surprised to find our trip to Saigon
started with a grisly display of how the US soldiers were
murdered, and it could have been arranged in a different
order, probably a tour of central district would have been
much preferable. However, we could not but appreciate
the clever tactic used here, to showcase to a new visitor how
this country came into being. Start with some history lessons!

We had a glimpse of the city on the way from airport to
Cu Chi tunnel. But we did not expect the downtown to be
of much difference from Ha Noi. We were taken aback
with surprise, when we reached the Post office building,
our eyes were left wide open. Old era French architecture,
swanky modern skyscrapers and Bangkok style shops
all opened up, greeting us, blended in one cohesive wonder.
We were stunned at this new face of Vietnam!

The buzz in the streets, that open till late at night, the vividness
of the surrounding, the chaotic traffic, the lights int he city
were simply stunning. We stayed near the local markets,
and the tallest building in Saigon, where we went for
a treat of amazing view of the nighttime skyline of the city.

We finally felt like we were in a truly modern city in
South East Asia, in Vietnam. Though it still feels
subdued in lights, glamour and order compared to Bangkok
(apologies I cannot help comparing the two, as they
evoke similar vibe in me), it is pretty neck to neck
if you look at the liveliness of whole streets littered with
cafes, trendy shops and human energy.

Sapa, beauty of terraced rice fields and mountains at the very best

After an eight hour train ride (supposed to be five only)
from Hanoi and an hour's bus ride from Lao Cai,
we arrived at Sapa, a tourist magnet town in North West Vietnam.

We got off the van at doorsteps of our hotel.
What we saw around in the little misty town was
soul refreshing and the view beyond, breathtaking.
It felt like we finally started to find what we were looking for.

The arrangement made by our travel agency, Handspan,
was fantastic. From Hanoi airport pick up  to this moment,
they had not missed a beat, it was incredibly good service, I
am sure I will write about them later in the Vietnam series.

Town of Sapa is a busy little town or a village full of
small congested building, souvenir and travel accessory shops,
restaurants and local manufacturers producing local
handicrafts, sculptures, clothes and gift items.

Town of Sapa.

We started off trekking right after having a small breakfast
upon our arrival. After about half an our walk around
town, we branched off the dirt road heading towards
Ta Phin valley, the residency of local H'mong people.
The village is a frozen in time snapshot of rural life
probably in middle ages with very little touch of
modernity. 

H'mong children in front of their house

Village has trails and we walked on the paddy fields
directly on the walkways made at the edges.
That means we came as close as we can get to 
the plantations, people and their surrounding.
The walks were a calm, out of the rat race experience
that is unforgettable. It is hard not to get astounded by
the natural beauty of the place and the people in 
these villages.

Farming in the terraced fields seem to be 
the major occupancy of the locals. However,
you would also come across a lot of women
making their traditional clothing, robes getting
dyed up with black ink and put to dry up in the sun.
Lot of locals are also involved in making other 
hand made goods such as the handbags, gift items
and shoes. People labour in the beautiful
landscape looked upon by green mountains all around.
It was primitive, pure and simply awesome. 
Picturesque buffalo sheds, farms,
children, cottages made of bamboo fill up the scene.
Water buffaloes were found either working hard with 
the farmers ploughing or just resting up in the mud
pools. They seem a curios bunch as they look at 
you directly and follow you with their eyes
where you are going. It appeared
they were as curious to see us as we were to seem them.
Lots of black pigs, chicken, ducks, dogs were busy
with their lives too. So were the children who 
would regularly yell 'ello' at us. 

Mr Buff from Sapa.

Our guide, Quy, was a local and was excellent at his job.
He had a real grip on the knowledge about local culture,
people, history of entire Vietnam, plants and crops in the 
region. His English was also fluent. His guidance made a huge
difference to our trip in Sapa. All the thanks to him.

Occasionally we would take a break and sit down in a
local restaurant to have a drink or lunch. Locals were
friendly and inviting even we were not buying anything.

Went trekking to another village the next day, it was
again a similar out of our world experienced that we 
will never forget and definitely come back one day just
to check how thing have changed.

Train ride to Sapa, the terraced paddy fields of Vietnam

After a slightly disappointing note at Hanoi, which
did not live up to my expectation, we headed up North West
towards Sapa, the remote hilly rice basket of
Vietnam. We took a train at the Hanoi station which
is very close to the old quarter, only a fifteen minute
drive by the tourist van.

Hanoi train station.

At the time of our boarding, the station seemed to be undergoing
construction with the construction material everywhere
and large part of the platform exposed and being uprooted.

The cabin we bought were a typical four bed chamber,
with a set of two beds bunker on each wall. The furnishing
of the room was quite old but functional and comfortable.
This was of course not the picture the Vietnam railways puts on
their web site. Toilets were functional, reasonably clean
and western, and had supply of water and toilet papers.
They are locked until the train starts to move and locked
again after the train arrives on destination.
There are occasional food carts going around the train
corridors selling snacks, water and other drinks.

The sellers speak no English, a little knowledge
of Vietnamese or an app that can translate would be
very handy. They leave you alone and do not like to interact
with the tourist that much, so if you are in dire need of
something, you might be bit out of luck.

Train ride from Hanoi to Sapa started on time and was supposed
to last five hours, it lasted eight. So if you had trekking
arrangements starting at Sapa, you might be better off
leaving some buffer. Ride itself was quite bumpy and I
felt tossed around the bed all night, but managed to catch
some sleep. There is not much in terms of view from outside
the window as the old houses are built very close and right
next to the train tracks, blocking everything. You will however,
see peoples' rooms directly. Occasionally you will come across
little lakes, rice fields and temples.

Train does not go up to Sapa, you basically get off at
Lao Cai, a station only a couple of kilometres from the
Chinese border. From there, we took a bus to Sapa.
Lao Cai itself resembles a little dusty towns found in
most South Asian countries and Nepal. It seems to have
reasonably well developed roads, and from the houses
and bill boards littered across the streets, looks like an
important regional centre.

Lao Cai CBD.

Once we started to near Sapa, the views changed drastically,
from dust and hustle of little towns giving way to
lush green rice fields and silhouette of mountains
start to appear in the horizon.

View of Sapa from the hotel restaurant.


We got really excited about the things to come!