We arrive in Nepal. Hopefully it is all terra firma from here on.
4th March 2006

Joyous landfall on the roof of the world
The Beemer has landed
Not the answer we wanted
Hippy gets a pain in he neck from hanging out in temples

Happy Landings

Nepal came like a breath of fresh air, literally and metaphorically. We’d felt a bit daft at Bangkok airport checking in our baggage wearing motorcycle boots and jackets. Along side us were droves of Indians checking into the Mumbai flight with the hugest bags of all time. We’d had so little space that we had to wear our bulkiest items. At least our bags weighed in in the featherweight category. All around us folk were being turned away with their behemoths with instruction to shed some of their contents. Oddly, the rejected ones simply went and stood in queues for alternative desks as if their bags might not be weighed the next time. India and Caribbean flights must always be delayed by these allowance grabbers. Were it not for the likes of Hippy and I with our paltry packs, planes would be dropping out of the sky on a daily basis.

Having had a go at other travellers for their unneccessary tardiness in the airport, we have to confess to being close to holding the plane up ourselves. On a whim I’d got the laptop out to see if there was a wi-fi signal around. There were half a dozen of which at least two were unencrypted. I thought I’d take the chance to send off some big files of photos to Jan and Luke. The connection was not superbly fast and after about half an hour I started to worry that we’d be late for boarding. Looking up at the screen we discovered that boarding was already taking place. Oops. We packed up and bolted for the gate to find a reassuring tailback.

So, Nepal. Our approach revealed nothing of the Himalayas. What a huge disappointment. Here we were in the self proclaimed roof of the world and not so much as a hill to be seen. Apparently the Kathmandu valley is always filled with mist and pollution from open fires and stinky buses at this time of year. Is it possible to fill a valley of Himalayan magnitude with carbon-rich exhaust gasses? Hover at the back of the average Nepali bus or truck and you’ll arrive at the affirmative.

A most extraordinary thing happened at the immigration control. As usual, nationals and foreigners were marshalled into separate areas. Foreigners, as a rule arrive in Nepal without an entry visa and have to be processed at the immigration desk. This involves taking fees, issuing receipts, sticking on pictures and all that kind of thing. We steeled ourselves for a long wait. The foreigners’ queue was in fact moving faster than that for the locals. We were through in a jiffy, so fast that our bags hadn’t landed on the carousel yet. Extraordinary.

In Nepal, things felt properly foreign again. It’s hard to explain what I mean, but Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore have been assimiliated into the globalised world, with a 7-11 on every corner and even Macdonalds. Nepal stands alone from all that. We were back to an individualised world, no longer the blandness of corporate identity where every Kodak sign is standard in colour and font. Here the signs were handpainted by craftsman and had their own personality.

Individuality is reflected in it’s time. When I checked on the internet the time zone Nepal was in, I thought I was misreading it. But now that we were here, I found the internet had not lied to us. The time is GMT +5.45 hours. Is it me but why not make it a round 6 hours, does 15 minutes really make that much difference. It is not apparently the only country with such an awkward time. There is Iran +3.30, Afghanistan at +4.30, India +5.30, Myanmar at +6.30. As far as I am aware though Nepal is the only one (maybe Bhutan) with a time that goes into the 15 minute thing. Personality I think it is just that they don’t want to be the same as India. The other quirky thing about Nepal is it’s flag, a great flag, not the ordinary rectangle for Nepal. Instead it is 2 right angled triangles on top of each other. They even have their own number system and language. They fact that it holds it’s one while the rest of the world skips to another beat, reminds of the way that Ethopia trundles along regardless of the Arab nations above and the Ex-British colonies below.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it has remained independent throughout it’s history. Like most mountainous countries it has proud, resilient people. The giant of China has managed to invade Tibet, but never made it into Nepal, the British Army tried it’s best in the Empire days to colonise, only to fail. In the end the British accepting defeat decided that the Gurkhas of the Nepal were people they wanted on their side in future. And to this day, the British maintain Gurkha regiments as part of the British army. It sits nestled between India and China and retains it’s own flavour.

The streets of Kathmandu (what is it about the word, Kathmandu, that conjures up an exotic historical mystery) were dusty, the buildings worn and seemingly unmaintained. But there seemed to be a pride in the people here, yes there was poverty of the like we had seen in many places, but people went about their daily business with purpose. For a capital with high-ish rise buildings there was a surprising amount of spare land. OK the bits in between the blocks of communist looking flats, were just scruffy bits of wasteland. (I believe they were lying fallow following 6 months without rain. It would be nice to see the city split up by healthy fields of rice.) There was something about it, physically, that reminded of the capital of Malawi, that also felt disportionately spread out with random bits dotted about the place.

As we neared the Thamel district, the age of the city oozed from every building. Instantly, I liked the place, it had character, and a uniqueness about it.

We had booked into the hotel mainly because it had parking so that Berthette would have a home when she arrived, although smartly tended from the outside was worn and tired on the inside. But it was clean and the inflated internet price we paid when booking ensured us a huge room, overlooking the garden which would do nicely when it came to rearranging all our stuff when we were reunited with Berthette.

Is there a Berthette in the house?

The whole shipping/flying process was akin to the stress and apprehension of getting your A level results. In Kathmandu that evening there was absolutely nothing we could do to help Berthette. In theory, she had already landed in the airport the day before, but by the time we arrived, customs was shut for the day. All we could do was hope that Joy had managed to get it on a plane to the right destination. I felt sick with nerves.

On Valentines Day Pat went off in the morning for a rendez vous with his first love. Then I went to the airport to try and extricate Berthette.

I thought that a bright and early start would be in order as I was expecting a bit of a merry-go-round in the customs department. As I got to the gate of the Cargo terminal I was latched onto by a Customs fixer. Not a word passed in terms of arranging for services to be remunerated and I got a bit worried that he was going to rip me off. When we finally got onto the contractual wavelength I managed to ascertain that he wanted 500 Rupees for his service. I was feeling generous and immediately agreed to his outrageous demand, equivalent to 4 Pounds. I had to cough up another couple of quid for the man who drove the forklift and another who stripped the crate down form. Actually I was rather glad that the unjoiner arrived as I’d not really considered how to take the crate apart. With a good sized audience I put the front end back on Berthette while my man did the rounds of the offices. I would have been completely lost without him. There was bound to be at least one cock-up of course and the carnet came back stamped in the entry section and all the details written in the exit section. After a bit of lashing, the troops cancelled that page of the carnet and filled in the next one correctly. Job done. Just the Nepali traffic to face on the way back to the hotel.

There was something sad about the Thamel area that had obviously for decades, it seems, been the haunt of many a tourist. There were handicraft schools, book shops, in fact probably the best selection of English Language books in the world so far, including England with every 3rd shop stacked floor to ceiling with novels, trekking books, maps, guide books. One in particular, was a bookworm’s paradise - like a tardis as you entered deeper into it’s bowels you felt that hours could by consumed browsing, a cushioned area at the back you could drink tea and read - a wonderful place. I was so pleased we had left our guide book buying till here and had not given a single Bhat to those pesky Thai vendors. There were restaurants, bars, shoe shiners, rickshaws and tailors. All with no customers. These businesses were clearly trying desperately to brave the storm of the recent problems with the Moaists. But by the look of much of their merchandise that was dusty and undisturbed, they had not been much business for a long time. How long could they hang in there in hope that the busy tourist days would return?

OK, Nepal has the Himalayas that will not be disappearing anywhere, and as soon as news reports that the country is safe, I am sure a swarm of keen trekkers will flood back in Kathmandu. I just hope it is not too late for these souls trying to scratch a living.

Being mainly a trekking destination, none of the tourist shops were targeted at the sunseekers and revellers. Not to say that places are high brow, but they are more homely and comfortable, than glitzy - there was not a neon sign in sight. This was a far cry from the tacky Khoa San Road in Bangkok (which had about as much personality as a tinsel wig) - and I loved it. Though every second rickshaw driver or street mallinger offers marijuana or more annoyingly, “Want something?”, rather suggesting that pretty much anything can be had if you want it. Is this to become yet another sex and drugs tourism destination? We hope not.

Partly due to lack of finances and also a respect for the past, shops had a functional antiquity about them; beautiful dark wood paneled shops, the patina of use, glass cabinets to display their wares. It was a time before self-service and shoplifting.

After becoming a little jaded by travel, I was revived. I was like a child in a candy shop, just relishing the choice of interesting things to sense. The smell of incense mingling with culinary delights, Buddhist meditation chants alternated with Indian style music, the men in their smart soft fezes, with scarves against the winter chill, the women in saris and wrap-round Tibetan style outfits, the buildings steeped in history; doorways intricately carved, windows laden with the personality of craftsmanship. This was a city that was so spoilt for the beauty of a bygone era, and evidence of a time when it was unimportant to get a job done fast, but important to do a beautiful job, that what the town has is taken for granted. Nearly every building in the Thamel district has a feature worth preserving, that people clearly do not have the funds to maintain.

I couldn’t really decide whether it would be better if a shed load of funds was ploughed into all these wonderful buildings or whether they was something nice about the fact that there was a certain natural selection about the urban dishevellment. Currently, some of the poorest families live within these cracked, characterful and aged buildings, if they were all renovated and smart there would be an influx of yuppies who currently live in the suburbs. Not so sure that Kathmandu has such a huge population of yuppies! OK, yuppy is the wrong word, but there were clearly well-to-do Nepalis in flash 4x4s. Thamel, if you can get away from the tourist centre, is a place for the Nepali people, it is full of dust and decrepitude, but there is a vitality, and realness that would be asphyxiated by upgrading.

Immediately on our first evening we were taken with the place, there are good bakeries, there is cheese (tasty yak’s cheese, at that) and curry everywhere, you can even get good steak for just over a quid. And a far superior wine collection in the corner shops than anything you could find in Bangkok.

It was such a relief to be away from the ‘City of Angels’, weird name for something so unangelic. Why had we spent so long there? Jan had rightly informed us that Kathmandu was a better place to get little jobs done than Bangkok. We needed a rack making to carry a spare tyre, a pair of gloves for me, since I carelessly lost them on the dirt road in Northern Loas, my shoes were on their last legs, Pat’s boots needed stitching and we had been repeatedly warned that we would need a cover for the bike for India to minimise the amount that people fiddled with it, climbed on it, adjusted the mirrors to squeeze their spots.

Luckily costs were not expensive in Kathmandu and we had enough excess from our self-imposed daily budget of £20 to pay for these extras. And frankly I felt much happier dealing with the people here that those in Bangkok, who were so spoilt for business that they felt no need to be helpful. It was a great help to have a friendly face to point us in the right direction. When Jan had been in Kathmandu, he’d some bits of work done on his bike with the help of Tulsi at Royal International Motorcycles. With such a grand sounding name, I just had to look in and see if the much endorsed proprietor could help me, too. Over the next few days, Tulsi guided me hither and thither to get a cover made, a rack for the spare tyre, tyres blown up and the tank filled. The last two may not sound too tricky for me to accomplish on my own but, strangely, Kathmandu seems to have the most cunningly disguised petrol stations and tyre shops in the world - you really do have to have your eyes open. The least I could do in return was give him a CD with a copy of the Motorworks catalogue and a workshop manual for a BMW R80 GS on it. Hopefully this will curry favour with the prince who seems to have acquired an old Beemer off some overlander who left it in Nepal and thus forfeited it. I cannot possibly comment on the rights and wrongs of this aquisition. Any way, thanks for all your efforts, Tulsi. I’m sorry that all I bought off you was an old mirror.

We were back into a bargaining culture, and it took a few days to readjust, that even in a corner shop of groceries prices are negotiable. I am sure that even when we got back into the flow, we’ll be paying more than the locals, but if I am happy with the price, I don’t feel ripped off. I enjoy the haggling process, and I am certain in these times of so few tourist we could push them down harder on the prices, but it seems wrong to exploit these desperate times for them. If I can afford it, I think it is a fair price, and I have bargained a little, to conform to purchasing etiquette, I am happy. I decide what I think it is worth to me, go down a bit, offer that so that I can come up to the price I want to pay. It is a fair system, the more money you have generally the more you pay. You know the seller will not go below what it cost him/her. So all should leave the transaction happy. There are of course those vendors whose starting price is ridiculously inflated for the foreigner and so you left with unrealistic bargaining differential.

Confusion at the kiosk

The streets of Thamel lead to Durbar Square, where the 17th century palace is, and a bunch of other temples dating from the 12th century. We are tourists, kind of, so we went for a wander down.

Ouch, an entrance fee of NRs 200, compared to 25 for other SAARC countries (India, China, Bhutan and the like). I quizzed the ticket seller as to what the ticket covered. He got out a map and explained that it included everything except the museum, marked on the map in the palace. So I checked that it included the other areas within the palace compound, and he replied in the affirmative. We bought tickets and began our wandering. There were signs of renovation going on, although I am sure reports of mis-management are not exaggerated apparently some funds are managing to make it through the corruption filter.

Eh? We were not allowed into palace compound without paying another 250 rupees. We tried to explain we did not wish to go into the museum itself, just the courtyards and temples around it, but apparently the fee is for the whole area. We had been somewhat misinformed. Back to the office, where he claimed that this is what he had told us. It was not, as he claimed, that we had misunderstood him. We asked to see his superior. It was not, as in many cases, a language issue, his execution of English was superb. There was the possibly, that I thought later, that he possibly did not know really what it included, and had made it up on the spot to save face. So in a sense there had not necessarily a deliberate intention to deceive us, but we thought that it was probably best that if we met his boss who may be more able to understand why we felt mis-informed, he may be able to improve the service for the future tourists. In the end they placated us with a 3 day pass, to which we had been already entitled for our 200 rupees that the ticket man had also failed to explain. I left the office, hoping that are queries had improved the service to tourists and not just got the guy the sack, or given the impression that tourists are a bunch of complaining of twits. There was at least a little explanation of why there were two separate charges. It’s one of those city/county type issues which we face in Blighty. Although the palace is wholly contained within the historic Durbar Square district, it is administered by a different organ.

Guidebooks refer to Durbar square as a living museum. I, can kind of see what they are getting at, but ‘living museum’ suggests that it is in some way contrived for the tourist like Saxon villages in the UK. But there is nothing false about this place, the shrines are still in active use, charred from incense burning, and stained by coloured offerings, some vendors selling spices and vegetables are set up in the shelter of old shrines. The most aged temple gives cover to the odd mixture of the homeless, and Saddhus trying to get their photo taken by the sprinkling of tourist. The only thing that is museum-like is the antiquity of the buildings.

It is the wood carving that really makes these places so fascinating. It is intricate, ubiquitous and has hit that fine line between being complex and detailed without being over the top. A building in the corner of the square is a house built to house one of three living godesses, and it’s carving is representative of it’s current occupant. The living Goddess is 8 years old and was selected at 4 years. Attributes needed:-
1. to be born with an auspicious horoscope on the day the previous one died
2. to be blessed with a combination of 32 positive physical characteristics.
3. to have the calmest demeanour when faced with hideous noises and frightening dances compared to the other potential Goddesses.
I like the idea of a living Goddess, seems all the more tangible and worth while going to prayer to someone who is actually there and can physically hear you.
I did wonder though whether parents of potential goddesses before the scary selection process spent their time frightening their children, in the hope of desensitizing them, and whether this left a group of emotionally confused goddess rejects.

Bolshy Buddhist

Stupas. There are a lot of stupas in Kathmandu. But here the Buddhism seems more in the original ethos of the religion than the Buddha PLC we had encountered in SE Asia. Here, the stupas had bronze prayer wheels all the way round, for devotees to spin and send the prayers flying into the wind, prayer flags, flutter like bunting from a maypole. The concept of letting your prayers drift off in the air to the God around you, is somehow a more convincing way to communicate than kneeling by the side of your bed and expecting a God to hear you. Apart from that the prayer flags removes the stuffy image associated with most religious buildings.

Clockwise is considered auspicious, so prayer wheels spin that way, and as evening approaches the locals circumabulate, some twisting their own pesonal prayer wheel in their hands and others turning the ones around the stupa. Not surprisingly, Kathmandu is home to Nepal’s largest stupa and the second largest in the world. It is big, and enclosed by a ring of perfectly arced terraced building it is quite an enjoyed stroll in the evening light, especially you you do the prerequisite three times. It is also a time apparently for catching up on the local gossip, as you see friends chatting as they move with the flow around the dome. There were none of the horoscope slot machines, or ‘book now for blessings next Sunday’ notices as seen in Thailand and Malaysia.

All was not so calm at one stupa on a hill. Pilgrims and visitors alike share the stairway to the top of the hill. We had had a pleasant time wandering around the top, watching the goings on and I had started down the steps while Pat was taking one last photo, when I heard a commotion behind me. A woman wielding a brick in her hand, as if she was about to hurl it, or batter someone over the head with it. She was shouting belligerently at a man, about something I did not understand. I moved to the edge of the stairway trapped by a brick wall, to get hopefully, out of hurling line, if she decided to throw it in my direction. I’d seen Hippy going ahead when I became aware of the fracas. Rather than barge through the hiatus, I decided to stay well back - a little twinge in the knee reminded me of the broken bottle incident only a week ago in Bangkok. I wanted to warn Hips but thought it better not to hail her and delay her in the danger zone. Better to let her get to a safe spot uninterrupted. Seconds later she was handing over the bricks, and speaking more calmly. It seemed safe to continue my descent of the stairs. Mistake......duff....in the small of my back. I knew it was not the brick I had seen earlier, and I didn’t feel like I was injured. I turned to see a 2kg bag of rice split open behind me on the stairway, clearly the assaulting weapon. I glimpsed something else being thrown my way, I ducked and moved back to the wall, out of the line of fire, to feel rather foolish when I saw a garment fall inocuously on the stairs above me. Come on, how was I to know, it could have been that brick I had seen earlier, or the main course that accompaied the rice. I felt a proper Charlie. Should I have weighed in and split up this altercation or would I have been viewed as an interfering foreigner and the whole crowd turn on me. There is a lot of live and let live in both the Hindu and Buddhist religions and good intentions can easily be misinterpreted.

There were beggars sitting at intervals up the steps, none of which I saw rushing to claim the split bag of rice beside me, which they could have traded for other food if they were not able to cook. It suggested that the beggars at least on this stairway were not that desperate. Although, in general the beggars we had encountered seemed to be asking mostly for food, rather than money, or, pens or sweets, which implies a more genuine need.

With clear signs of poverty in the country, it is easy to see how the Maoists are able to make a persuasive argument to those that have nothing to lose. As is often the case, the general populace are unhappy about the rebel attacks that are keeping away the tourist dollar. Generally the attack seems to be targeted at military guys and government officials but typically ordinary Nepalis are caught in the crossfire. Then there is the taxing, which even applies to trekking guides, in the mountain areas.

There are apparently 36 ethnic groups in Nepal and some see the king as the only option to keep the country united. But then there are those that believe he is not the legitmate monarch, his drug-crazed nephew having bumped off his brother, the previous king. The recent elections had only one candidate for each seat, no one stood in opposition. Corruption is rife and a self-serving culture means that once people make it into a position of power they care little for the people they have left behind. Understandably, the Nepalis don’t feel that they really have a decent array of people to chose from.
1. Maoists killing the odd civilian as a by-product of their crusade against the government forces and so ruining the tourism economy. They want democracy, or at least a bit of a say in the government.
2. A King with questionable legitimacy who holds elections with no choice of candidates. Politicians who like everywhere else are in it for their own gains.
Frying pans and fires come to mind. Meanwhile the ordinary Nepalis want to live in a peaceful country and be able to make a living.