Further Wanderings

The transition from jungle to city was surprisingly simple. After a bit of time spent skirting the edges of another student bandh (strike) and a few more hours on the road, and finally another hour or so in Kathmandu’s horrendous traffic, we arrived. I even (somehow) recognized our location from my previous visit.

That evening we located my parents’ hotel, and set out for a splendid reunion dinner after our short separation. On top of the bus ride, the recounting of the past few days’ events was enough to tire us out and send us to bed.

Carving on a roof support at the Patan museum

The next day of sightseeing with my parents re-proved what I’d realized during my first go around in the city: There are some spectacular sights in Kathmandu, but the very best thing to do there is just wander around. The four of us spent all day exploring the suburb (formerly an independent city-state) of Patan, from its main streets, to its backstreets and courtyards, to its stunning Durbar square, to quiet but beautiful temples tucked away in unexpected corners of town. Just about the only thing we DIDN’T get to visit was the Patan museum (supposedly one of the best in south Asia), as the power was gone in much of Patan for most of the day.

Patan’s Durbar Square

Ghee lamps at Patan’s temple of 10000 buddhas (I don’t know of there are actually a full 10000 buddha carvings adorning the exterior of the temple, but there certainly are far more than I cared to try and count.)

The chariot of the deity Red Machhendranath (yes, with that huge pile of straw and such on top of it) is pulled through the streets of Kathmandu each year in hopes of ensuring the monsoon’s return to the valley

A close up of the spectacular chariot

Speaking of power cuts makes a nice segue into my usual point form format with:

Load Shedding. It isn’t a day in a Kathmandu neighbourhood without the power going off for a few hours. At first I’d assumed that this was due to equipment or network problems of some sort. I was later informed that it was actually done purposely because there wasn’t enough electricity to power the whole city at once. Funny what we take for granted…

A statue of the fearsome Bhairab in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square

Farewells. After our day of sightseeing with my parents they had one further day in Kathmandu, during which they did a bit more looking around and Sarah and I took care of administrative type stuff. We had a great dinner (best water buffalo in chili sauce around at the Yak hotel!) and after giving them their customized trek T-shirts, we said goodbye for a few more months. It was great to have had them there for the Annapurna Circuit, and (despite their occasional worries) they weren’t a hassle to have around, but a delight. We’ll miss you guys!

Friends. We bid farewell to a couple of old “friends” and picked up some new ones almost immediately. We met Ashok, a Nepali teacher, during our walk up to Suwaymbanath, and spent the afternoon having a mini guided tour of his memories of the area, where he’d grown up the grandson of a Buddhist monk and the son of a Thanka illustrator. For each of our remaining days in Kathmandu, we spent at least a few hours with Ashok. He was endlessly curious about our opinions on Nepal, on attitudes and conditions in our home countries, about our plans for the future… Indeed, we scarcely stopped talking when we were together.

During our days together we:

-Climbed a mountain (oops, sorry… this is Nepal. A big hill) outside the city with two of his students. And marveled at the spectacular view of the whole Kathmandu Valley spread our around us.

The Kathmandu Valley from (high) above

The five of us at the top of our climb. The younger of the two sisters absolutely loved me by this point, and insisted on holding my hand almost the whole way down. Which was problematic, because she also insisted on running and sliding down the carpet of pine needles that covered the trail, which I couldn’t really manage without falling on my bum

-Visited the home of said students, where their mother had built a handicrafts manufacture and export business that now employs 35 women.

-Walked around a Nepali industrial estate. Despite what one might expect in a country with such low wages, we could walk right in amongst all the factories with no trouble and look around. Conditions actually looked reasonably good.

-Visited some of his cousins in a (formerly semi-rural) area outside the city and marveled over the changes he (and even I!) had seen in the area.

How Kathmandu has changed… Even in three years so much growth has happened in the valley. None of these buildings were here during my previous visit.

-Wandered through some of Kathmandu’s more affluent neighbourhoods. Despite it’s very homogeneous appearance, there are a few small pockets outside of the old city that stand out, most notably the enclave inhabited by families of ex-British Gurkha soldiers.

Early morning Karate practice in the park (not involving Ashok’s brother, but it’s still a cool picture.)

-Visiting and having dinner at his home. We met his two brothers (a motorcycle mechanic and a karate instructor/political bodyguard) and his mother (a wonderful old former-mountain porter and a great cook) and shared the best dal bhat we’d eaten in Nepal. This was especially wonderful as not only did we get to see a bit of real Nepali life, we got to share it with three warm and wonderful Nepali people.

Me and the Bouddinath stupa, one of the world’s largest no one’s entirely certain who commissioned its construction, nor why.

Prayer flags on the Stupa at Bouddinath. A whole village once existed almost apart from Kathmandu in the square surrounding the stupa. Now (unsurprisingly, I suppose) most of the buildings that look out onto the square are souvenier shops.

Seeing the country change before our eyes. While we were in Kathmandu, a specially citizen’s assembly was convened, which was to prepare the framework new constitution and decide upon the country’s form of government. To the surprise of few (as the Maoists were the most powerful group in the assembly, having done very well in recent elections) the assembly turned their back on hundreds of years of Monarchy and opted to make the “New” Nepal a republic. This news was met with skepticism by some, delight by others, and at least a measure of relief by almost all, who felt that with this decided, the country could finally get on with its recovery from their 12 years of civil war. It was amazing to be there to see reactions of Kathmandu’s people, from the parades of Maoist supporters waving their hammer and sickle flags, all the way over to the nervous-looking, wealthy hoteliers whose ties to the former monarchy might now be useless, if not a detriment.

A celebratory parade of Maoist supporters following the declaration of the republic

And I’m pleased to say that, with a few small exceptions, the process was a peaceful one. Not everyone agreed with the choice, not all were happy with it, but Kathmandu woke the morning after the announcement, looked around and realized that the sky hadn’t fallen after the momentous step, and got on with being the wonderfully vibrant place that it is. This was the sort of experience that might well only happen once in a lifetime.

Suwaymbanath, better known to many as the monkey temple. There were fewer monkeys here than I remembered. According to Ashok, this was because many had recently been “kidnapped” and illegally exported to China!

Kathmandu won’t soon win any awards for being the cleanest city in the world but its vibrancy and the charm of its people make it something special

Chasing after visas. THIS, meanwhile was the sort of experience that one HOPES only happens once in a lifetime.

Our first plan had been to travel out of Nepal overland through Tibet. The Chinese governments isolation of the region made this impossible.

We considered flying into China. Also not possible. Despite some promising false leads, in May 2008, (and, so we gathered, until the Beijing Olympics are done) Chinese tourist visas would only (and they meant ONLY) be issued to those visiting for the Olympics.

We finally settled on overlanding through India and Bangladesh, then flying across Burma to Southeast Asia. Good. Great. Simple. Right?

Obtaining our Bangladeshi visas was relatively simple process (if a touch expensive, US$46 and 51 for the Kiwi and Canadian respectively.) The embassy staff were friendly, and when I rushed up to collect our passports the morning after applying (see below) even let me in a bit early. The Indian embassy was another matter. I certainly don’t blame the staff (there are about ¼ the number that are needed, and they don’t set the policies) but the process was a harrowing one. And it went SMOOTHLY for us. The steps were as follows:

1. Visit travel agents to see about having them obtain a visa for us. Can’t be done. Or at least not for less than 2800 rupees, for what should be an 800 rupee transit visa.

2. Visit both travel agents and the embassy to learn EXACTLY what is required to obtain a transit visa.

3. Having got a moderately clear picture, arrange for a travel agent to print us a bogus air ticket. I’m skeptical that this is what we need, as it shows us ENTERING India, not LEAVING within 15 days as seems to be required for a transit visa, but they make some phone calls and assure us that it will suffice.

4. Show up at the Indian embassy at 07:00. Queue up and wait until they open at 08:30 and everyone ignores the queue and rushes the gate.

5. Obtain numbered tokens which indicate the order in which our applications will be entertained (ours were 37 and 38)

6. Dash up to the Bangladesh embassy to collect our passports, rushing back down in hopes our numbers haven’t been called already (Ha! They were on number 6!)

7. Fill our our forms and wait.

8. Wait some more.

9. Wait.

10. Try to discern which number is currently being served. A complicated process as the numbers are being used for two different purposes, each of which has its own queue, but BOTH of which are being dealt with by the same person. It is unclear exactly how this works.

11. Begin to get nervous as 12:00 (the cutoff time for transit visa applications) approaches. If our numbers aren’t reached by then, we will have to restart the process at step 4, arriving earlier still.

12. Arrive at the counter, along with #36, at 11:48. Shove both of our applications through the whole in the window.

13. Look very nervous as the officer examines our documentation an asks why we haven’t included a photocopy of our plane ticket leaving India within 15 days. Explain that we are travelling overland to Bangladesh. Smile. Ask him politely to understand that it’s not possible to provide proof of this as bus or train tickets to Bangladesh can’t be bought outside of India. Show him our Bangladeshi visas. Sigh with relief as he finally accepts this explanation.

14. Leave the embassy feeling drained.

15. Return to the embassy at 16:30 to collect our passports and in spite of lots more waiting, queuing, and trying to figure out which passport belonged to whom, leave an hour and a quarter later with visas in hand!

The queue for entry to the grounds for tokens for telex applications for visa applications starts to build outside the Indian embassy

I’ve drawn all this out a bit, but it really was quite a trying experience, to the point that a certain camaraderie developed between all those involved. Even if we hadn’t spoken during the process, we always exchanged happy nods with those we’d seen in the embassy as we walked through the streets of Thamel, and gave congratulations to each applicant as he left with his visa. Kind of like the bond we got with the fellow trekkers who crossed Thorong La on the same day as us.

For all its trials, and for all my complaints, I actually have to admit it was kind of fun. I’m just a masochist I guess

The DDC (Dairy Development Corporation) sales centre. Perhaps my favourite place in Kathmandu, this place just outside of Thamel sells delicious, fresh dairy products (ranging from butterscotch ice cream through buffalo mozzarella all the way to yak ghee!) at bargain prices.

Getting out of Thamel. As I mentioned earlier, Thamel is the budget tourist hub of Nepal. It has loads of budget hotels, plenty of restaurants catering to tourists and dozens of souvenier shops, trekking shops and travel agents. Last time Iwas in Kathmanu I stayed in Thamel. It isolated one from the rest of the city a bit, but I still liked it. Recently Thamel had started to change though. First, it had become more expensive (why eat your meals in a Thamel tourist restaurant when you can walk for ten minutes and enjoy dal bhat in a fun Nepali hole-in-the-wall for so much less? [An all you can eat meal and a bottle of pop for <$1!?.]) Second, the seedier side of Thamel had blossomed. This time a number of not-quite-strip-clubs had opened up (Dance Bar With Shower!), the number of young men offering drugs as you walk down the street had increased, and Ashok assured me that prostitution was now fairly common. All in all, next time I visit Kathmandu, I think I’ll stay elsewhere. (perhaps in one of the many inexpensive guesthouses just outside Thamel, or near the teaching hospital on Maharajganj.)

Frenzied activity in the night market that convenes every evening around one of Old Kathmandu’s cramped main intersectons

Leaving. We’d been in Kathmandu for eight days by this point, and as cool a city as it is, it was feeling very much like time to get moving again. Our long day on the road began, at Ashoks suggestion (and, indeed, with his company, as he accompanied us there) in the jeep park in south Kathmandu. We said our goodbyes to our friend and host, climbed aboard a jeep and into a long and tiring day of travel.

Ashok’s suggestion had been a great one. Take a jeep over the mountains south of Kathmandu to the town of Hetauda, thus saving three hours off the time a bus took to go around them, and enjoying a beautiful drive (it was) in the process.

The high point on the jeep road out of Kathmandu. This bit might have been uncomfortable for 30 seconds or so if you didn’t like heights, but the road was well built (by the Maoists and the local villagers!) and quite stable.

Unfortunately when we arrived in Hetauda at 10:35, we discovered that all the buses from there to our destination (the Indian border at Kakarbhitta) had gone for the day. The rest of the day consisted of rides at the back of bouncy local buses, in cramped microvans and on TOP of cramped microvans. Eventually we did arrive, at 21:00, long after we’d planned, sad to be leaving Nepal, but happy to be at our planned destination.

The Terai (Nepal’s lowlands, which few even realize it really has) at the Nepal-India border

(Incidentally, the jeep-bus route to Kakarbhitta WOULD be a good one, not terribly expensive, and save quite a bit of time and wear on your bottom, IF you made sure that your jeep departed Kathmandu no later than 05:30, in order to ensure you caught the 09:30 Hetauda-Kakarbhitta bus at the other end.)

Flowers and a coming thunderstorm on the roof of our guesthouse in Kathmandu

Tags: Kathmandu, Llew Bardecki, Nepal, Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under Nepal, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.