kathmandu

thamel is the backpacker ghetto in kathmandu. everything geared for the tourist. so tourist prices for everything. i would’ve liked to buy some stuff but glad that i had no room in my pack for souvenirs, and no need for long drawn-out haggling sessions. wandering around the maze of cobbled streets, i was amazed at all the things on sale, a lot of fake label goods (the north face being  the label of choice to be copied, it seemed)... and plenty of hotels and guesthouses and eating places and trekking agents... everything. i had to get out of here for sure!

the frequent power cuts, euphemistically known as load shedding, were part of the nepal experience, but at least in kathmandu, they followed a kind of schedule so at least you could plan your day for when you needed to be connected to the grid. having a torch was always a good idea when navigating the streets at night and finding stuff in the hotel room!

i wandered around and found squares with their ‘buddha eyes’ stupas atop of temples, alleyways with the butcher’s meat hanging there in the midday sun, cute little ‘basement shops’ crammed full of all sorts of ‘stuff’, kids playing around asking me to take photos of them and asking for money “for my coin collection”. cheeky monkeys! i discovered a very good momo and everything restaurant not 20 metres from my guesthouse. lucky lucky.

one day, i decided to visit the buddhist temple of swayambunath. it was about a 45 minute walk from thamel, and arriving closer discovered that there was a buddhist festival in progress. i hung around the crowds and took photos of the people before climbing up the steps to the temple with a constant throng of people all doing the same. near the top, i got asked an ‘entrance fee’. obviously another money-generating scam i couldn’t really avoid, but i pushed past the guy in any case. the nepali were all going through for free, they were just targeting the ‘rich’ tourists. i stayed most of the day at the temple, the buddha ‘eyes’ were just so captivating!! watching the crowds milling around turning the prayer wheels, doing their ‘koras’ around the stupa. and the monkeys getting up to their usual tricks.i walked on down the other steps and found a buddha statue in the middle of a ‘pond’, with a receptacle where people, mainly kids, were attempting to land their coins. i took out some rupee coins and with only my second throw, i land one bang in the middle. applause all round.

another day, i went to the durbar square, a unesco world heritage place. just amazing wooden carvings in the temples, and good just to climb the steps to the top of the ‘temples’ and watch the life in the square. of course, there was the usual ‘entrance fee’ to the square, a totally absurd sum which i avoided paying each time i went there. not looking like a tourist sure helps a lot.

and then i got an email from nata. she had met her sister ira in delhi, and they were both now in kathmandu. i went to find them where they were staying at pushkar hotel. they wanted to go to pokhara too, so we booked tickets on the ‘tourist’ bus for the next day. we had time to go see the boudhanath stupa, taking a walking route there through the east side of kathmandu. the stupa was another amazing sight , with its buddha eyes and colourful prayer flags. with did the the obligatory koras around the stupa, spinning the prayer wheels as we did the clockwise circumambulation.

and then time came to take the morning bus to pokhara. i waited for them outside their hotel and we walked the short walk to janpath where there must have been more than a dozen tourist buses from the various companies waiting in a line by the side of the road. we found our bus right at the end of the line. goodbye kathmandu.