They smiled at us with their perfect white teeth and their crimson lips. Perfectly rounded nails, painted to match, handed us our boarding passes. With a tossed ivory sash over the shoulder, we boarded Air Emirates. I had to coach myself not to stand and gawk, not to take a picture that I could show off later -
"The attendants on Air Emirates are SOOOOO PRETTY", as if they were an attraction, which, of course, to me they were. They walked with such poise, such pride. It seemed to me that they retained something of the attendants of the 'old days', when flight was a "Sunday Best -Big Deal" kind of thing. You would watch the attendants saunter through the airport, their rolling suitcases in tow, living the international lifestyle. Air Emirates made me feel like that. Then they gave me a hot towel before takeoff and a blanket that wasn't totally covered in pils, and more FREE BEER. I am ready for one of those endorsement commercials, where I stand there, thumbs up, having sold my soul to say, I fly Air Emirates.
Our flight left late in the evening. The cheap 600ml beer had bitten me in the ass. There had obviously been something in the draught line and I was suffering from the most acute stomach pains I had ever experienced. Being the hypochondriac I am, I thought it was appendicitis. I went from stomachache to appendicitis in literally five minutes. I have since discovered, from talking to people who have experienced appendicitis or the cruelty of a burst appendix, that I would not be 'curious to know if I had appendicitis' but that "YOU WOULD F***ING KNOW IF YOU HAD APPENDICITIS. My husband graciously, and then later not so graciously, talked me off a ledge for the majority of the day as we made our way to the St. Petersburg airport.
"We can take you to a doctor right now. You just say the word."
I would pause, knowing my hypochrondria. "No, I'm fine."
In fifteen minutes to half an hour, we would go through it all again.
Sitting at our gate, the Air Emirates ladies waltzed in. I, stomach clutched in pain, gazed at them. "Look. They're so beautiful. My stomach hurts. They're so beautiful. I'm dying. Look at their nails." And so on. Finally, when we had boarded the plane and were seated with warm towels, free beer and comfy blankets, Moozh looked at me and said in no uncertain terms, "You're fine. We're going to Kathmandu."
I glanced at my beer. I glanced at the airline girls. I glanced back at Moozh. And I nodded.
So...So I snuggled into my Air Emirates blanket and woke up six hours later as we descended into Dubai. At 130 in the morning, it was twenty-nine degrees celsius outside. That is heat that has nothing to do with the sun, somehow. It was sweltering. There was also a line up out the door at Armani. At 130 in the morning! A Louis Vuitton store IN A HANDBAG that dangles from the ceiling. The Dubai airport is breathtaking. Faceted glass and large sweeping ivory columns. We waited for three hours until our connection which would take us to New Delhi where we would then wait for another two hours before we would fly to Kathmandu.
I had three different drool stains on my shirt by the time we landed in Nepal. And still dressed in my jeans, hoodie and boots from St. Petersburg, I was also sweating from my hair. We were one of many couples who were toting large backpacks, who smelled, so it wasn't so bad. The Visa process in Nepal operates on Nepal time. You can get your visa ahead of time but it is easy and common to simply get it upon arrival. As long as you are armed with a small photo and the visa fee -and at least forty-five minutes to kill- it is quite a simple process. Simple doesn't necessarily mean quick. Walking out from the baggage claim, you are hit with a wall of, "MY FRIEND! MY FRIEND! Come, come with me. I will take you where you want to go. Very good price for you. My FRIEND!"
Our guest house had a shuttle to meet us but it was hard to know which we were meant for. Two minutes in the car and Moozh looked over at me. He had obviously seen me trying to pick my chin up from my lap.
"Your travel bubble has been popped."
I could only nod.
Children playing in garbage. The old and sickly leaning heavily on their canes as they try to move on their own. Animals covered in sores. The haze of pollution. It wasn't the first time I had seen any of it but it shocked me, mesmerized no less on the thirty minute car ride through streets never meant for cars, over a road that is really more a matrix of potholes than a discernible driving surface. And yet the people are so kind, and ceaselessly kind.
We wove through Thamel, the backpackers paradise of Nepal, to the front door of the Madhuban Guest House. Instantly, we were corralled by friendly people who ushered us upstairs, proclaiming we had the biggest and the best room and anything else we can do for you, please just ask, food tea, whatever you like. And then the door was shut. I felt dizzy. After a dash out for some water purification tablets and some dal bhat, we collapsed into bed.
The first few days were simply comprised of an Indian breakfast, catching up with family and looking back on the previous whirlwind and a half of day-by-day travels, of Europe seen handfuls at a time, each culture distinct and characterized by food and ruins. The best wi-fi we had encountered since we had left Canada was within the walls of cracking stucco and heavy humidity in the Madhuban. We sat up on the rooftop with a breathtaking view of Kathmandu and the extending Kathmandu Valley, sipping loving Nepali Masala tea, creamy and sweet.
We wanted to wander through Thamel, just to see where we are, to have the opportunity to see things a second time that we didn't completely see the first time around. It's hard not to feel like a walking dollar sign in a place that has been trained to see us that way. Moozh got the brunt of it when we would walk. Everyone shouted at him, trying to sell him everything from a custom made suit to marijuana. What was hilarious, however, was that almost every time they prefaced it with, "Namaste man. I like your tattoo."
Kathmandu was one of the three K's of the early backpackers heyday, the first two being Khao San Road in Bangkok and Kuta in Bali. A narrow street on the south side of Kathmandu's Durbar Square became known as "Freak Street" after all the hippies that landed and never left. Their influence is still felt, however, with every other shop on the street selling some pseudo-hippie clothing, felted wares and unofficial knots of marijuana, tucked in like a gift with purchase if you wanted it. Even if you didn't.
The streets of Kathmandu are the definition of chaos. Past smouldering mounds of garbage and packs of stray dogs lazing in the heat, you are sold everything from knock off mountaineering equipment to custom made suits to ropes of Tibetan prayer flags. With each step your senses are confronted with something new and overwhelming. The first step is of rotting garbage. The second is of heady nag champa incense wafting in lacy strands into the street. The third is fried pappadums and the pungent smells of cinnamon and fenugreek. Each scent is distinct and seem to cycle in repetition, each street similar but yet its own version. Cows, sacred to the Hindu religion, wander unhindered through intersections and along walkways, chewing on straw or something else bestowed upon them by worshipful families, who likely could have used it themselves. Dogs fare less easily, sniffing through garbage and piles of rubble. Construction sites are comprised of workers hunched over a partially disassembled section of brick wall, slowly breaking it apart with other bricks, likely bricks they broke off earlier.
Our visit just happened to coincide with the Hindu festival of Teej. Crowds of women, young and old, all dressed in red, like a blazing tide, meet at their local temples to pray for their husbands, either the ones they have or the ones they're hoping for. They since and dance, drink tea and gossip. And it's just for women. When the men walk by, they pause a minute, smoking their cigarettes, but they move on with no interest. The women let us sit and listen as they chanted and lit incense. They told us about the festival and jeered at the young boys that got caught looking at the pretty young girls in red.
Kathmandu was the first time I experienced how simply being Western in an Eastern place immediately makes everything you ask for, everything you want, seem exploitative. We set out towards Swoyambhu, the Monkey Temple, and decided how fun would it be to take a tuk tuk? That was until I got in the tuk tuk, with the tiniest Nepalese man I have ever seen at the helm, that I felt ashamed at even considering taking a tuk tuk. He had to manually pedal, on a bicycle, over potholes and up hills that before didn't seem that daunting. Eyeing Swoyambhu, with even the entrance sitting high above the city, we hopped out and walked the rest of the way. Tuk-tuks are supposed to be fun.
Swoyambunath is one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites in Buddhism and is second only to the Boudanath temple for Tibetan Buddhist in particular. It's one of the oldest religious sites in Nepal and derives much of its importance from the myths that centre around how the Kathmandu Valley was created. Swoyambunath comes from the world, 'self-created'. Mothers holding their infants follow you up the stairs, tugging at your shirts, holding their hands out and motioning towards their mouths for food. There are dozens of them, wandering deliriously throughout the entrance to the temple. You can't possibly say yes to them all, but your heart aches, and continues to, as you climb the 365 stairs to the top of the temple. Halfway up, I veered to the side of the stairwell to wipe the sweat and tears from my face, hoping that gazing out at the valley would soothe the feelings I had. They are feelings I hope every traveler has when they visit places such as Kathmandu, any of the many impoverished areas of the world. I wish that ache on everyone because it means that we are still able to be moved by the needs of others, to be motivated beyond the needs of our own lives.
The climb to the top of Swoyambhu was sobering, putting into perspective whatever financial plights I feel I have with my student debt, as a Westerner "with the economy as it is". All of these feelings are still valid -my world is no less important simply because it is not theirs- but what a need I had for that experience to show me that there are those who rely on the goodness of others each day, those who rely on what is not guaranteed for themselves and their families every day. The view from Swoyambhu is like flying. The Kathmandu Valley falls away from the base, the rice patties and terraced tea fields near Bhaktapur visible at the very edge of sight. The Himalayas wrap the Kathmandu valley like a necklace, jagged, luminous links peeking out intermittently from opaque, bulbous clouds.
Just up the stairs, the stupa rises high above you. Lengths of Tibetan prayer flags hang like restraints from the very tip of the stupa, high enough and swallowed by the light of the ceaseless sun it can't even be seen. The base of the stupa is taut and smooth like an eggshell, perfectly white. Staring out through the haze of smoke from the ceremonial fires, hearing the clinking and jingling of the prayer wheels and the gentle moaning song of the women within the temple, you are swallowed up by the experience. You feel tears come to your eyes. The clouds are illuminated almost as tin foil would be crumpled up against the sun. Just inside the walls, a man with no hands and no feet, and some heartbreaking story as to how he lost them, sits and waits on the generosity of the temple goers. There are many who not only bring him food but also help to feed him, something he cannot do himself.
Monkeys, holy monkeys as they are considered atop the temple, race along the bannisters, leap from eavestrough to eavestrough, roll around in the mounds of garbage that are obscured beneath the canopy of the bushes looking for food. It was like watching Hammy from Over the Hedge if Hammy were considered a holy subject. Women, with their triangular shaded hats, carry cantilevered woven baskets of harvested tea leaves through the crowds, having just carried them up the mountain. A large statue of the Buddha sits in its classic seated pose, palm upturned in on his lap. The sign below him reads, "Please do not 'be held' by the Buddha". We descended the back end of the temple, through a forest, and a monkey fight, and rounded the back road. We were escorted along the circumference of the temple by children who wanted to make us smile and pose for our pictures. There is such richness to a life that from the outside would be said is so hard. Everybody smiles. Everybody will offer you the shirt off your back. Everyone plays with whatever they have available.
After the hectic chatter of Swoyambhunath, we were swallowed up by the sunset soundlessness of the Garden of Dreams. In the 1920's, it was built by the Prime Minister of Nepal at the time, Kaiser Sumsher Rana. He commissioned it to be built in the fashionable -and Western- style of the time as his private garden. The Garden sits just opposite the Royal Palace and now hugs the tourist hub of Thamel. For decades it remained completely neglected until in 2000 the Austrian Government partnered with the Nepalese Government to restore the gardens to their former glory and to open it to the public. There is an exhibit in the Gardens showing what disrepair the gardens were in before their restoration and illustrating the differences made. With the hectic world of Kathmandu, and specifically Thamel, waiting just on the outside of the walls, it feels as though you are in another world. It's as if no one speaks. There is a peace, lullaby-like, that hangs over the garden. Couples stroll arm in arm, friends lounge on the lawn, children run around. In our few hours there, we saw numerous backpackers, straight off of travel from somewhere, dumping their oversized packs and collapsing on the grass into sleep.
Our trip to Kathmandu did not involve trekking, though once we got there we realized it could have. Initially, we didn't think we had the resources, namely money and space in our bags, for what trekking would involve. Once we arrived, we realized that most one of the most popular treks, from Pokhara to Kathmandu, most people do in running shoes. And the treks include stays in remote guest houses, or what are called tea houses, along the trail where you are fed and given a place to sleep. The meal will inevitably be comprised of lentil soup, rice and curried vegetables (dal bhat) and the sleeping accommodations would likely be quite spartan, both of which would still be true if you were roughing it in your tent and rehydrating noodles over a MSR stove. We met numerous travellers along the way who had either just returned from or were preparing to go on their trek to one of the various world renowned treks in Nepal, the Annapurna Circuit and Everest Base Camp. Many came with a backpack and a novel and signed up for a trek once they arrived.
After the Garden of Dreams was when we discovered what would come to define our entire stay in Kathamandu. Mitho means 'delicious' in Newari, and Mitho Restaurant did not disappoint. One traditional Nepali dish we had been waiting to try were momos, which are similar to a gyoza or potsticker. Momos can be stuffed with anything but are traditionally stuffed with either vegetables or buffalo meat. They can also be steamed, fried, grilled or what we discovered is simply known as chili momos. Our first night at Mitho, we made a new friend in Rebecca, a trekker and fellow traveller from Germany. She was similarly heading into Southeast Asia as we were and had just returned from her trek from Pokhara. We picked her brain about her trek a little bit over a plate of momos and asked her for any suggestions for other things to do in Kathmandu. Within an hour, we had tentatively huddled together a plan to arrange a ride out to the viewpoint in Nagarkot, for our dose of the mountains, and then to the temple Durbar Square in Bhaktapur.
The next morning, the day was set. We had our driver. His name was Dji. The ride out was terrifying, entertaining and completely mesmerizing. Our driver got a ticket on the way out for running a red light. So there are some traffic rules in Nepal. I didn't even notice traffic lights any more. No one really seemed to heed them. We raced along the roads, with the clouds of dust behind us acting as a delayed marker of our progress.Winding up the mountain to Nagarkot was like winding up the thread of a screw. Our angle was precariously suggestive and the road was really not ever meant to carry two way traffic. We could see even from our vantage point, of peering up from our car seats, that the clouds were settled heavily. Once atop the lookout, the valley was lit up in sunlight, the clouds bright against the blue. But the clouds, though beautiful, completely obscured any view of the Himalayas. We did our best to wait out the clouds. We discovered a patch of marijuana plants. We climbed the observation tower. We swapped photo duties for posterity's sake. With a couple of glimpses of the mountains to take home with us -which though shrouded still managed to take my breath away- we clambered back into the car to descend into Bhaktapur.
Bhaktapur is a seemingly well kept secret in the Kathmandu Valley. Far enough out of the city to keep away most crowds, it is prized for its arts and culture and a more traditional way of indigenous Newari lifestyle, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our driver Dji, with a cursory motion in the general direction of the Durbar Square we had come to Bhaktapur for, drove over platforms and nearly got himself drilled by some wayward rebar in his excitement to take us to a paper making factory. It was his favourite place to see in Bhaktapur, he said. When I say 'factory', it was small room of maybe a dozen people who made and dyed the paper by hand and manually stitched them into journals or folded them into cards. The pulp was hand strained and dried in the sun. Most of the dye is plant based and naturally derived. This operation has a seriously low carbon footprint. From the rooftop of the factory, we could peer down into an enclosed square. It was Dji's curiosity that lead us down there. Dji sauntered slowly over. They made quiet conversation for a moment before we came over. Rebecca was photographing the tarps of drying corn and beans. Moozh was taking pictures of the lanes of hand thrown pots that Bhaktapur is known for, that the man had made with his own wrinkled hands. The man hobbled with warped legs, knobbly knees, feet bulging with bunions.
"Seventy." Dji murmured, gesturing towards him.
"He's seventy?"
"Today his birthday." Dji grinned.
I felt lost in time as I watched the old man, who had likely thrown pottery for the majority of his seventy years, smooth each hunk of clay into a flawlessly smooth clay vase. He moved soundlessly, unaffected by his environment. Each movement seemed almost unconscious, with the exception of quiet words handing off one vase for its primordial counterpart in clay.
Bhaktapur had been the capital of Nepal at one point. During the reign, the Palace of 55 Windows was built, each window believed to be unique. The Palace, now abandoned, is part of the Durbar Square, where tourists come and snap pictures of where the Royals used to pray, bath and eat. The Durbar Square in Bhaktapur has more temples than either the Kathmandu or Patan Squares in the same region. The Square is central to the social life of everyone it seems. Cars, including ours, drive chaotically through it. We saw many people, sitting in the temples simply talking. Some came with their lunch and after fifteen minutes left to go back to work. As we snapped our requisite pictures, ropes of school children, dressed in their neatly pressed school uniforms, waved and gooned for us. Some didn't even have shoes with their school uniform, but the sight of a camera gets them excited. They forget all else simple to pose and smile.
The next day we had reserved for the Pashupatinath and Boudanath temples. The first, Pashupatinath, is considered one of the most important Hindu temples to the Lord Shiva and is one of the oldest Hindu temples in Nepal. Despite all of its significance, Pashupatinath was more about what we saw there. As we crossed to the river side, we were swallowed by clouds of smoke. The Bagmati Men in white pants swept platforms or stoked flames. Cues of people waited quietly along the side of the temple. Wandering closer to the bridge, I understood what was happening. We were witnessing a funeral and the body was about to be cremated. There was a crowd of us -'us' being tourists- watching from the bridge as the body was cleaned at the riverside by the members of the family. The body was shrouded in a bright sari and dusted with marigolds. Hoisted to shoulder height, the body floated above the family on the stretcher to the funeral pyre. After he was placed there, the man stoking the pyre took the body, handled it carefully upon the stretcher and began to work the fire that already burned below.What struck me was the attitude of the Hindu culture towards not only death and the process of dying but the dead themselves. In North America when someone dies, in many cases they die alone. They are sent alone to a morgue. They are handled by strangers, far from any viewing eyes. At Pashupatinath, I sobbed as I watched what were likely his sons tenderly washing their father's feet in the Bagmati River. They stood to watch as the pyre burned. They held their mother as the clouds of white smoke billowed up.
From Pashupatinath, we headed to Boudanath, thus concluding our holy three in Kathmandu. The stupa of Boudhanath is not only one of the largest in Nepal but the world. Located on what used to be a important trade route from Tibet to the Kathmandu Valley, it was consequently the location of significant settlement of Tibetan refugees. On the back end of the Stupa, you ascend a small staircase to the rounded edge of the stupa's skirt. Lovingly tended gardens glinting with mirrors and sequinned trinkets line the base of the stupa. Monks roll out well worn leather mats for their prayers, nearly kissing the base of the stupa with each bend to the ground.
One more hectic car ride to the Thai Embassy in Nepal, at which we were processing our tourist visa for Thailand, and we were dropped off at 'the only hot springs in Kathmandu'. The Royal Hana Gardens is a traditional Japanese style Hot Springs and restaurant. Popular with backpackers post-trek, for 340 Rupiah (which is about $3 a person) you are provided with soap and shampoo to lather up before donning a rungi (a Nepali bathing gown) to soak away to your hearts content in their rock pool. Treated with mugwort, which is a common remedy in Japan for the lowering of fevers and purging impurities, the water is heated naturally and replaced with fresh water everyday. Arriving shortly after three in the afternoon, we had the pool nearly all to ourselves. Though the Japanese food on offer was tempting, we had momos on the brain and departed to Mithos. We were getting used to the Kentucky Derby-style traffic enough that it was fun and we could sit back, the jostling of narrowly avoided fender benders no longer a thought.
Wandering through Kathmandu Durbar Square, we had the cues of women dressed for Teej on one side and Nepalese riot police on the other, preparing for something involving a panel of people sitting on a large grey jacquard couch. We walked the infamous, and now comparably tame, Freak Street, the old hippie hangout. We smoked sheesha that tasted like candied orange peels and drank tea picked from fields we could see. Sitting at Helena's, the highest rooftop restaurant in Kathmandu, we watched Swoyambhu slowly glow brighter and more yellow atop a darkening mountain, mysteriously shrouded in evening fog.
We bought temple locks and harem pants, more tea and hand carvings to send home. Nepal garb has been Moozh's go to ever since. The next day we were gone, a week in Kathmandu somehow gone already. Our only encounter with the Hindu culture during our travels and the prominent memory is that of unsolicited kindness. The look of shy, genuine smiles on children's faces. Outreached hands from locals looking to bless you, even if it is in return for money.
Wrap yourself in a sari -a colourful scarf will do. Twirl until you fall down.
Things I Learned in Kathmandu:
Places are so much more than their poverty.
Momos should have their own section in the food pyramid.
People should wear more colour.
Quote from Kathmandu:
Moozh: You know, it kind of defeats the purpose of taking pepto bismol when you take it with giardia-infected water.
Runner Up:
Me: What are you looking for?
Moozh: A garbage.
Me: Ha! That's like getting into a car and looking for your seatbelt.
Bohemian Recommends:
Madhuban Guest House - Namaste Mr. Laxman!
Mitho's - Best Momo's ever.
Aqua Java Zing - 90's rave is dead, but your hooka is sick.
The Roadhouse - Best pizza outside of Italy. Who knew woodfired was the best answer to rolling blackouts.
Garden of Dreams - Wow.
Royal Hana Gardens - Dirty, filthy, fun.
Pashupatinath Temple
"The attendants on Air Emirates are SOOOOO PRETTY", as if they were an attraction, which, of course, to me they were. They walked with such poise, such pride. It seemed to me that they retained something of the attendants of the 'old days', when flight was a "Sunday Best -Big Deal" kind of thing. You would watch the attendants saunter through the airport, their rolling suitcases in tow, living the international lifestyle. Air Emirates made me feel like that. Then they gave me a hot towel before takeoff and a blanket that wasn't totally covered in pils, and more FREE BEER. I am ready for one of those endorsement commercials, where I stand there, thumbs up, having sold my soul to say, I fly Air Emirates.
Our flight left late in the evening. The cheap 600ml beer had bitten me in the ass. There had obviously been something in the draught line and I was suffering from the most acute stomach pains I had ever experienced. Being the hypochondriac I am, I thought it was appendicitis. I went from stomachache to appendicitis in literally five minutes. I have since discovered, from talking to people who have experienced appendicitis or the cruelty of a burst appendix, that I would not be 'curious to know if I had appendicitis' but that "YOU WOULD F***ING KNOW IF YOU HAD APPENDICITIS. My husband graciously, and then later not so graciously, talked me off a ledge for the majority of the day as we made our way to the St. Petersburg airport.
"We can take you to a doctor right now. You just say the word."
I would pause, knowing my hypochrondria. "No, I'm fine."
In fifteen minutes to half an hour, we would go through it all again.
Sitting at our gate, the Air Emirates ladies waltzed in. I, stomach clutched in pain, gazed at them. "Look. They're so beautiful. My stomach hurts. They're so beautiful. I'm dying. Look at their nails." And so on. Finally, when we had boarded the plane and were seated with warm towels, free beer and comfy blankets, Moozh looked at me and said in no uncertain terms, "You're fine. We're going to Kathmandu."
I glanced at my beer. I glanced at the airline girls. I glanced back at Moozh. And I nodded.
So...So I snuggled into my Air Emirates blanket and woke up six hours later as we descended into Dubai. At 130 in the morning, it was twenty-nine degrees celsius outside. That is heat that has nothing to do with the sun, somehow. It was sweltering. There was also a line up out the door at Armani. At 130 in the morning! A Louis Vuitton store IN A HANDBAG that dangles from the ceiling. The Dubai airport is breathtaking. Faceted glass and large sweeping ivory columns. We waited for three hours until our connection which would take us to New Delhi where we would then wait for another two hours before we would fly to Kathmandu.
I had three different drool stains on my shirt by the time we landed in Nepal. And still dressed in my jeans, hoodie and boots from St. Petersburg, I was also sweating from my hair. We were one of many couples who were toting large backpacks, who smelled, so it wasn't so bad. The Visa process in Nepal operates on Nepal time. You can get your visa ahead of time but it is easy and common to simply get it upon arrival. As long as you are armed with a small photo and the visa fee -and at least forty-five minutes to kill- it is quite a simple process. Simple doesn't necessarily mean quick. Walking out from the baggage claim, you are hit with a wall of, "MY FRIEND! MY FRIEND! Come, come with me. I will take you where you want to go. Very good price for you. My FRIEND!"
Our guest house had a shuttle to meet us but it was hard to know which we were meant for. Two minutes in the car and Moozh looked over at me. He had obviously seen me trying to pick my chin up from my lap.
"Your travel bubble has been popped."
I could only nod.
Children playing in garbage. The old and sickly leaning heavily on their canes as they try to move on their own. Animals covered in sores. The haze of pollution. It wasn't the first time I had seen any of it but it shocked me, mesmerized no less on the thirty minute car ride through streets never meant for cars, over a road that is really more a matrix of potholes than a discernible driving surface. And yet the people are so kind, and ceaselessly kind.
We wove through Thamel, the backpackers paradise of Nepal, to the front door of the Madhuban Guest House. Instantly, we were corralled by friendly people who ushered us upstairs, proclaiming we had the biggest and the best room and anything else we can do for you, please just ask, food tea, whatever you like. And then the door was shut. I felt dizzy. After a dash out for some water purification tablets and some dal bhat, we collapsed into bed.
The first few days were simply comprised of an Indian breakfast, catching up with family and looking back on the previous whirlwind and a half of day-by-day travels, of Europe seen handfuls at a time, each culture distinct and characterized by food and ruins. The best wi-fi we had encountered since we had left Canada was within the walls of cracking stucco and heavy humidity in the Madhuban. We sat up on the rooftop with a breathtaking view of Kathmandu and the extending Kathmandu Valley, sipping loving Nepali Masala tea, creamy and sweet.
We wanted to wander through Thamel, just to see where we are, to have the opportunity to see things a second time that we didn't completely see the first time around. It's hard not to feel like a walking dollar sign in a place that has been trained to see us that way. Moozh got the brunt of it when we would walk. Everyone shouted at him, trying to sell him everything from a custom made suit to marijuana. What was hilarious, however, was that almost every time they prefaced it with, "Namaste man. I like your tattoo."
Kathmandu was one of the three K's of the early backpackers heyday, the first two being Khao San Road in Bangkok and Kuta in Bali. A narrow street on the south side of Kathmandu's Durbar Square became known as "Freak Street" after all the hippies that landed and never left. Their influence is still felt, however, with every other shop on the street selling some pseudo-hippie clothing, felted wares and unofficial knots of marijuana, tucked in like a gift with purchase if you wanted it. Even if you didn't.
The streets of Kathmandu are the definition of chaos. Past smouldering mounds of garbage and packs of stray dogs lazing in the heat, you are sold everything from knock off mountaineering equipment to custom made suits to ropes of Tibetan prayer flags. With each step your senses are confronted with something new and overwhelming. The first step is of rotting garbage. The second is of heady nag champa incense wafting in lacy strands into the street. The third is fried pappadums and the pungent smells of cinnamon and fenugreek. Each scent is distinct and seem to cycle in repetition, each street similar but yet its own version. Cows, sacred to the Hindu religion, wander unhindered through intersections and along walkways, chewing on straw or something else bestowed upon them by worshipful families, who likely could have used it themselves. Dogs fare less easily, sniffing through garbage and piles of rubble. Construction sites are comprised of workers hunched over a partially disassembled section of brick wall, slowly breaking it apart with other bricks, likely bricks they broke off earlier.
Our visit just happened to coincide with the Hindu festival of Teej. Crowds of women, young and old, all dressed in red, like a blazing tide, meet at their local temples to pray for their husbands, either the ones they have or the ones they're hoping for. They since and dance, drink tea and gossip. And it's just for women. When the men walk by, they pause a minute, smoking their cigarettes, but they move on with no interest. The women let us sit and listen as they chanted and lit incense. They told us about the festival and jeered at the young boys that got caught looking at the pretty young girls in red.
Kathmandu was the first time I experienced how simply being Western in an Eastern place immediately makes everything you ask for, everything you want, seem exploitative. We set out towards Swoyambhu, the Monkey Temple, and decided how fun would it be to take a tuk tuk? That was until I got in the tuk tuk, with the tiniest Nepalese man I have ever seen at the helm, that I felt ashamed at even considering taking a tuk tuk. He had to manually pedal, on a bicycle, over potholes and up hills that before didn't seem that daunting. Eyeing Swoyambhu, with even the entrance sitting high above the city, we hopped out and walked the rest of the way. Tuk-tuks are supposed to be fun.
Swoyambunath is one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites in Buddhism and is second only to the Boudanath temple for Tibetan Buddhist in particular. It's one of the oldest religious sites in Nepal and derives much of its importance from the myths that centre around how the Kathmandu Valley was created. Swoyambunath comes from the world, 'self-created'. Mothers holding their infants follow you up the stairs, tugging at your shirts, holding their hands out and motioning towards their mouths for food. There are dozens of them, wandering deliriously throughout the entrance to the temple. You can't possibly say yes to them all, but your heart aches, and continues to, as you climb the 365 stairs to the top of the temple. Halfway up, I veered to the side of the stairwell to wipe the sweat and tears from my face, hoping that gazing out at the valley would soothe the feelings I had. They are feelings I hope every traveler has when they visit places such as Kathmandu, any of the many impoverished areas of the world. I wish that ache on everyone because it means that we are still able to be moved by the needs of others, to be motivated beyond the needs of our own lives.
The climb to the top of Swoyambhu was sobering, putting into perspective whatever financial plights I feel I have with my student debt, as a Westerner "with the economy as it is". All of these feelings are still valid -my world is no less important simply because it is not theirs- but what a need I had for that experience to show me that there are those who rely on the goodness of others each day, those who rely on what is not guaranteed for themselves and their families every day. The view from Swoyambhu is like flying. The Kathmandu Valley falls away from the base, the rice patties and terraced tea fields near Bhaktapur visible at the very edge of sight. The Himalayas wrap the Kathmandu valley like a necklace, jagged, luminous links peeking out intermittently from opaque, bulbous clouds.
Just up the stairs, the stupa rises high above you. Lengths of Tibetan prayer flags hang like restraints from the very tip of the stupa, high enough and swallowed by the light of the ceaseless sun it can't even be seen. The base of the stupa is taut and smooth like an eggshell, perfectly white. Staring out through the haze of smoke from the ceremonial fires, hearing the clinking and jingling of the prayer wheels and the gentle moaning song of the women within the temple, you are swallowed up by the experience. You feel tears come to your eyes. The clouds are illuminated almost as tin foil would be crumpled up against the sun. Just inside the walls, a man with no hands and no feet, and some heartbreaking story as to how he lost them, sits and waits on the generosity of the temple goers. There are many who not only bring him food but also help to feed him, something he cannot do himself.
Monkeys, holy monkeys as they are considered atop the temple, race along the bannisters, leap from eavestrough to eavestrough, roll around in the mounds of garbage that are obscured beneath the canopy of the bushes looking for food. It was like watching Hammy from Over the Hedge if Hammy were considered a holy subject. Women, with their triangular shaded hats, carry cantilevered woven baskets of harvested tea leaves through the crowds, having just carried them up the mountain. A large statue of the Buddha sits in its classic seated pose, palm upturned in on his lap. The sign below him reads, "Please do not 'be held' by the Buddha". We descended the back end of the temple, through a forest, and a monkey fight, and rounded the back road. We were escorted along the circumference of the temple by children who wanted to make us smile and pose for our pictures. There is such richness to a life that from the outside would be said is so hard. Everybody smiles. Everybody will offer you the shirt off your back. Everyone plays with whatever they have available.
After the hectic chatter of Swoyambhunath, we were swallowed up by the sunset soundlessness of the Garden of Dreams. In the 1920's, it was built by the Prime Minister of Nepal at the time, Kaiser Sumsher Rana. He commissioned it to be built in the fashionable -and Western- style of the time as his private garden. The Garden sits just opposite the Royal Palace and now hugs the tourist hub of Thamel. For decades it remained completely neglected until in 2000 the Austrian Government partnered with the Nepalese Government to restore the gardens to their former glory and to open it to the public. There is an exhibit in the Gardens showing what disrepair the gardens were in before their restoration and illustrating the differences made. With the hectic world of Kathmandu, and specifically Thamel, waiting just on the outside of the walls, it feels as though you are in another world. It's as if no one speaks. There is a peace, lullaby-like, that hangs over the garden. Couples stroll arm in arm, friends lounge on the lawn, children run around. In our few hours there, we saw numerous backpackers, straight off of travel from somewhere, dumping their oversized packs and collapsing on the grass into sleep.
Our trip to Kathmandu did not involve trekking, though once we got there we realized it could have. Initially, we didn't think we had the resources, namely money and space in our bags, for what trekking would involve. Once we arrived, we realized that most one of the most popular treks, from Pokhara to Kathmandu, most people do in running shoes. And the treks include stays in remote guest houses, or what are called tea houses, along the trail where you are fed and given a place to sleep. The meal will inevitably be comprised of lentil soup, rice and curried vegetables (dal bhat) and the sleeping accommodations would likely be quite spartan, both of which would still be true if you were roughing it in your tent and rehydrating noodles over a MSR stove. We met numerous travellers along the way who had either just returned from or were preparing to go on their trek to one of the various world renowned treks in Nepal, the Annapurna Circuit and Everest Base Camp. Many came with a backpack and a novel and signed up for a trek once they arrived.
After the Garden of Dreams was when we discovered what would come to define our entire stay in Kathamandu. Mitho means 'delicious' in Newari, and Mitho Restaurant did not disappoint. One traditional Nepali dish we had been waiting to try were momos, which are similar to a gyoza or potsticker. Momos can be stuffed with anything but are traditionally stuffed with either vegetables or buffalo meat. They can also be steamed, fried, grilled or what we discovered is simply known as chili momos. Our first night at Mitho, we made a new friend in Rebecca, a trekker and fellow traveller from Germany. She was similarly heading into Southeast Asia as we were and had just returned from her trek from Pokhara. We picked her brain about her trek a little bit over a plate of momos and asked her for any suggestions for other things to do in Kathmandu. Within an hour, we had tentatively huddled together a plan to arrange a ride out to the viewpoint in Nagarkot, for our dose of the mountains, and then to the temple Durbar Square in Bhaktapur.
The next morning, the day was set. We had our driver. His name was Dji. The ride out was terrifying, entertaining and completely mesmerizing. Our driver got a ticket on the way out for running a red light. So there are some traffic rules in Nepal. I didn't even notice traffic lights any more. No one really seemed to heed them. We raced along the roads, with the clouds of dust behind us acting as a delayed marker of our progress.Winding up the mountain to Nagarkot was like winding up the thread of a screw. Our angle was precariously suggestive and the road was really not ever meant to carry two way traffic. We could see even from our vantage point, of peering up from our car seats, that the clouds were settled heavily. Once atop the lookout, the valley was lit up in sunlight, the clouds bright against the blue. But the clouds, though beautiful, completely obscured any view of the Himalayas. We did our best to wait out the clouds. We discovered a patch of marijuana plants. We climbed the observation tower. We swapped photo duties for posterity's sake. With a couple of glimpses of the mountains to take home with us -which though shrouded still managed to take my breath away- we clambered back into the car to descend into Bhaktapur.
Bhaktapur is a seemingly well kept secret in the Kathmandu Valley. Far enough out of the city to keep away most crowds, it is prized for its arts and culture and a more traditional way of indigenous Newari lifestyle, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our driver Dji, with a cursory motion in the general direction of the Durbar Square we had come to Bhaktapur for, drove over platforms and nearly got himself drilled by some wayward rebar in his excitement to take us to a paper making factory. It was his favourite place to see in Bhaktapur, he said. When I say 'factory', it was small room of maybe a dozen people who made and dyed the paper by hand and manually stitched them into journals or folded them into cards. The pulp was hand strained and dried in the sun. Most of the dye is plant based and naturally derived. This operation has a seriously low carbon footprint. From the rooftop of the factory, we could peer down into an enclosed square. It was Dji's curiosity that lead us down there. Dji sauntered slowly over. They made quiet conversation for a moment before we came over. Rebecca was photographing the tarps of drying corn and beans. Moozh was taking pictures of the lanes of hand thrown pots that Bhaktapur is known for, that the man had made with his own wrinkled hands. The man hobbled with warped legs, knobbly knees, feet bulging with bunions.
"Seventy." Dji murmured, gesturing towards him.
"He's seventy?"
"Today his birthday." Dji grinned.
I felt lost in time as I watched the old man, who had likely thrown pottery for the majority of his seventy years, smooth each hunk of clay into a flawlessly smooth clay vase. He moved soundlessly, unaffected by his environment. Each movement seemed almost unconscious, with the exception of quiet words handing off one vase for its primordial counterpart in clay.
Bhaktapur had been the capital of Nepal at one point. During the reign, the Palace of 55 Windows was built, each window believed to be unique. The Palace, now abandoned, is part of the Durbar Square, where tourists come and snap pictures of where the Royals used to pray, bath and eat. The Durbar Square in Bhaktapur has more temples than either the Kathmandu or Patan Squares in the same region. The Square is central to the social life of everyone it seems. Cars, including ours, drive chaotically through it. We saw many people, sitting in the temples simply talking. Some came with their lunch and after fifteen minutes left to go back to work. As we snapped our requisite pictures, ropes of school children, dressed in their neatly pressed school uniforms, waved and gooned for us. Some didn't even have shoes with their school uniform, but the sight of a camera gets them excited. They forget all else simple to pose and smile.
The next day we had reserved for the Pashupatinath and Boudanath temples. The first, Pashupatinath, is considered one of the most important Hindu temples to the Lord Shiva and is one of the oldest Hindu temples in Nepal. Despite all of its significance, Pashupatinath was more about what we saw there. As we crossed to the river side, we were swallowed by clouds of smoke. The Bagmati Men in white pants swept platforms or stoked flames. Cues of people waited quietly along the side of the temple. Wandering closer to the bridge, I understood what was happening. We were witnessing a funeral and the body was about to be cremated. There was a crowd of us -'us' being tourists- watching from the bridge as the body was cleaned at the riverside by the members of the family. The body was shrouded in a bright sari and dusted with marigolds. Hoisted to shoulder height, the body floated above the family on the stretcher to the funeral pyre. After he was placed there, the man stoking the pyre took the body, handled it carefully upon the stretcher and began to work the fire that already burned below.What struck me was the attitude of the Hindu culture towards not only death and the process of dying but the dead themselves. In North America when someone dies, in many cases they die alone. They are sent alone to a morgue. They are handled by strangers, far from any viewing eyes. At Pashupatinath, I sobbed as I watched what were likely his sons tenderly washing their father's feet in the Bagmati River. They stood to watch as the pyre burned. They held their mother as the clouds of white smoke billowed up.
From Pashupatinath, we headed to Boudanath, thus concluding our holy three in Kathmandu. The stupa of Boudhanath is not only one of the largest in Nepal but the world. Located on what used to be a important trade route from Tibet to the Kathmandu Valley, it was consequently the location of significant settlement of Tibetan refugees. On the back end of the Stupa, you ascend a small staircase to the rounded edge of the stupa's skirt. Lovingly tended gardens glinting with mirrors and sequinned trinkets line the base of the stupa. Monks roll out well worn leather mats for their prayers, nearly kissing the base of the stupa with each bend to the ground.
One more hectic car ride to the Thai Embassy in Nepal, at which we were processing our tourist visa for Thailand, and we were dropped off at 'the only hot springs in Kathmandu'. The Royal Hana Gardens is a traditional Japanese style Hot Springs and restaurant. Popular with backpackers post-trek, for 340 Rupiah (which is about $3 a person) you are provided with soap and shampoo to lather up before donning a rungi (a Nepali bathing gown) to soak away to your hearts content in their rock pool. Treated with mugwort, which is a common remedy in Japan for the lowering of fevers and purging impurities, the water is heated naturally and replaced with fresh water everyday. Arriving shortly after three in the afternoon, we had the pool nearly all to ourselves. Though the Japanese food on offer was tempting, we had momos on the brain and departed to Mithos. We were getting used to the Kentucky Derby-style traffic enough that it was fun and we could sit back, the jostling of narrowly avoided fender benders no longer a thought.
Wandering through Kathmandu Durbar Square, we had the cues of women dressed for Teej on one side and Nepalese riot police on the other, preparing for something involving a panel of people sitting on a large grey jacquard couch. We walked the infamous, and now comparably tame, Freak Street, the old hippie hangout. We smoked sheesha that tasted like candied orange peels and drank tea picked from fields we could see. Sitting at Helena's, the highest rooftop restaurant in Kathmandu, we watched Swoyambhu slowly glow brighter and more yellow atop a darkening mountain, mysteriously shrouded in evening fog.
We bought temple locks and harem pants, more tea and hand carvings to send home. Nepal garb has been Moozh's go to ever since. The next day we were gone, a week in Kathmandu somehow gone already. Our only encounter with the Hindu culture during our travels and the prominent memory is that of unsolicited kindness. The look of shy, genuine smiles on children's faces. Outreached hands from locals looking to bless you, even if it is in return for money.
Wrap yourself in a sari -a colourful scarf will do. Twirl until you fall down.
Things I Learned in Kathmandu:
Places are so much more than their poverty.
Momos should have their own section in the food pyramid.
People should wear more colour.
Quote from Kathmandu:
Moozh: You know, it kind of defeats the purpose of taking pepto bismol when you take it with giardia-infected water.
Runner Up:
Me: What are you looking for?
Moozh: A garbage.
Me: Ha! That's like getting into a car and looking for your seatbelt.
Bohemian Recommends:
Madhuban Guest House - Namaste Mr. Laxman!
Mitho's - Best Momo's ever.
Aqua Java Zing - 90's rave is dead, but your hooka is sick.
The Roadhouse - Best pizza outside of Italy. Who knew woodfired was the best answer to rolling blackouts.
Garden of Dreams - Wow.
Royal Hana Gardens - Dirty, filthy, fun.
Pashupatinath Temple