Him A-Layin' 'Round

Parts 1 to 4

I have an urge. And I can’t seem to control it. Despite the fact that I’ve been trekking in the mountains for the last 10 days in a row, I can’t seem to stop myself wanting more.

So today, off I went again, up more almost vertically steep hills, to visit a little village called Methlang, which lies on the high ridgetop right behind my guesthouse. I didn’t go up there to visit the village per se, but just to get up and get another view.

My body feels so good. It completely fails to send me reminders that, in fact, I’m sixty years old. Well, sixty years young, I like to say. I feel like I’m in the sub-prime of my life - a sustained prime of sorts, maybe not reaching the ecstatic, unceasingly active and party/sex-filled heights of younger days, but equally as rich, and infinitely more un-self-conscious and content with exactly who I am.

Well, mostly anyway.

So off I strolled, first heading east along the southern part of the lake, and then turning right and heading up a tiny track into the bush.

It didn’t take long to get some stunning views.

From the sleepy village and completely quiet ridge top I could also see right over the other side of the small range that hugs the lake, to the magnificent peaks of the Annapurnas, views of which I’ve been admiring for weeks now.

They look just as beautiful as when I first saw them.

I chilled in the village, sat and chatted to a local ex-guide, had a hot drink, and soaked up the sun, before the evening cold set in.

Another vulture waiting for death. Sorry for the blurriness, they’re up so high.

Eventually I headed back down to town on another track, where I got new views of the wide expanses of the town - built up areas that didn’t exist when I first came here.

It’s so nice to be back in Pokhara. It’s a beautiful spot, and it’s got things I haven’t had for awhile. Like a huge variety of food options. Like open mike nights. Like warmer days, and less freezing nights.

Yesterday was my guest house owners’ 14th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, they cooked us five foreigner guests a Nepali feast, complete with sweets, fruit, and beers. So incredibly generous. This is before all five of us had turned up.

And we all had a super interesting conversation, as some of the guys had travelled to Iran, one of my intended destinations. Of course they had an amazing time there.

I bought Guzheng and his wife some jewellery, to celebrate the occasion, and for them to remember us by. They were so happy.

Yeah, Guest is God here. How beautiful. There’s even a well-known expression in both Nepali and Hindi about it.

Random street art

Standard food fare. Veg khanna (which basically means vegetarian food). It’s a plate of rice, dal, some steamed greens, some curries and chutneys, a papadam, a bit of salad (you know, a slice each of radish, cucumber and carrot), all for the huge price of NPR 120 (about AUD 1.60). A huge re-fillable bargain.

The same plate would cost at least 500 rupes up in the mountains, in any place near a more frequented trekking route. Understandably so. The villagers rely on that food to feed themselves and their families - to use it up on a constant stream of foreigners means they probably have to buy in more, which often has to be carried in.

But here there’s so many food options that the competition keeps prices down and quality up. Especially if you stay away from the real Western-leaning places, which tend to be wildly overpriced and not necessarily that great - at least not their Western dishes.

Over And Up

TIme’s been ticking.

Incredibly, it’s been over a year since I first left Australia, on this seemingly perpetual journey through Asia.

While a year is a long time, it’s also an instant. Yesterday I started cycling in Bali, and today I’m in Kathmandu, already two-thirds through my planned journey through the Indian subcontinent.

That is, if I don’t change my return ticket to Bangkok, which is always possible.

I left Pokhara reluctantly, I love it there. But I need to keep moving, time is money.

Oh yeah, no it’s not.

No, I had to leave Pokhara so I can meet my buddies in Kerala on time. Trivandrum, our meeting place, is at least six million Indian train hours from here, but I’ve only got exactly 2 weeks to get there.

And I couldn’t leave Nepal without visiting Kathmandu, just to see first hand how this city has evolved over the decades since I last visited.

So again, against my will, I set my alarm for too early! and headed off to the mini bus pickup area, to grab some transport to the Nepalese capital.

I had to wait approximately no minutes.

The relatively comfy local mini-bus, way quicker than the local big bus, and almost as cheap.

The first few hours were along a super dodgy potholed road, dogged by slow and almost machine-free roadworks. People breaking rocks by hand. Lifting large rocks up hills, to be concreted together into retaining walls by other slaves. Digging drainage ditches with picks and shovels. Laying wide plastic pipes.

Eventually the road improved, but it was all still oh-so-slow.

The scenery was grand though.

Kathmandu’s higher than Pokhara, with an average elevation of about 1,400m. Pokhara’s more like 900m.

Shit. Even more cold on the way.

Chai stop. This van had three live goats tied to its roof racks.

Overtaking a truck. Clear views of oncoming traffic are optional when it comes to overtaking at speed in Asia. And given that Nepal is mountainous, there’s always another sharp bend only metres away. Just go for it, it’ll work out. Even if someone has to veer off the road.

I used to walk home from school with my sibs, just like this. Once upon a time. Wearing pretty much exactly the same type of uniform.

The sun setting, as we reach the outskirts of Kathmandu at peak hour. It took forever to get in to town.

But we did.

And off I strolled, pack on back, to find me a bed.

Yes, of course I love you. Dealuxely even.

I wish I went to a precious higher secondary school.

Yay! A bed! But this room actually proved to be bloody cold. Without hot water no less. I had to fully layer up and disappear in the blankets to stay warm enough to remain human.

I bought what I thought were peanut cookies at a roadside stall en route. Instead, they turned out to be flat pebbles with peanuts concreted inside. They were impossible to bite. I had to break them with the full force of my hands (still difficult, despite my superhuman strength), and then suck the bits in my mouth until they broke into smaller rocks, which I could then eventually swallow.

While these smaller rocks were swirling around my mouth, I was totally hesitant to swallow, as I wasn’t 100% sure that parts of my teeth weren’t in there amongst the rubble, and that I’d have to retrieve them at a later date, in the most unpalatable and unthinkable way.

I eventually checked the Use-By date on the yellow sticker on the outside. It just said Nov.

So I know that the best-case scenario was that they were at least one year past their finishing date, and more than likely had been sitting there in the food stall, drying in that hot afternoon sun, for at least the life span of your average milk-producing dairy cow.

Yeah, about six years I reckon.

What a waste of all those lovingly donated cookie-filled milk products.

Guzheng in Pokhara gave me this traditional scarf, a khata, as I left his guest house. What a guy.

Kathmandoodling

This is a fabulous city.

Yeah, it’s busy, it’s a bit dirty, the traffic’s pretty bad, and there’s scruffy, dodgy dogs that sometimes look at you as if they’re not sure if they’re scared or just plain angry. So far, their barks haven’t graduated to bites.

But despite all that, the city is super interesting.

I stayed in the Paknajol area, to the west of the tourist district of Thamel. It’s an area of quiet laneways and local shops, with a few guesthouses dotted around the place.

As soon as I arrived I dived into a hole-in-the-wall eating place and had a Tibetan thukpa, a big noodle soup, and then headed to Thamel, to see what it’s like these days.

It was pretty dead, considering it was Friday night. Tourist season’s over. It’s too cold, and virtually no one celebrates Christmas here.

Thamel’s a very touristed burb these days, full of cafes, bars and restaurants catering for Westerner hiker-tourists, trekking shops, travel agents and tour guide shops, and, of course, the ubiquitous jewellery, craft and clothing shops.

Really?

Go to Part 2

I spent a couple of days wandering about.

The streets of the Old City are full of temples and shrines, fascinating buildings, shops and houses.

Footpath shrines

The shops aren’t open yet. It’s late Saturday morning.

Katesimbhu Stupa, a beautiful Buddhist stupa down a tiny laneway

The whole square was infested with pigeons. It reminded me of that Albert Hitchcock film, Birds. But luckily they didn’t peck my eyes out, or kill me by constantly pecking at my temples like jackhammers while I screamed in agony and everyone else ran away.

Stunning wooden work of art

Traditional architecture.

Many of the older buildings in this city were built during the rule of the Malla dynasty, in the 1300s. So Kathmandu is another fully fledged medieval city.

Traditional Nepali clobber. I was given a hat like this by Subash, in Lumle.

There was a lot of action in Asan Tole, a market square south of Thamel. Local Newari women were making bara, lentilflour pancakes with egg, and these amazingly shaped sweets, yomari, stuffed with a semi-sweet semi-bitter tamarind paste. The pancakes were the bomb, but the filling of the yomari wasn’t really my thing. Another one for the acquired taste list.

Asan Bazaar laneway

Temples and shrines galore. Basically on every street.

Kathmandu and surrounding districts was devastated by a killer earthquake back in April 2015. About 9,000 people were killed, and at least 30,000 more seriously injured. Over 600,000 structures in Kathmandu and nearby towns and villages were either damaged or totally destroyed.

Some of the destroyed buildings were priceless ancient treasures.

With numbers like that you can just imagine the scale of the disaster. The city is yet to fully recover, with parts of the city still lying in semi-rubble, and some infrastructure, like some roads and footpaths, remaining unrepaired. The quake completely destroyed some of the most densely populated suburbs of the city.

The earthquake wasn’t unexpected. The Himalayas is one of the most seismically active zones in the world. There were huge quakes in Kathmandu in 1934 and 1988 as well. And there’s more to come, no doubt.

Rubble

Kathmandu Durbar Square

Durbar (Royal Palace) Square in Kathmandu is one of three durbar squares in the Kathmandu Valley. The others are in Patan and Bhaktapur. All are UNESCO World Heritage sites, and for good reason.

Although construction of the square began way back in the 3rd Century, many of the temples were constructed in the 1500s by the ruling Malla kings. The buildings are magnificent, with beautiful facades in traditional Newari architecture. The Newar people were the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley.

As you approach Durbar Square, the narrow choked laneways of the city open out into spacious wide boulevardes.

There’s important and historic temples all over the shop.

Kaal Bhairav, a fierce warrior form of Shiva. This statue was sculpted in the 5th or 6th Century.

The Taleji Bhawani Temple, completed in 1564. The Goddess Taleji Bhawani was the royal deity of the Malla kings.

Gaddi Baithak, a neo-classical building, which is brand new, relatively (built in the 1900s).

The Jagganath Temple. The column, erected by one of the Malla kings, fell during the earthquake, but has been repaired.

Mahadev Temple

Yeah, a number of buildings were damaged or completely destroyed during the earthquake. But a remarkable number survived, considering what happened in some other parts of Kathmandu.

There’s repair work going on all over the place still.

Kumari

In Nepal, there’s an ancient tradition of worshipping a chosen virgin known as a Kumari, who is actually a physical manifestation of divine female energy, or shakti.

These girls are actually alive, they’re real girls.

And it is believed that they are real, living goddesses.

Kumaris are selected from the Shakya clan of the Newari Buddhist community. It’s a rigorous selection procedure, and the girl has to be pretty much perfect in every way, whatever that means, including:

perfect health, with no history of illness, unblemished skin, black hair, gorgeous expressive eyes, a sonorous voice, long slender arms, delicate and soft hands and feet, straight hair curled towards the right side, no bad body smells, and must not have shed any blood, yada yada….

So they get ‘em nice and young.

The current Kumari of Kathmandu, the most important Kumari in the country, is Trishna Shakya, and she was installed at the ripe old age of five. There are nine other young girls, living Kumaris, in Nepal.

As soon as they become Kumaris their lives change irreversibly. They leave their friends and family and live in a Kumari palace with strangers. They have public audiences all the time, and partake in countless rites and rituals every day, including major public festivals. Their feet are never allowed to touch the ground, so they get carried around on palanquins wherever they go.

They aren’t allowed to show any emotion, but just stay poker-faced the whole time, especially during audiences. If they frown, tremble, cry or show any other emotion, it’s believed their audience will have major tragedies in their lives, including imminent death.

Thankfully, as soon as they start menstruating it’s believed that the goddess deity has left their body, and that the girls have returned to human form. So they’re then theoretically free of Royal duties, and can go back to normal life, which, unfortunately, is actually completely un-normal.

Ex-Kumaris are partly feared and partly revered. If you marry one of them the widely held superstition is that you will die within six months. (They probably leave that small detail out on their dating apps).

A living goddess. She looks sad to me.

Go to Part 3

Patan

The Kathmandu Valley hosts three traditionally independent kingdoms, which, over the years, had their fair share of wars and disagreements with each other. The three kingdoms, Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, all have historic old centres, and their own durbar squares.

I went for a long stroll to Patan one day.

Traditional old residences and shops in old Kathmandu, heading southeast.

I came across quite a lot of earthquake damage and construction sites, many repairs left unfinished due to lack of funding.

Crossing the Bagmati River

Wow, these guys really caned it

Beautiful Buddhist archway into old Patan

Patan Durbar Square is just as speccy as the Kathmandu one, but a little smaller.

The streets were packed with shoppers.

Top brass hangout zone

The swastika is actually a very ancient symbol. Shame that Austrian guy Adolf commandeered it.

Ok then, let’s just slide into the next section.

Swayambhunath

The Kathmandu Valley also hosts a number of important Buddhist enclaves.

One of the most important monasteries and stupas is at Swayambhunath, to the northwest of Thamel.

I walked over one late arvo.

There’s a hint of Christmas here. But only a hint.

I prefer the marigolds myself

Wacky mannequins

Bugger, I’ll miss this one.

The Nepalese flag is really nice

It’s such an interesting shape, unlike the boring old regular rectangular flags. But it must be annoying for international event organisers. The flag is actually 2 pennant flags joined together, the symbols are the sun and the crescent moon, the symbolism being that the Nepali nation will have the longevity of these 2 great celestial beings.

Good luck with that one, with China and India next door.

The moon’s fulling again

Astro hedge

Ummm, how can coffee be Javanese and Himalayan? Java is about 7,000km from here, as the vulture flies. A blend?

They must use unglazed ceramic chai cups

Late arvo apartment living

Eventually I made it to Swayambhunath Hill. And up I went.

These three well-dressed girls were begging. Cheeky.

I finally made it to the top, it was a monkey-infested climb, they were everywhere.

The stupa at the top is magnificent

And if I thought the monkeys on the way up were bad, it was next level up there. They were literally everywhere you looked. Just zoom in anywhere.

The views were stunning. I’m getting so sick of beauty, it’s so boring.

Devolution. I bet her mum never even knew what a phone was when she was her age.

I eventually headed down, and passed this beautiful gompa on my way back to Paknajol.

A crisscross of alleyways

I ate in this place, a cafe run by a co-op, which was set up to provide employment and training for young homeless kids in the city. They were all really super nice in there.

Go to Part 4

So, wandering around the city of Kathmandu is so bloody interesting. I see things I’ve never seen before, all the time.

Large portions of cow

Wall to wall madness. The traffic gridlock is crazy here sometimes. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to squeeze past the vehicles, as they completely cram the laneways.

Serious market bustle

Nepal is 57 years ahead of the West. It’s currently 2080 here, which is still well below Thailand, where it’s currently 2565. Just to confuse matters, this red banner welcomes in the lunisolar year of 1144, which is another local Newari calendar system.

Wow, I’ve been time travelling like crazy lately, I hardly know when I am anymore.

Both sides of this long road were packed with jewellers. Give her a diamond! Or, more accurately around here, buy her some silver!

I wandered back to the Durbar Square area one late arvo. The light was beautiful.

I climbed up the many flights of stairs to the Himalayan Cafe. This cute yeti and her keeper followed me up.

The views at the top were amazing.

It’s weird how the moon follows you around

Chic shimmer

I found Chinatown. It’s small.

And Koreatown.

And Blahblahsameaseverywhereelsetown.

And Ifyougotmoneyyoucanhavehoneytown.

More unrepaired infrastructure. Some suburbs seem to be just left like this.

Not the leafy ones though, of course.

People frequently complain about the corruption within the government here. I haven’t heard one person say a nice thing about it yet.

Guess I need to start mixing with the elite, as befits my caste.

They really nailed this wall.

Last Himalingerings

So in a couple of hours I’ll be on another overnight bus, finally heading out of the magnificent Himalayas, and heading south on those steep and windy roads to the plains again. And the Indian border.

Tomorrow, Insh’Allah, I’ll be back in the crazy motherland, heading to the completely untouristed eastern state of Odisha, south of the city of Kolkata, and home to some of the most incredible and sacred temples in the whole of India.

And some bloody good food too, I hear.

Some of the places I’ll be visiting are perfect examples of dirty crowded and overpopulated India.

Yep.

Time to get back in amongst it❤️

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