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This morning I woke up not in the guesthouse at the hospital where I was supposed to be staying, but in Thamel (the tourist district in Kathmandu). The reason for this is because my classmate, Katie, came back from the leprosy hospital she was visiting and there was only 1 bed in the guest house (in the volunteer office). Well really, there was another room in the guest house, but it made me feel uncomfortable because there was a lock on the outside of the door, but not on the inside. We're talking not only a lock that is turned only on the outside of the door, but also a piece of wood that clamps the door down from the outside. Call me crazy but I'm not comfortable with the idea of someone being able to lock me in rather than me locking them out. So I decided it was time for a move.
So I got in a taxi and went to Thamel to a hotel where I thought the guys who just arrived from Ottawa were staying (International Guest House — but actually it turns out they were staying at a Hostelling International place, and I only heard international). Anyways, I went to the hotel and it was actually very nice and only cost me $15 US a night for a private room with a double bed and a private washroom. I was kind of relieved to go to Thamel because I was starting to feel a little isolated at the hospital, and I wanted to experience Kathmandu a little more. So I spent this morning (which is their holy day when people are off of work) wandering around the tourist district of Thamel, getting to know the city better.
Thamel is a ghetto of its own. It's really the area where the tourists are, so there are lots of western style restaurants (many different ethnicities — in fact, it's almost difficult to find Nepali food here), souvenir shops selling hippy-style clothes, pashminas, jewellery or other souvenirs, outdoor stores selling trekking equipment and tour companies. All for tourists. I decided that I was going to get out of Thamel and explore Kathmandu in the direction of Durbar Square. In fact later when I thought I had reached Durbar square, it turned out that it wasn't right and I'd have to go back and see it another day.
Kathmandu is crazy. There are no sidewalks anywhere and the streets are over-crowded with cars (usually taxis), tuktuks, rickshaws, pedestrians, cyclists, dogs and sometimes cows (and chickens). Yes there are cows roaming the streets. They are holy to the Hindus so you wouldn't want to hit and kill one of them otherwise I heard that you could go to jail. The city is loud with lots of car horns, and the streets are paved or interlocked but generally very dirty. The really neat thing about Kathmandu, however, is that there are temples and holy sites everywhere. You go on a walk through the streets and run into temples embedded into the side of streets or hidden on side streets. You never know when you may find these things. So as I walked through Kathmandu I ran into some of these magnificent structures, without trying to.
After i did some exploring, I went and bought myself a bunch of fresh local lychee from a street vendor. That cost me 100 rupees (or approximately a dollar for more lychee that I could handle).
In the afternoon, I met up with Katie to do some more exploring of the city. We tried to do a walking tour of the city but met some art student and his friend who have us a tour — we knew that it was one of those buy something schemes but they actually were very friendly and gave us some great information about the history of the city and temples. I generally don't mind giving a small tip for the tour especially because he actually spent time with us explaining things to us. I didn't want to buy one of the paintings from the place that he brought us to though. So I asked how much they normally get for tips. He said 4,000 Nepali rupees (about 40 usd) and I gave him 50 rupees instead (like 5 cents haha). 40 bucks would be expensive for a tour in North America, let alone Nepal! Anyways I don't fall for things like that, and I generally haven't seen this at all in nepal. It's not one of those countries people are constantly trying to rip tourists off in. People are very nice in Nepal — everyone in the streets says hi welcome and Namaste. Children always want to practice their English with you (and don't beg for money in return), people aren't always asking for baksheesh (like in Egypt). They are generally interested in finding out about you — even if they want to sell you something.
Other things about Kathmandu: There's one street that is full of dentists (dental street) and one street that is full of optometrists. Talk about theme. On the dental street, there is a "toothache tree" (Vaisha Dev) that people nail a coin onto when they have a toothache, to get relief from the gods.
Anyways back to the afternoon, after the tour, Katie and I had been on our way to see Kathmandu's Durbar Square, but it was getting late and you have to pay to get into it, so we decided to do that on another day. Instead we did a bit of shopping around the jewellery shops and went for a drink at a place called Thamelhouse. We were also arranging to meet up with the guys from Ottawa for dinner, but as it turned out, they suggested the same place that we were having a drink at for dinner. So we went back to that place a bit later and had Nepali food and watched a cultural dance show. Dinner came with this interesting rice wine drink called Rakshi, which is a lot like sake (but stronger-60% alcohol).
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donna
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Acclimatizing
Your story about the door that locks (and bars) only from the outside made me laugh.