Kathmandu Valley High

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Our hackles raised by our grueling departure from Varanasi, we landed in Kathmandu a little on edge. But despite a prolonged wait for our complementary hotel shuttle, and the resulting aggression of the overly abundant taxi touts at the airport, the city's amazing first impression soon put us at ease. Our ride from the airport took us through the enormous, maze-like old city, where carved wooden balconies and balustrades cling to almost every building. Shrines and religious statuary are everywhere, and the narrow streets - lined with bowed brick walls - give it all a distinctly Medieval feel.

Our route also whisked us by the Royal Palace, the residence of the king until he was deposed last May. While one might think that end of a 240-year-old monarchy would be a cause for widespread celebration, things are still tense. This is largely because the new government - though democratically elected - is made up of the hardline Maoists who, until last spring, were known for the ambush, kidnapping, and bribing of foreign tourists, and violent attacks on rural villages.

Any residual stress we were feeling from Varanasi was completely eliminated when we finally arrived at our hotel, in the tourist neighborhood of Thamel. Before actually coming here, our strongest impression of Kathmandu (well, OK, Jordan's) was from the pivotal barfight scene in the best (again, in Jordan's opinion) movie ever made. But in fact, Thamel feels oddly like... Berkeley, California. Maybe it was the overabundance of Nepalese-Tibetan souvenir shops, or maybe it was the textile sellers who had every kind of satchel or peasant skirt known to man, or perhaps it was the fact that every third shop sold trekking gear, but Thamel basically felt like home. Except of course, that every time we left our hotel was an exercise in not getting mowed over by some type of vehicle, including elephants, and constantly having to refuse offers from hawkers.

Coming to Nepal, we made a calculated decision that on this first, short trip to the country, we would explore the Kathmandu Valley rather than engage in the trekking activities that make Nepal so famous. As it turns out, Nepal has an unbelievable amount to offer. We spent our first two days exploring Kathmandu's old city, finding thousand-year-old statues tucked in alleyways, taking in the majestic Durbar (Palace) Square, and ducking through shoulder-high tunnels into enormous hidden courtyards studded with lingams and shrines.

The most memorable moment in Kathmandu was when we were swarmed by ten or so kids, just after we entered the courtyard in which they were playing. They climbed over us like playground equipment, swinging from our arms and throwing themselves on our backs, laughing and shouting "Namaste!". Disapproving mothers whisked some of them away, but we wound up leading a parade of kids through town, feeling a bit like the Pied Piper(s). Other than the girl wielding the sharpened bamboo stick (and jabbing Jordan in the neck with it), the kids were great, and we think they found us as entertaining as we found them. Our repeated attempts to say goodbye were met with "No Bye!" and a renewed attack.

The next day we hired a taxi to take us to Patan, a kingdom-cum-suburb just south of Kathmandu. Here, too, we were blown away by the Durbar Square - beautiful enough to make the insistent pitches of would-be tour guides seem no more than a nuisance. We walked a few streets off the square and came across a cluster of four medieval water tanks, three of which are now used as swimming pools. There, again, we were immediate curiosities to a group of kids, and wound up having a long chat with a ten-year-old boy about the United States, Nepal, and Hollywood movies. His English was incredible - as good as ours - and at his prompting we all practiced our Spanish together. The encounter was bittersweet, though, since it was clear that this gifted and self-motivated kid will still have to overcome near-impossible odds to be able to capitalize on his drive and intelligence.

We finished the afternoon with a visit to Swayambhunath, an enormous Buddhist stupa perched on a hill above Kathmandu. As we've mentioned elsewhere in this blog, we are not the biggest fans of monkeys - and our dislike has actually intensified over the course of this trip. But the monkeys that cover Swayambunath - swinging from the prayer flags, leaping from treetops, tumbling down the steep stairwell to the top - redeemed their distant cousins in other parts of Asia. These little guys were adorable and sedate - clearly not used to handouts from visitors and not particularly interested in crossing the species barrier. We appreciated it, and had a great time watching them on our way to the top. The stupa above was beautiful: the shrines that surround the main structure were fascinating and the views of the city were incredible. While we were there, we watched in fascination as pilgrims ambulated clockwise around the stupa, spinning the surrounding prayer wheels as they went.

The next day was Jordan's birthday, and we took a cab out to Bhaktapur - the third of the valley's three Medieval kingdoms. Perched a little higher than Kathmandu and Patan, Bhaktapur is spared some of the haze of pollution, and the green towering foothills of the Himalaya which ring the valley were visible in all directions. The town is absolutely stunning. Relatively free of traffic, the enormous old city is easy to explore, and the medieval buildings, water tanks, shrines, temples, and courtyards that fill it are some of the most amazing we've seen. The day finished with a celebratory birthday dinner back in Kathmandu.

Our last full day in the valley began with a visit to Pashupatinath, the most important Hindu site in Nepal. The river that flows through town, the Bagmati, eventually meets the Ganges in India, and as a result a large proportion of the valley's Hindu dead are cremated here. Compared to Varanasi, it is a place of total peace: there's little traffic noise, little pollution, and generally less clamor. We watched from a distance across the river as a body was delivered in an ambulance, dressed in clean robes, and prepared for cremation on one of seven cremation ghats along the banks with the family looking on, even as fires from other cremations were burning at the other ghats.

From Pashupatinath, we walked up and over a terraced hill, bristling with shrines and small temples, to the its other side, beginning a short hike to the neighboring village of Bodhnath. Bodhnath is the primary settlement for Nepal's sizeable Tibetan exile community and one of its holiest Buddhist sites. Things got a little dicey when we crossed a river on a narrow suspension bridge, as behind us an enormous Brahma bull decided to take the same route, at an accelerated speed, and we had to scramble a bit to get to the end and let him pass. We reached the stupa in about twenty minutes, and during our walk around it were peppered with friendly questions by a Buddhist monk, who threw his arms around Jordan when he said how much he liked Nepal and wanted to return.

Each day we spent in Kathmandu Valley was filled with the excitement of discovering new places and new things to see. It was surprising, therefore, to be among what was just a scattering of tourists in Nepal. Thamel, contrary to our guidebook's comparison of it to Bangkok's hellish Khao San Road, was relatively peaceful. Not surprisingly, no one seems to want to talk about recent political events and we didn't press the issue - but casual conversations with shopkeepers and cab drivers have confirmed that tourism is way down. When we asked why, everyone blamed tensions in neighboring Tibet...even as thuggish, heavily armed patrols of uniformed Nepalese soldiers walk the streets outside and many embassies recommend against non-essential travel to Nepal. We weren't sure whether people honestly felt that the overthrow was not a factor in the decline in tourism, or whether people were uncomfortable talking about the fact that the Maoists are now in control of the country.

The lag in tourism results in a certain desperation in the sales pitches of those selling tiger balm, tour packages, necklaces, rickshaw rides, and in a jarring lack of subtletly in the dealers of hashish, opium, and cocaine. Our site visits were sometimes made exhausting by the constant onslaught of offers for tour guides, which always entailed lengthy lead-ins ("Where are you from?", "How long are you in Nepal?") and made us feel rude for not wanting to engage in conversation with every stranger who came up to us. That being said, these are clearly tough times for everyone here, and although staying civil in even the most agressive encounters has been a challenge, we certainly understand where hawkers and touts are coming from. More importantly, our interactions, when not complicated by a sales pitch or request for money, were incredible. People were eager to discuss our impressions of Nepal and what America is like, and seemed genuinely inquisitive and friendly.

We certainly fell in love with Nepal on this trip. Unsurprisingly, our return trip to Delhi was yet another absolutely absurd airport experience that involved mass disorganization and an airline that did not appear to be up to international safety standards. But now we're safely in Delhi, eager to explore India in the days ahead.

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Photos

Patan's Durbar Square
View from Lunch

Jordan and His Hangers-On
Jordan - The Best Jungle Gym in Kathmandu

Holy Men
Kathmandu's Durbar Square

Men Chatting Outside a Temple
Bhaktapur's Durbar Square

Comments

[Jane]

Amazing
Guys what an amazing trip you're having. Moral discomfort and all, I hope you're enjoying every second of it. It's such a privilege to be able to see the world as an observer in passage. Bs from NYC.

[Dana]

your photos are awesome!
I love some of the recent photos! I can't wait to hear the stories in person.