Kathmandu and a whole lot of poo.........

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The previous nights indulgent excesses meant I did not enjoy the short journey from Royal Beach to Kathmandu one bit. Upon arrival in Kathmandu I said a half hearted goodbye to Kristina our truck (this would be the last time we would see her), ordered lunch at our hotel, realised I felt far too sick to eat lunch and then promptly went to bed (after familiarising myself several times with the toilet of course). As it would turn out, bed is a place I would become very familiar with whilst in Kathmandu. After sleeping most of the day I woke up shortly before it was time to leave for our final goodbye meal (this actually turned out to be one of many, many, many goodbye meals), despite sleeping all afternoon I still felt like a turd sandwich when I rose and not one bit in the mood for a celebratory meal which would inevitably involve alcohol. Somehow I managed to make my way through dinner without emptying the contents of my stomach onto the table, quite an achievement I thought. It’s a shame I wasn’t in higher spirits that evening as it would have been nice to be in a more chatty mood on what would be the last night for several members of the group. After the meal we said a few sad goodbye’s and also arranged another ‘goodbye’ meal for the surprisingly group that still remained.

Sonia, Jenny and myself would be staying on in Kathmandu for a few more days so the following day we headed off to Thamel to find accommodation. We decided on a mid range budget option called the Khangasar guest house, for which the girls paid 9gbp for a double room and I paid about 7gbp for a single. The room was not what you would call luxurious but then again it didn’t appear to be infested with wildlife and had a flushing toilet so I was happy enough. The Mexicanas, tour leader Jenny and a few others were still around so we met up for another goodbye meal that evening. Having eaten Indian and Nepali food pretty much solidly for nearly 3 months I didn’t feel too guilty that evening about ordering some unashamedly western food, oh what a mistake this turned out to be. I decided on a beef chimichanga (may have the name wrong here), i.e a tortilla filled with beef, deep fried and covered with melted cheese. Perhaps unsurprisingly my dish was devastatingly greasy and really not very pleasant at all, I looked across at Harvey’s rather tasty looking biriyani in envy and cursed myself for breaking my sacred rule of eating only indigenous food (or fried chicken!). As it turns out the food gods were also unhappy about me breaking my oath of allegiance to Indian/Nepali food and as such promptly punished me by giving me a rather nasty dose of food poisoning. Almost as soon as I finished my meal I noticed my stomach didn’t feel right, although initially I put this down to indigestion caused by the scale and richness of the food. However after making an emergency dash to the bathroom for a late night colonic irrigation session I realised that the chimichanga had not just been a very disappointing meal (a crime bad enough in isolation) but had also decided to declare war on my intestines. Unfortunately the chimichanga was a formidable opponent and lingered in my gut for several days leaving me incapacitated and unable to do anything much other than spend time examining the back of the bathroom door. During my time in bed I quickly came to realise that my mattress and pillow were by far the worst I had ever encountered, never before have I come across a mattress so thin yet so hard yet also so unsupportive, it was a scientific marvel, just how do they make this so damn uncomfortable?? As for the pillows, these either felt like they were made of granite (I do not exaggerate here) or like they were stuffed with shrapnel, once again I was impressed that something that looked so innocuous and comforting could actually cause such misery, clearly forces of true evil had infiltrated the soft furnishings factories of Nepal. Lying there in Kathmandu by myself, feeling ill and in extreme discomfort all I could think about was how much I wished I was lying in my extremely comfy bed at home being cared for by my mum. Not many men will admit this but when we get ill there is no place we would rather be than at home being cared for by our mum’s! This was most certainly one of the low points of my travels so far, I felt really homesick and for the first time felt like I wanted to go home. However after a few days I did start to feel better physically and more positive mentally, I managed to crawl out of bed and to the office of Unique Path Trekking, the company that would be organising and running my trek. Unable to decide between the Annapurna circuit trek and the Annapurna Basecamp Trek I decided in a moment of madness to book both and do them back to back, I wasn’t really sure that I could physically handle 20 days of solid and challenging trekking but I thought I would give it a try. I gave myself 3 days from booking until the departure for the trek.

Despite being in Kathmandu for nearly a week I had seen very little of the city due the chimichanga incident. After organising the trek myself and Sonia took a Kathmandu city tour organised by Unique Path in a private 15 seater minibus (yes 2 people in a 15 seater minibus) visiting Pashupathinath temple, Boudhanath stupa and the Buddhist ‘Monkey Temple’.

Pashupathinath temple is the most sacred and largest Hindu temple in Nepal and the preferred place for Nepali Hindu’s to be cremated. The reason being that the Ghats at temple are on the shore of the Bagmati river which is considered sacred as it is a tributary to the most holy of all rivers to Hindu’s, the Gangga. Very quickly a local guide managed to attach himself to us by using the classic routine of providing free information for 10 mins before telling you he is a tour guide. This method is rather effective as it plays on your feelings of guilt whereby you feel that you owe him/her something as they have already given you lots of information for ‘free’, and as such you usually end up hiring him/her as a guide or at least passing a few rupees their way. As it turns out this fellow was actually a very knowledgeable guide and seemed to have his heart in the right place so we didn’t mind giving him a few rupees. One very interesting fact I did learn from our guide was that most Nepali’s are Hindu (80% ish) and only about 12% are Buddhist. I had perhaps naively thought Nepal was a largely Buddhist country and was very surprised to hear that Buddhists make up such a small portion of the population. It was at Pashupathinath that I saw my first Hindu cremation ceremony or ceremonies I should say. We saw a range of cremations ranging in progress from the very first stages of giving the body its final wash in the holy Bagmati river water, to lighting the body, to the dead embers of the fire and remaining ash being swept into the Bagmati and thus eventually flowing in the Gangga. We learnt in Hindu culture families will try to cremate their dead relative’s body within 24 hours or quicker if possible. This seemed very strange to me, in western culture it is normal to be able to visit the body for several days after the death and say your final goodbyes. Then again I wonder if visiting a lifeless, soulless shell actually does anything to help the grieving process, maybe the Hindu’s have the right idea by cutting the connection with the physical shell as quickly as possible. The dead bodies are wrapped in cloth before cremation, washed in the waters of the river and then finally placed on a pyre of wooden logs before being set a light via a flame to the mouth, administered by the closest male relative to the deceased. It only takes a few minutes before the whole body is in flames, natural flammable products such as ghee and mustard oil which are placed on the body help the body burn. While it was quite harrowing watching the families grieve, especially seeing the raw pain of walling mothers, sisters and daughters etc the body burning process seemed like a kind of natural way to deal with death and was not in anyway disturbing or distressing as I had expected. Saying that though the resulting smell of barbequed meat is very, very off dsiturbing, don’t know how I will feel when I next smell a summer bbq!

Next off we went to visit the massive Boudhinath stupa which while impressive in it’s size was a bit of a non event as there was little to see other than the big white stupa which became boring very quickly. Finally on the tour we visited Monkey Temple (Buddhist), perched high on a hill the temple has great views of the city and is attractive in its own right. The temple feels like a strange mixture of zoo/theme park/holy place with all the monkeys running around and the assortment of stalls selling the sort of useless plastic junk you get at fair grounds and which Indian’s and Nepali’s seem to absolutely love, I must be missing something as I really don’t understand why an inflatable plastic guitar is something that you would need in your life. We watched the sun set over the city from the vantage point of the temple before heading back to our hotel. After several days in the city it was nice to have finally seen something other than the back of my bathroom door.

I wasn’t a massive fan of Kathmandu, Thamel the main tourist area is filled with touts, rickshaw drivers, pimps and pushy shop owners and it was a real hassle walking down the street trying to avoid the constant offers of taxi, taxi, marijuana, girls and useless tat. I also found the area to be rather expensive, I mean things were still cheap here in comparison to home but were much more expensive than India. I believe the reason for this is that Nepal imports a lot of it’s products and as such the cost of commodities is high and I expect the fact that Thamel it is a tourist ghetto also helps push the costs up. In all honesty I was looking forward to leaving the city, it had not been a place I had particularly enjoyed although I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more had I been better. We had a final, final goodbye meal on the Friday night and I said a sad farewell the Mexicanas and tour leader Jenny before heading back to the hotel to take my final sleep before the start of my big trekking adventure. I was really sad to finally say goodbye to the girls, over the weeks of travelling together we had become good friends and I knew that I would miss their company and the laughter that came with it. I was also feeling rather anxious and worried that I would from now on be travelling independently and would have to fend for myself and hope that I found new friends along the way. I went to bed that evening with very mixed feelings about the future, a new and very different chapter in my year of travels was about to begin.

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Photos

Hari and myself
Hari runs Unique Path trekking, an excellent trekking company in Nepal. I highly recommend them, Hari is a great guy also