Nepal

---

When I first came to Kathmandu it was an atmospheric ancient city. Impressive wooden buildings lined many of the streets from which shopkeepers were selling the things that their familiies had supplied for generations. Lepers came down from their villages in the hills to beg from the throngs of ethnic people who filled the streets. The first ATM had recently been installed.



Now the pressures of modernity and population growth have had their effect. There are plenty of ATMs and a distinct lack of lepers. Olde worlde Kathmandu has been compressed into a couple of areas around the Durbar Squares which you have to pay to enter. The hoards of pedestrians have been replaced by a gridlocked traffic nightmare with its attendant eye watering pollution. A concrete block city has risen to replace my (idealised?) recollection of a living history lesson.



Well, that's most of the whinging out of the way. It's still possible to have an interesting time in Kathmandu, though it is no longer suitable as a 'hang-out' destination due to cumulative lung irritation.



We stayed in a friendly, well run guest house on the edge of Thamel, the tourist area. From our top floor vantage point we could admire the lights over the city nightscape, or an interesting punctuated blackness during one of the very frequent power outages.



We did the typical tourist itinery: climbing the many steps to the Swayambhunath stupa in the pouring rain and meandering around the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu and Patan. These days they are surrounded by tall buildings from where you can enjoy a rooftop lunch or beverage at an inflated price. This being Nepal, an inflated price is still affordable. I try to save my stinginess for where it will make a difference.



Pashupatinath is the location of some of the riverbank ghats where the deceased may be cremated in a flaming log pile before being swept into the flowing Bagmati river. This is the most prestigious burning ghat for Nepalese Hindus and I don't think just anyone can be burned here or else it would be a hive of necractivity. Only a couple of the many ghats were in the process of preparing or burning bodies when we were there. The ghats get more expensive as you go upriver so that the rich don't get contaminated by the hoi polloi.



Once the burning is complete the mourning family sweeps the remaining ashes into the river while partially clad men and boys dive around in the waters hoping to find some valuables in the mix.



Further downstream we watched as the municipal rubbish truck dumped its cargo directly into the river. That's the great thing about rivers - all things to all people; out of sight, out of mind; somebody else's problem.



Adjacent to the ghats, Pashupatinath Mandir is the most holy Hindu temple in Nepal. We had chosen to visit on Womens day, the one day of the year on which the temple is reserved for women only. Kathmandu's womenfolk descended on the temple in their tens of thousands (my estimate) and queued for hours to get their few minutes of devotion at the Shiva shrine. We found it a bit crowded.



The stupa at Boudha is a short walk away. This is one of the world's largest stupas and the most important Buddhist site outside of Tibet. There are plenty of rooftop cafes from which to watch the action.



By far and easily the best place to visit near Kathmandu is the town of Bhaktapur. This is because it is still old. They charge an entrance fee to get into the town as a whole and then carry on living as they have always done (ish). We spent a pleasant day wandering around the back streets and it reminded me why I used to think Kathmandu was such a great place.



Reality reasserted itself on the journey home though when the 20 km journey took nearly three hours due to the traffic chaos.



We enjoyed our six days in Kathmandu but by then even my earwax was turning black. We were in need of some fresh air.





We found a really nice guesthouse in Pokhara. The owner had rigged up his network to a lorry battery so that he could claim '24 hour wifi' despite the numerous blackouts.



Lack of a reliable power supply is a continual nuisance in Nepal. Most businesses run a back up battery so that they can at least keep the lights on. All cooking is done using LPG. Unfortunately the power infrastructure has been unable to keep up with population growth and the political scene is so divisive that little is ever agreed and implemented.



And this is when the weather is hot. When the winter comes higher demand will, ironically, lead to even greater shortages. The main newspaper is predicting outages of 21 hours a day over the winter period. We won't be there to test it.



The tourist area of Pokhara is set alongside a pleasant lake overlooked by the Annapurna mountain range. We managed to pass a week without getting involved in any of the offered activities such as microliting, parascending and zip-lining. Coffee and cake is more our style.



Every morning we were routinely indulged with a clear view of the snow capped Himalayas until the clouds rolled in. We made the effort to go to the ridge top settlement of Sarankot for a sunrise viewing. It was worth it.



We hiked through the forest to get to the Peace pagoda which was constructed by Japanese Buddhists on the ridge above the lake opposite the town. More views.



Linda had a personal encounter with a couple of leeches that were climbing up her boots en route for some ankle biting. No blood was drawn.



A river runs past the town in one section as a trickle in a broad valley and then almost immediately transforming into a noisy gush through a 1 metre wide canyon. Not quite interesting enough for the long walk it took to get there, but it passed a day.



We joined up with a young woman staying at the guest house and went to visit a couple of lakes a few kilometers out of town. Winding roads, steep hillsides, great views.



If you like winding roads and great views, Nepal is definitely the place to come, and the road from Pokhara to Tansen is the one to take. For five hours the public bus ground it out from ridge to ridge and settlement to settlement. If only we could stop and take photos. Of course, on these journeys you are also thinking about the skill of the driver, the integrity of the vehicle and the hardness of the seat, so the arrival at the destination is very welcome.



Tansen is a small town hanging onto the side of a hill, looking away from the Himalayas. Our balcony looked out over the Madi Valley. It must have been high up because each morning the valley below was filled with a fluffy blanket of white cloud that dissipated as the sun rose.



Walking upwards through the town and up the hill and we soon reached the top of the ridge where we were rewarded with a nice view of the distant Fishtail mountain. We walked along the ridge for the views but also came across a scorpion and a police raid in the next village, where bootleg distillation appears to be a bit of a cottage industry.



We shared the cost of a private car with a taciturn Israeli couple to the lowland village of Lumbini. We then traipsed around a number of dispiritingly crappy hotels until we found one just bearable for a couple of nights. But at 4 pounds a night with working wifi I was not complaining.



We slept through the nocturnal power cuts but when the fans stopped working the mosquitoes made their move.



Lumbini is revered as the birthplace of Buddha. The foundational remains of a building are preserved inside a modern structure. The building was constructed of great thick walls and tiny rooms and, if we are to believe it, baby Buddha and birthing mother were disumbilicated in a pantry sized room towards the middle, around 543 BC.



He was born a prince, not a pauper, and grew up to embrace a life of reflection over materialism.



This is the oldest known structure in Nepal, with bricks dating back to 300 BC.



There is an interesting plan on this site in which plots of land have been set aside for each Buddhist country and/or tradition to build their own temple along a canal leading towards the birthplace. For a religion normally so zealous in construction it is surprising that there are many more fallow plots than finished temples.



Sauraha is a pleasant touristic town on the edge of the Chitwan National Park. We found a nice cabin with a veranda and hung out there for a week. I had expected to do some safari-like activities but the way they organize the entry fees means you have to cram everything into a couple of days and all the reports we heard were mediocre at best.



However, just wandering around the river bank we saw deer, a crocodile and a snake and met people who had an encounter with a rhino along the road.



We attended the elephant's bath time every morning. There are about 60 elephants employed in the tourist trade around the town. Those not ferrying tourists around the park may be found down by the river shortly after breakfast. Others will be encountered lumbering home at dusk after a days work.



We took the public bus to Janekpur. This was one of those buses that should have been cosigned to the scrap heap years ago. It is always unnerving when you can see the road rushing past beneath your feet.



At one point all the luggage in the hold was moved onto the roof so that a herd of more than fifty goats could be crammed into the luggage compartments. They must have had an exciting couple of hours in the darkness as the bus raced at full pelt along the potholed roads. All but one survived.



Janekpur is a holy city for Hindu's and is centred around a moderately interesting whitewashed temple. Apart from that was a typically grotty Indian city (in Nepal) with families of pigs roaming the streets in addition to the dogs and cattle.



The electricity here was particularly annoying. Most places it is either on or off so at least you know where you are. Here it would be on for a few minutes, then off for some more, then on again, then off and so on. Infuriating.



Continuing East we went to the town of Dharan, above the plains but not yet in the mountains. A pleasant town with an interesting mix of ethnicities combing the streets. We didn't see any other Westerners for a couple of days.





Our last 4 hours in Nepal were spent on another ramshackle bus on the way to the border with India at Karkabhitta.

---

Photos

Kathmandu - Pashupatinath
Burning Ghats

Kathmandu - Pashupatinath
Burning Ghats