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The hotel is very nice to me and in the morning there is a wonderful breakfast that is included. Again, it is called Samsara Resort. But don't go running to get reservations just yet! Read the rest of the story...it is in the blog I wrote on the hotel.
I had breakfast then started to walk over to the restaurant/bar. It was very early and I knew my friends would still be asleep, so I past my turn and walked around town. I watched as the women carried plates with lit candles , flowers, and some kind of red wax , over to the prayer houses that were set up on almost every block. These prayer houses were different than the ones in Thailand. These are big enough to go inside to pray and most do. I only see women worshipping and not men though...strange. In the streets are lit candles or burning trash! It is part of the ritual to keep the evil spirits away.
There were lots of children and teenagers dressed in their school uniforms, heading for school. Sos told me there is no free schools here and that she must pay for her son to
go to school. I tried reading all the signs in the street as I walked. Kathmandu is covered with signs! There are so many signs that it is overwhelming and you almost instantly give up hope of attaching which sign belongs to what place, so you just look in the windows! (This train of thought got me very lost that morning!.) There are so many signs on the street that you couldn't possibly know which one goes to what door! They stack them on top of each other and in the abundance you really don't pay attention to any of them.
By now I had wondered out of Thamel and pretty far across town.
I enjoy this because I see how everyone really lives. The roads are so beat up and full of holes, and of course dirt. The streets are overcrowded with cars and motor bikes and there is trash on the ground everywhere. Dogs with no homes paw through the trash looking for something to eat. Most of them have swollen breasts telling me there are babies somewhere. Almost all of them have mange. I must admit though, none appear to be starving. Not fat, but
not starving.
I have yet to see a dog be vicious to anyone until now. There was a dog laying in the middle of the road and a small car came around the corner. The dog didn't move and the car didn't seem to notice. The car ran over the toes of the dog and he viciously barked and bit at the tires of the car for quit a ways. When the car finally turned a corner and disappeared the dog stood with his paw in the air and looked around. I waited to see if he could walk and finally he did limp away, using that paw. Relieved , I carried on with my journey thinking how to raise enough money to start a shelter here to take care of these animals. Later, I noticed dogs that had missing paws and even then the dogs don't seem to fear the traffic much. I might add here, in case I forget later, that on my way to the airport leaving Nepal , there was a huge water buffalo laying in the middle of the road..the highway! The cab driver laughed and I asked if the cow was hurt. He
said no, just tired. Nobody tried to remove him and I guess they are allowed to rome freely because of the Hindu religion where they worship them.
Soon I was really lost. Not sure which way to go I remembered the business card King gave me and pulled it out as I approached a watch repairman. He tried calling the number on the card but there was no answer. Finally, he said, " walk for 20 minutes this way", and pointed down the street. "Then ask someone again, from there. "
So, off I went and by the time I had walked 20 minutes, things started looking familiar again. I turned a corner and saw police in riot uniforms stopping cars and turning them around. Then I notices other uniforms that looked military and maybe one army and the other Marines? Or what ever they call their military, there was ALOT OF UNIFORMS AND THEY ALL CARRIED RIFLES AND GUNS! A huge group of men were walking down the middle of the street , chanting something and holding signs. The police were there in full force just to protect them from traffic and in case it got out
the bar
the liquor you see on the shelves is all they have and many of the bottles are emptyof hand. When I finally got to the bar and showed Sagar the video I took he said they were chanting to punish a rapist that was on trial. Later that day,I had Sagar walk me to the hotel so that I would not get lost again and this time I memorized signs along the way, at the all turns.
There was a concern I started feeling for the restaurant /bar because it seems that nobody was coming in to eat there! I noticed all the other places in the square had people there but not ours. It finally occurred to me that the food being prepared was feeding the employees, and that they all were living there at night. That is why Sos needed a shirt and a shower. I started asking questions and found out that they had actually gone to a different restaurant to get my hamburger and brought it back without me seeing them do it. That is how they handle most of the orders because there was little food or alcohol on hand there. Peter, from Australia, remember him? He is part owner and he has a nasty opinion of Nepal and the people
there and voiced it to me as soon as I arrived. Now, this is a problem because he does this often and usually with anyone that will listen! I decided to get to the bottom of all this hatred and sat him down for a chat. He was more than willing to spill out all his frustrations to me and happier that I actually asked to hear it! He is an investor and he is using money from a friend that is still in Australia, named Mark. Apparently Mark and Sos at one time had a relationship of sorts and he suggested to have Sos involved because she knows the language and has people to bring into the place. They have already given Sos a lot of money, like $20,000 or more to make this place work. Sos has spent that money and keeps needing more! For rent, to pay the employees, to grocery shop for the restaurant. She thinks it is Peters responsibility to pay the boys. They have been working for no pay for 2 months and even when they got paid it was only $120 for a month. Peter on the other hand says you can't keep
filling a bottomless pit! Sos had overspent and had 6 and 7 employees working sometimes, they all live off the food in the kitchen and sleep there. He figures that is pay. There is only enough food to feed them, the bar is barely stocked with a couple bottles of alcohol,that are only partly full, some bottles of wine, and if someone orders a drink or beer they run and get it! Sos has the cognitive thinking of most Asians, if the single most obvious path too a solution doesn't work then it is not possible. All Sos could do was complain and cry that nothing was right and that it was all too hard for her. I felt an instinctive... maternal instinct, business sense...SOMETHING rise up from my stomach that said, "You know how to make this work...fix it" I, am exactly the opposite of Sos in personality! My mind says, if one man can do it , it is possible. Just figure out a way! I spent the next 3 days making that happen.
First I asked Sos why the place had no people and heard her list of concerns. She said she needed another
$10,000 to make it work. I can't justify that so I asked why. Sos gave me a list of things with the first thing being unfinished construction in the kitchen area. So I set my sights on that. Next to the building is a huge pile of trash that everyone in the square has contributed to and it is unsightly but full of treasure! I get the boys out there, with me, and we clean it up and organize it. There is a huge metal shelf in the back and lots of wood, beams, roofing, pipes, and trash. We haul a lot of the trash to the dumpsters and move the metal shelf up next to the wall. Then we organize all the wood onto the shelves so it is usable and easy to locate. Next we took a huge billboard piece that was just white canvas with no sign and we tied it to the shelf so it blocked any visual view of the area.
I located a screwdriver, a hammer, and some nails. We built a counter with cupboards and a serving deck for the kitchen where there was only an unfinished wall! It looked great! Some
of the wood was stamped NAMASTE across it which was apparently the name of the company it came from. Namaste means
the spirit in me sees the spirit in you and honors that. It is the common greeting in Nepal. I cut the wood so that only the words could be read across the backsplash of the counter.
It was very eye opening for me, how that act of kindness was perceived and what actions followed. First, all the guys at the bar jumped in to help, gaining momentum as I was making progress. The days get boring with no customers! Next, Sos did nothing to help! In fact, she sat with a couple friends who came over and talked shit about Peter and the bar for hours while we worked. The neighbors of the square all came and starred at me. They don't try to be unnoticeable either! They just stand and stare! When I asked why they were doing that, Sos said because women don't do that kind of work! They all wondered where I was from and why I was doing it! Finally, the neighbor from the sight-seeing place, across the way, introduced himself and thanked
me for helping to clean the community mess! He said he wanted to interact with Sos and Peter and market their businesses together. He was anxious to make a plan and even had me sit with him to throw ideas on the table. By the end of the meeting though, I realized he was just picking my brain on how to get more customers for himself.
Next, I asked the cooks what the cheapest and best dish they could make was. They told me the open face moo-moo. The moo-moo is a square flour piece deep-fried with chicken, or pork or vegetables inside of it. There is a sauce to dip the pieces in and the open face meant they only folded the corners into the middle leaving it looking like a 4 leaf clover spoon. With 4 sections all shaped like spoons, the sauce could be picked up easier with them. I asked them to make me that dish, and they made a lovely dish with 10 moo-moos (chicken, pork and vegetable), dipping sauce, sausages cut like flower and fried, and a garnish that was made with lettuce and a carrot, cut to look like a flying bird.
I took a picture of it and then wrote some information on a piece of paper and told Sos to take it to the printers and come back with promotional flyers.
In the flyer I had offered a free drink with purchase of this dish. The dish was $3.50 so I made the flyer say ONLY $5.00. That way the drink was covered, the tourists would think $5.00 was cheap enough and it would bring people in. During that process, somewhere I learned that they are the only ones in Kathmandu that make the moo moo open faced! Well! That became the headline! One of a kind! Sos brought back a handful of flyers (that I paid for) that looked terrible! The color on the printer was off and only printed orange, the lettering was too small and it was not going to work. I took the picture to the printers and explained what I needed and what it should say. I ordered one for a proof then 50 after that , in full color. They turned out beautiful! I took them and stood on the street in front of the place, with Sos and Peter watching and hooked
in a group of 6 tourists before 5 minutes had past. They not only enjoyed the meal but commented on the way out that they loved the idea of the open face because it was like a curved nacho allowing you to pick up more sauce with it! PERFECT! Next, I took the chalkboard sign they had at the entrance with the entire menu printed on it in small letters and erased it. I wrote Home of the open faced Moo-moo and added a huge arrow pointing up the stairs so people knew which business the sign belonged to. Then I placed it where you would have to trip over it or walk around it to get into the square. I turned Sos and Peter lose with the flyers instructing them to stay in the street in front of the entrance to the square and only approach blond haired people or people talking english. These we know are tourists and tourist won't blink at $5. They needed to stay in front because they needed to point down the alleyway to where the square of shops are! You can't see them from the street AND you have to pass through a
different store set up in the alley to get there! If they didn't point nobody will find it! While they did that I ran and bought prayer flags, which are very colorful and attract the eye, as well as represent Nepal in photography around the world! I put them going up the stairs and across the front of the building.
I noticed a screen on the wall and asked what it was for and they said on Sat. they watch the soccer game on that screen. I asked if that set up could play music videos and they said it could! You can see the screen from the ground floor and so I said there should always be music video playing on it, to give the place ambience and also to attract customers through visual and audio. They put a video on and everything seemed do-able! We had a full table of customers that I brought in and everything was great! The customers had even taken pictures of the place as they entered saying they loved it!
I noticed the boys in the back kitchen cooking on a pan that has a rounded bottom and it was full
of hot grease with the handle pointing out towards them. It was wobbling on an oversized burner for the stove and could not settle in safely. Buddah, the cook is 16 years old. He has the fire under this pan full blaze and the grease is boiling in there. It is tilted so far over that only 1 inch of pan was left to contain the grease from hitting that flame and causing a huge disaster! That is, if he doesn't hit that handle and knock it down all over himself and the ground first! I told Buddah that everything doesn't need to be cooked on high especially since they had NO GAS , ONLY A GAS TANK THEY HAD to GET REFILLED EVERY DAY (which costs money) I told him the handle should always be to the side and begged him to please make a habit of it because he could seriously get hurt. Those pans were dangerous, so I took Sagar and we went and I bought new pans, with flat bottoms, for them. I took the pans back and asked them to use them because they were so much safer. The next day they were using the
round one again and I took it and threw it in the trash. In fact, before I finally left to come home I threw it away 3 times. They kept sneaking it out of the trash and the last I saw it, it was stashed under a counter in the corner of the kitchen, waiting for me to go back to America. I guess that is the standard pot used to cook with in Nepal, but it is dangerous! $60 worth of pots...I hope they use them when I leave...but back to that day...
Then I went down to check on Peter and Sos. Sos was nowhere to be seen and Peter had a single girl cornered in the street and was talking his head off to her. I approached Peter and corrected that situation, and asked where Sos went. He said he didn't know but he had things to do and had to leave. He went inside and took his computer that was hooked up for the music videos and left. Sos came back hours later and said there would be some customers of hers coming shortly, to meet me. I asked her why? I was not a
part of this equation and she just didn't understand what I meant by that. When I leave people won't come to see me! They need to come to get the lunch special! Not friends of hers but tourists! My idea came from the story about the fish...if you feed a man a fish he has a meal, if you teach him to fish he has a career. Unfortunately, it might be too late for all that...
It is a difficult situation because of the lack of communications among the owners and too much negative communication from Sos and Peter to strangers and people that really don't care! . All moral is in the dumps . I can say this establishment is never going to succeed because there is too much wreckage of the past. Plus, Sos is sneaky and what I would call a situational theif. Like most people in Nepal they are just surviving day to day and if a situation comes along that she can charge 4 times what it usually costs, she will! Then Peter is retired military and really quite the asshole. He barks orders at everyone and never has positive encouragement. He is a
true "know-it-all" and every idea that I introduced he claimed he had already thought of it and got shut down by Sos. He said what he liked most about me being there is they are listening to me even though the ideas were his before I got there! He doesn't understand that when you speak rudely to someone, people will turn down the volume and not listen Also, he speaks fast and with an accent. While he is cussing someone out , from Nepal, they just smile and nod because they have no idea what he is saying! There was an incident involving an electrician, before I arrived. Peter cussed him out and told him never to come back. Since so many of the cultures here in Asia yell when they speak it was impossible for the electrician to know he got thrown out and banned! Even the young boys that cook don't understand much of what he says.
Sos believes that Peter has access to the money so he should pay all the bills. Peter is sick of supporting this crew with no money coming in. I tried to explain to Sos that the bar needed to make
the money to pay for the food but she was so angry at Peter, that the whole thing crumbled. I now realize there is a lot more involved here and the best thing that could happen is to get Peter and Sos out of the building and let Sagar run it!
The problems go even deeper than that! There is no running water there because the money Peter gave Sos to buy a water tank with, she spent on the tables. When the boys cook or wash dishes they have to go get bottled water to use. The electricity is not hooked up in most of the building because Peter was redoing something and disconnected all of it. Now it is a mess of wires all unmarked which goes where! Even Peter can't remember! I was advertising on the front door that they have free wi-fi, then found out they are hitchhiking on the restaurants across the way! Nobody wants to pay the bill for that! I felt like I had wasted 3 of my 6 days here and was not going to waste any more time. I went to see the monkey temple.
If you go to
Kathmandu and you can find a Taxi that knows where Thamel Square is in Thamel. Look for the Hooters sign and go visit my friends. If nothing else they will entertain you!
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