We Didn't Realise A Candle Was So Bright

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Ah, Nepal. Land of landslides and power cuts, fledgling governments and knackered buses. What a shame we didn't have longer to enjoy it - Though thanks to China and the small issue of a closed Tibet border we did have an extra two weeks and they have been fabulous.

Introducing Chaos

Kathmandu really is the dirtiest, noisiest city we think we have been to, though in spite of that it has a charm that is hard to put your finger on. Despite being the capital city, almost all of the roads are a slushy mixture of mud, pebbles and litter. Concrete is reserved for the main arterial routes and they are congested car parks for most of the time. One 23km journey took us 4 hours. Away from the main roads, bikes and rickshaws create most of the traffic and noise. Rickshaws have wonderful squeakers that sound like they are straight out of a dog toy, while the wooden cross contraption they've built as shelter from the rain is just at forehead or eye gouging height so you have to pay attention ALL the time. The roads, especially in touristy Thamel are all very narrow and as each hotel and restaurant has added on extra storeys for the coveted 'mountain view,' the buildings have grown very tall. The effect is a feeling that you are always walking down tiny little alleyways, when in fact you are using quite main roads across town.

Diplomatic Dogma

We somehow managed to find a peaceful guesthouse with comfy beds, though, in a theme that was to continue across Nepal, very hard pillows. Thanks to China (last time we have a dig, we promise) our plans to head into southern Nepal as soon as we arrived were scuppered. Instead we had to wait the whole weekend to queue up at the Indian Embassy for a visa. We got there at 4.30am on Monday having been warned by Lonely Planet that queues started forming at that time and that only the first 60 people get served. This is because Nepal is a major visa-run destination for people wanting to re-new their India passes. There are also plenty of Nepalis trying to get in to India for work.

So we arrived at 4.30, much to the amusement of the night guard and the local stray dogs who decided Tracey was a soft touch and immediately cuddled up to her, fleas and all. The next person to arrive turned up at a much more sensible 6am, but did miss out on a free cup of tea from the security guard. By 8 the line was pretty long and here we witnessed the great queue scam in action. We learned there is a lady who goes every day. She turns up around 8am, saying she was there earlier and is at the front of the queue. Most people normally believe this and let her in, however, due to our ridiculous arrival time we knew she hadn't been earlier and refused to let her ahead of us. Here's the deal - she pays off the security guards and gets let in first, collects 10 or so tickets from the 'waiting at the butcher's counter' style ticket machine then goes back outside and sells them to people who stay in bed until 9 and show up as the gates open. Genius, but not fair on the rest of us!

Once inside the embassy you have to wait until your ticket number pops up on a screen, then an Indian who is the spitting image of Rowan Atkinson takes a look at your face, relieves you of some cash and tells you to come back in three days. What are those three days for? Well, in this modern era of the internet and computer networks the Indian embassy likes to send a telex to their office in your country of origin to ask if they can give you a visa. A telex! Despite our derision of this process it did work very smoothly and three days later we were back (6am not 4 and we were still 3rd in line). Again Nepali lady appeared, but this time we were queuing with a former British Navy recruit and an army of nuns so we relegated her to about 20th in the queue - a small result, but a major victory! This time Indian Atkinson appeared bearing one of three stamps. 'We've heard from your embassy, here's a visa,' 'we haven't heard from your embassy, but here's a visa anyway', or 'REJECT'. We both passed, were relieved of more cash and told to come back again that evening. Skip forward to 4.30pm and a kind of "Passport Snap" kicked off with Visa Man holding up people's pictures to the window and pointing at eager faces in the crowd. It was hilarious, but we got there in the end and our shiny India visas are ready and waiting for stamps at the border.

Monkeying Around

So what did we do to pass the time in Kathmandu? Well, we celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary with a night off street food and indulged in a scrummy pizza and THE most delicious chocolate mousse we have ever tasted at a touristy restaurant called Road House (a must if you're going).

And of course there are the sights. Once you have managed to squeeze past the trekking and rafting touts, the 'buy my ethnic guitar' sellers and the shifty Tiger Balm men who use their greasy pots of fake balm to get you into conversations about buying all kinds of other stuff, there are some wonderful places to visit in Kathmandu.

There is the Monkey Temple, or Swayambunath Stupa to give it its proper name. You can get a rickshaw from one of millions of drivers, or a taxi, but it is also possible to walk through the less touristy streets of the city and up the small hill to get there. Either way there are a lot of steps to climb up at the end. We walked...twice...after forgetting the camera the first time! The stupa is amazing, has wonderful views and is decorated with the Buddhist prayer flags you see strung out all over the place here. It is surrounded by prayer wheels and images of various Hindu gods and is visited by hundreds of worshipers every day. Nepal is an amazing example of religious tolerance when all around us nations seem to be destroying each other on religious grounds

We didn’t get the views of the Himalayas that all the postcards flaunt, but that was to be expected. It is still monsoon season and that said we have been incredibly lucky. Yes there have been many downpours, but they have not been every day and they have mostly been brief, if significant deluges. At the Monkey Temple we discovered a brilliant location for views across the stupa and the valley and most importantly a safe spot to eat our banana bread picnic without being inundated by the temple’s simian namesakes. Inside a building housing a giant golden Buddha we found a staircase up to the roof and sat undisturbed as we watched the comings and goings and ate our lunch. From our lofty vantage point we also saw the waiters of a roof top café that shall remain nameless, remove leftovers from people’s plates and tuck in to them before their customers had even left the building!

Lies about Kumari

We also paid a visit to the famous Durbar Square, one time home to the royal palace and the King of Nepal. We got lost in the winding streets and passages along the way and discovered another, smaller temple, but eventually reached the main event. The Durbar Square is an incredible place. It is full of temples of varying shapes and sizes, devoted to all number of Hindu gods and goddesses. Each one had small areas where offerings of flowers are left and bright red coloured paste is smeared. We wandered round the area by ourselves twice, but eventually recruited one of the freelance guides that hang around, to give us a bit more of an explanation about everything. Rama was brilliant and certainly knew his stuff. Our favourite story is about the stone inscription on one of the palace walls. It is said that if one person can translate all 13 languages then milk will pour from a pipe in the middle of the inscription. Of course this legend is very old and today there are scholars who can probably do just that without getting their promised lactose reward…but it is a good story!

Durbar Square is also home to the Kumari, a small girl believed to be a living goddess. She is worshiped like a god from around the age of 4 until she reaches around 12 when she gets sent back to every-day life to be replaced by a purer, fresher model. This girl is chosen from a certain section of Kathmandu society and has to fulfill a list of criteria. Now our guide, while spot on about a lot of other stuff was wrong with what he told us here, as is a lot of literature about Kumari. There are a whole lot of stories about the girls having to pass certain tests and have certain physical attributes which we won’t go in to here. But a very interesting read is “From Goddess to Mortal” written by a former Kumari. She dispels a lot of the myths about what really goes on behind closed doors.

Chasing Tigers

We bought a game in Durbar Square. It is played a bit like chess, but involves 4 tigers and 20 goats. The idea is to either eat 5 goats or trap the 4 tigers, depending on which role you play. Tracey played it with one of the market men and we were both hooked. In the end David’s hard bargaining got us a good deal, but we do have to lug the solid wooden board and metal pieces around until we get home!

We had our best 'local' eating experience when we ducked behind a ragged curtain into a room about 5 feet high. The plates were being washed in a bowl on the mud floor and the food came from vats over a fire. We were served Nepal's national dish - Dhal Bhat and it tasted great. It is a kind of lentil soup, a dish of potato curry, some pickled tomatoes and a mountain of rice. You eat it with your hands and you can eat as much as you want. We were overwhelmed with the volume of one plate each, but the man next to us managed to plough through Everest and K2 plus two bowls of lentils in the time it took us to eat half of our servings.

Oh...and David got a hair cut, followed by a head massage, followed by a back massage. Tracey was coerced into also having a head massage in what turned out to be a totally disastrous move. A men's barber, used to working with short, straight, dark hair got to work on her long mop and promptly began turning it into one big knotted bird's nest as he rustled and shook and scrunched her scalp like he was kneading bread. It took about an hour to comb out when he was done!

Walking Festival Bonanza

Once our visa delay was over we were free to leave the city, so we bought a map, plotted a rough trekking route and headed out east to in search of some peace and quiet and the elusive Himalayan views. Our first stop was Nagarkot and as luck would have it we arrived to hear that a festival was taking place the following day. David had been told this by a school-boy on the overcrowded bus. He had grabbed the last seat because the ceiling was so low there was no way he could stand up even half straight. In the end Tracey got up on the roof of the bus, because it turned out she couldn’t stand straight either once the center of the bus had been filled with bags of concrete and grain.

Nagarkot is essentially a little village that somehow became known for its views of the Himalayas, so there is a tiny collection of local shops and eateries, followed by a winding road out of town to a rocky outcrop where as many hotels as possible have been built, each with a roof terrace looking over the valley and mountains. It is a lovely little place and as it is the off season and we stayed in town instead of one of the pricey hotels we were the only tourists to be seen. It was so quiet that our restaurant meal had to be made from scratch, starting with a trip to the market for veg and eggs and ending with freshly made and cooked chapatis and curry. Yum! We woke up to very heavy mist and cloud, so the peaks remained shrouded for another day and our walk up to the look-out tower where the festival took place was mostly inside the spooky white haze.

The whole village had turned out for the celebrations which we were told by different people were called Janai Purnima and Rakshya Bandhan. The festivals were either to ask permission to harvest the corn and to pray for a good crop next year...and/or... the time when holy men change the sacred threads they wear around themselves all year. We saw both things happening so perhaps it was a two for the price of one celebration - after-all the walk up the hill was long and steep!

It was fascinating to watch the villagers in traditional dress beating on drums and working themselves into a frenzy around a sacred pool with a Naga head in the middle. (The pool was a shrine to Shiva who always has a Naga or serpent, with him). One woman got so carried away that two men had to grab her to stop her collapsing into the green water. Meanwhile holy men were bathing in the water and other people were throwing in ears of corn, rice and petals. Around the edge of the area other holy men were wrapping threads around people's wrists and giving them red and yellow tikas. The mist only added to the atmosphere.

Eventually we left the party to continue our walk to the next villages of Nala, Banepa and Dhulikhel. The path was less than clear to start with, but a huge group of children decided they would show us the way and spent the next hour practicing their English as we ambled down the hillside. Nala was a lovely little village with plenty of beautiful Newari style wood carved windows in the two storey brick buildings, though we only stopped long enough for some food. Banepa is much larger and has more traffic and rubbish so we passed straight on through to Dhulikhel for the night. We grabbed another hotel with potential mountain views, but had pretty much given up on seeing anything as the clouds are very persistent during this time of year. We were wrong - the next morning we did have a lovely view of the top of several peaks It gave us some idea of how beautiful it must be during the dry season when all of the mountains are visible every day.

We met a couple over breakfast who were planning on going the same way as us, so we all set off together towards Namobuddha. This walk started with a lot of steep steps up hill, but the path was fairly easy to follow and despite a few people seeming surprised we did not have a guide, the whole three days walking was perfectly easy without one.

Namobuddha couldn't have come at a better time though. We were all hot and hungry and yet again as we stared out past a buddhist stupa and prayer flags over a beautiful valley, our lunch was made fresh from scratch. By the time we finally reached Panauti we were all ready to drop, mostly due to the glorious sunshine we had that afternoon...but first we had to find a hotel. In Panauti it seems there's a bit of a Mafia style squeeze going on, because we could only find one place to stay and it was really expensive. They wouldn't budge on price despite being totally empty and looked at us with a smug 'well, you just try to find somewhere else instead' grin. We split up - David and Barbara one way Tracey and Didier the other. As we looked around we were told by a few people that the only other place in town had closed down...then realised the man from the original hotel was following us and having words with those we spoke to. We did find somewhere next to the bus stop, but it was a 'pay by the hour' place if you get our meaning! Tracey found a youth hostel, which would have been fine, but at the same time David and Barbara discovered Ananda Café, a lovely old Newari House which has recently opened as a guesthouse. It is VERY basic, with an outhouse and hose shower, mud floors, beds for Smurf sized guests and only wooden shutters on the windows but Krishna the owner has great plans for the place and the best thing is it is in the old, Newari part of Panauti, not the new, soulless bit. We were treated to a wonderful home cooked Dhal Bhat supper and a genuine family welcome which was such a nice change from the 'hotel' on the other side of the river!

From Panauti we headed off to Bodhnath with Barbara and Didier...and here came the 4 hour 23km journey of hell. Bless Kathmandu and its huge population and dreadful roads. We are told the congestion is normally bad, but now it is worse because as well as frequent power cuts and load shedding due to a lack of power, Nepal has a fuel shortage. So all along the sides of roads buses, lorries and cars are queuing up near petrol stations, waiting for the next delivery. And because of a lack of fuel, less buses are running, so the ones that are in operation are crammed full to bursting.

We eventuallygot to Bodhnath to be told another festival was about to take place, and this was a big one. Bodhnath is an area just outside Kathmandu where exiled Tibetans live. They have been moving there ever since persecution by the Chinese began over 50 years ago, and there is an amazing community spirit there. There is also a huge stupa that is one of the most iconic images of Nepal. People were gathering in their thousands around the stupa ready for the celebration which was to commemorate all those who died in the last year. It is called Gai Jatra. Gai means cow as Hindus believe a cow leads you to a better place when you die. The idea of the festival is to cheer up all those who are mourning their loved ones, so boys dress up as cows and dance around the streets, men dress as women and just about any other outfit they can get their hands on and the crowd walks round and round the giant stupa in a huge procession.

Black Out...AGAIN

Bodhnath was also the first place in about 6 nights where we didn't time our stay to coincide with load shedding, so for once the candles could stay in our bags and we didn't have to feel our way around back streets. Nepal is stuck with one of the greatest ironies we can think of. It has the second most available fresh water in the world, yet there are not nearly enough hydro power stations and the entire country is painfully short on power. Every town has scheduled load shedding twice a week and then unplanned power cuts just about any time, but usually just when you really need a fan to work, or a light to pack your stuff. We have really come to appreciate how great candles are though and they do make eating more romantic, even if you are sitting at a tiny, side of the road cafe!

Elephants at Last

Our trekking done and Kathmandu well and truly explored we finally headed south to Chitwan National Park. Until the start of the year it was called Royal Chitwan, but then Maoist Rebels were elected as the ruling government and they forced the discredited King to stand down, so there is no such thing as royalty now. In fact references to royalty are now banned. The King's palace has been closed and will eventually become a museum and instead of the King presiding over major festivals the president will take his place. As we write the new government is trying to get going, but the Maoists didn't get enough of a majority for absolute rule and are trying to form coalitions. These coalitions are very uneasy at the moment. Every party is obviously trying to do the best for themselves and this has lead to boycotts, even at the official signing in ceremony of the new government. But local Nepalis are hopeful that change for the better is on its way.

Chitwan is a beautiful area of jungle where rare one horned Indian rhinos and Bengal tigers still live. We had been looking forward to our elephant safari and bathing time almost since we arrived in Asia and finally it was time to do it. Stepping on to the back of a 31 year-old female called Punam Kali Tracey couldn't stop grinning. The chair was uncomfortable, your legs are at constant risk of being squashed by a tree and David's head broke through dozens of spider webs, but the experience was incredible. The uneasy gait of the elephant takes a bit of getting used to. It is a kind of side-to-side wobble, a forward roll and a lull backwards, round and round with every few steps.

Despite her 4 tonnes, plus three passengers, her Mahout (driver), the padding and wooden seat, Punam Kali moved through the jungle more quietly than either of us could have managed on our clumpy human feet. Elephants are actually used to catch poachers and loggers because they can move so quietly. We followed rhino tracks through the bushes and when there was no path Punam Kali simply made one by squashing down bushes, or tearing off bits of tree in the way. Just when it looked like we had lost the trail we spotted two rhinos lying in the grass and were able to get very close without disturbing them. They are great, and look like they are wearing panels of armour plating rather than skin because of the strange folds in their hide. The ride was over all too quickly, though we were both allowed to have a go at driving the elephant on the way back to her stable. The Mahouts sit on the elephant's head with their feet in a strap that allows their toes to dig into points behind the elephants ears. Using the feet and words they can make them speed up, slow down, move things, go left and right etc...we struggled to get them moving but eventually made a bit of progress along the road. It was a very strange feeling to be driving an elephant through a village!

A Giant Rubber Duckie

Bath time was incredible. We took down some bananas to thank Punam Kali for her efforts. She delicately grabbed each one with her trunk before putting it in her mouth. Then we were allowed in to the river and up on to her bare back. Her skin was so thick and wrinkly with wiry black hairs all over it. She's been trained to entertain a bit here, so once three people were on board she sucked up a trunk full of water and snorted it all over us. Tracey was at the front and managed to stay on while two others slipped off. This was a mistake on Tracey's part as she was then given a kind of elephant rodeo ride as Punam Kali wiggled from side to side until Tracey splashed into the water. The most amazing experience was being lifted back onto Punam Kali though. David was allowed to stand in front of her head, grab her ears and put one foot on her trunk. With that she lifted her trunk into the air, allowing him to climb effortlessly onto her head and back. Previously these elephants worked in the jungle hunting and logging. Now they earn their keep with one or two short safaris a day and a public bath, which seems much more humane to us.

From Chitwan we headed to Gorkha, namesake of the famous Nepali fighters who work for the British Army. The first King to unite the whole of Nepal as one nation was born here and there is a spectacular mountain top fort and palace. The only problem was the 1500 steps it took to get to the top. This nearly killed Dave who was unfortunately suffering with what we thought was a nasty cold. It later developed into a full blown bacterial stomach problem. The irony of this is not lost on us. He managed 7 months with no problems at all, but now as we eat in less roadside stalls and more little cafes and restaurants this is the second drug requiring tummy issue to crop up in as many months!

The road journeys between Chitwan and Gorkha, then Gorhka and Pokhara are some of the most beautiful we have been on, but also some of the worst. The roads are in a bad condition, especially now at the end of rainy season when landslides are a big problem. The buses are also totally rubbish. They are small, broken, dirty and slow. There is no leg room and often not much air because of the pace they travel. The tyres are worn from all the bad surfaces and the drivers alternate between totally mental with a predisposition to blast their horn at least every three seconds and so laid back you might arrive today, or you might arrive tomorrow. (This is because we are taking local buses. There are tourist options with a bit more suspension and padding in the seats.) The views are outstanding though. On almost every road you follow the curve of a river, either up high from the top of a valley, or down at the bottom of the gorge, or more often than not a combo of the two. The mountains are covered in crops near the bottom and beautiful green trees near the top and if you are lucky there's a glimpse or two of the really big snow capped ones in the background.

Due to David's tummy troubles we didn't do too much in Pokhara. We also experienced full-on monsoon here, with a 15 hour deluge followed by a day of rain, so it wasn't worth climbing the hill to the Peace Pagoda (and we weren't sure if David's stomach would hold out anyway!) We did visit the International Mountain museum which was very interesting, if a little pricey to get in.

Finally we visited Lumbini, birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama...or Buddha. It is such a tiny inconsequential town for such a momentous event, but this just added to the atmosphere there. The journey from Pokhara was another beautiful, but hot and curvy one and we arrived in serious need of a shower. (If you are buying this bus ticket you will be told to wait at the tourist bus station but the bus actually originates in town, where all the locals hop on and get the best seats, so try to start your journey there if you have long legs or want the breeze from the open door)

There is a huge garden complex around the actual point where Buddha was born and at the centre a stone marks the spot. This is surrounded by ruins of the Maya Devi Temple (his mother) which are covered by a brick building. You can walk around this area and we saw several devotees close to tears as they approached the marker stone, left offerings and kneeled on the floor to pray. Outside is a really lovely peaceful area with the pond where Maya Devi is supposed to have taken a bath before giving birth. There's also a huge tree covered in prayer flags and the ruins of temples and stupas going back to the 2nd Century BC. In contrast, just outside the Maya Devi complex the rest of the gardens have become a bit of a 'who loves Buddha the most' competition between various countries. Scattered in a 2km square complex are monasteries built by Japan, China, Gemany, Vietnam, France etc. Each one is huge and beautifully decorated with pictures and coloured tiles, but we did feel each place was trying to out-do the other. The only other thing to see is an eternal flame symbolising peace and hope. It was lit with the flame from the eternal flame at the United Nations building in Washington DC and has a guard to make sure it doesn't go out.

Having survived the 40 or so rickshaw drivers who thought we were mad for walking, we finally made it back to Lumbini village for a tasty lunch and now, sufficiently fortified for our next bus marathon...we are off to India!

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Photos

Festival Time
And you thought Dave wore a lot of make-up

Kala Bhairab
If you tell a lie before this giant image of Shiva it is said you will die instantly.

Decorated Rickshaw
They are all beautifully painted, but the tyres are all flat!

Fake Gurus
They charge for a picture, unless you catch them unawares!

Soft Touch
The strays at the Indian Embassy love Tracey

Aerial Congestion
Kathmandu's crowded skyline

Oasis of Peace
A small square with a Buddhist stupa in Kathmandu

Fun and Games
Tracey's tigers were no match for his wiley goats

Yeti?
...or maybe Cousin It?

Flags in the Mist
On the way to the festival in Nagarkot

Villagers Drumming
Locals get into a trance during this festival where they ask permission to harvest their corn crop

Local Woman in Nagarkot
Can she hear anything with those earings in?

Our First Glimpse
A 20 minute treat from our hotel roof in Dhulikhel

Gai Jatra
Commemorating the dead...on the path to Namobuddha

Ananda Cafe Guest House
A typical old Newari house and our home for the night in Panauti

Bodhnath Stupa
A rare moment when the stupa was free of devotees walking around it

One Of These Is Stuffed
At the festival in Bodhnath

Magical Moments
So big and yet so gentle

Gotcha!
The Rhinos don't fear elephants so we got really close

Nature's Forklift
Quicker and more fun than an elevator

Periscope Up
Mahoot-cam

Ladies Before Gents
The local bathing pool in Gorka

Ooh...look!
A peek at a peak during a break in the cloud in Pokhara.

Coulourful Kathmandu
Offerings are big business in a nation enslaved to religion

Incredible Strength
This lady has just walked up a huge hill

Prayer Wheels
Most stupa are surrounded by these wheels that are turned whilst reciting a mantra

Cable Chaos
All the power lines, but none of the power!

Warm and Warming
Hot Tibetan millet beer left Dave glowing like the Readybrek Kid

Siesta
When you've got to sleep, you've got to sleep...

Harvest Time in Nagarkot
Praying for permission to harvest and for a good crop next year

Receiving a Tika
A holy man gives his blessings

Namobuddha
This wall remembers those who have died in the last year

Newari Rice
On the road to Panauti

Room with a View
Across Panauti Old Town from our guest house

Fancy Dress
At the Gai Jatra in Bodhnath

Tibetian And Proud
Expressing their culture free from Chinese persecution

The Monk Of Funk
We liked this Monk's style

Beef And Pigeon Pie Anyone?
Expect here you would go to prison for killing a cow

Coffee Stupa
Bodnath coffee shop - a great location for an early morning fix

How To Save On Petrol Bills
Boarding our beautiful beast to go on Safari

Who is Bathing Who?
The answer is in the next picture

How to Dismount Gracefully
This is called the face first technique

Tracey Gives A 30th Birthday Present Hint
David worries we're going to need a bigger back yard