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Published: September 4th 2005
festival colours Janai Purnima
Colours used at festivals or on important holy days.Given the recent (and on-going) tragedies in Iraq and the US, as well as so many other discouraging events, I feel like these entries now are trite. Certainly, I don't mean to demean anyone's loss or misfortune. And am thus tempted to not write at all. However, for the sake of conveying some positive among the negative, I will enter this after all.
My great condolences to everyone who is touched by misfortune.
Kathmandu. It is exhilerating and, now, maddening, and even discouraging, as with all big touristed cities.
The predators, the would-be scammers...They begin innocently enough, with a smiling "namastay" which seems so cordial and welcoming. After half a day, one learns the lines.
The first night, as the sky dimmed and the lights turned up, Kathmandu revealed itself in layers of brick and terraces, until the city proper came full-on and the perimeter melted into a flurry of traffic and buildings.
Straight from the C border guards, I felt I could truly breathe, for the first time in a while, despite the inherent pollution of cities. High altitudes, like at Mount Everest (or Qomolangma, as it is Tibetanly
known) inhibit the lungs despite being of the clearest of airs, often rendering one struggling for a good chestful of air. Yet, this is a different sort of strangling, a physical not a mental one.
China has managed to make Tibet feel like China, with its buildings, its pop culture, clothing, speech... I wasn't able to find any Chinese in "the T.A.R" (or outside) who could utter a word of Tibetan. I did look. Perhaps they exist, but certainly don't abound. Tibetans, on the other hand, seem to have adapted very adeptly to speaking Chinese, and, for some, now English.
In Tibet, as in China, internet is very censored and limited, resulting in no-show or error pages. One US Tibetan studies student I met earlier on, whilst in Chinese Tibet (what isn't?) vocally shied away from me when he learned I'd tried to access DemocracyNow. Okay, so that mayn't have been the smartest of sites to chase, but BBC was blocked and I was hungry. In fact, he didn't just shy away, he bluntly told me he wouldn't associate with me and bear my burden if the Chinese police came down on me. Dramatic? Maybe not.
Knocking
colour
Great swaths of colour for sale: to hold and to love, to wear and adore, to ogle from afar. fervently on wood, I again thank whatever it is that brings me good fortune. I did not have a problem entering or exiting Tibet without the needed money-to-the-pockets-of-officials so-called "Tibet Travel Permit," though I did start to quake a bit near the border (I'm not very rich and had just heard of a woman fined US$1000 for such an offense against the state). Perhaps this is karma, perhaps it is my innocent face.
So the first day took me through a warmer, muggier climate of lushness: green layers of rice paddies and other mountainside growth sided a snaking river. The bridge from Tibet to Nepal, in fact, crosses this river, red line in the middle. The road down from Dram, Tibet, also snakes, lined with wooden shacks, some cement monstrosities (in miniature), and many trickling waterfalls. The waterfalls continue to trickle on the Nepali side, sometimes gushing into growth-giving bursts.
While waiting for my shared car to pass through the border routine (I'd walked ahead), I climbed a set of winding stone steps, far up, sweating and removing Tibetan layers, to eventually find a cornfield. Houses swam amongst the tall corn, and a small white temple floated higher
Shiva temple
While taking photographs opposite this non-descript uptstairs temple, a guy found me and took me upstairs. Inside the temple, a number of lounging men, alternately playing music and smoking pot. Shiva is the god of ganja, so pot-smoking is completely tolerated. above, in the green of the hillside. It was the most wonderful introduction to Nepal.
The all-star intro continued down the dirt road lined with wooden buildings, buildings offering guesthouse lodging, restaurants, tea, 6 cent plates of curried chickpeas/potatoes/green peas...
Most of the women wore long floating tunics over floating pants, often in a dramatic red. Most also had a tiny stud in their nose and exquisitely rich skin. Many dragged on cigarettes like they were oxygen masks.
My shared car (though in retrospect I wish I had not worried about the doubled time and had just taken the bus---it looked fun: people stacked atop in, relatively cheerfully squatting for the 7 hour ride to Kathmandu) eventually passed through all the hoops and gates, and we made our way, 4 screaming children and 4 cramped adults, towards Kathmandu.
Leaning out of the window like my dog used to do helped a lot to both blot out the interior noise and bring a more vivid sense of the surroundings. I found it comfortably similar to parts of SE Asia, with the small wooden shacks, smoke smells, mountain-curved layered agricultural terraces...
The music was distinctly Indian, sometimes
organ
The organ in the Shiva temple. It is small and wields a basic melody but with tablas and singing it is mesmerizing. Nepali. And the faces, also distinctly of this district. Apparently, many Sherpas live in this area, as it is hilly enough to warrant some of them doing the sherpa profession named after the people who live in mountainous areas.
And so, from those open villages and faces, into the mess of Kathmandu. A week in the heart of it--about 6 days too long. On the other hand, Kathmandu is lush with architectural gems. Wander down a dirty, narrow alley and stop to enter through a low, Newari-sized archway and burst into an open courtyard with a portly
stupa in the centre. Perhaps it is an active place of worship, or perhaps it is a neglected blob used to lean upon or hang clothes from.
The historical centre of Kathmandu, Durbar Square, is also bursting with old buildings, some wooden, some stone, all with intricate somethings: the wooden temples often have incredible windows, of lattice-work dark wood; any building usually has various
deities carved into pillars, beams, rooves. A number of the temples in Durbar Square have some pretty hot pornography on the roof beams. Aside from serving religious and fantasy needs, they are also great spots to hang out and watch the world shuffle past. On festival days, they are crowded with worshippers and tourists, praying or photographing, each repecting them in their own way.
The festival days are many, seemingly one or two every month. Within the first few days in Kathmandu,
Janai Purnima came and passed in a burst of colour and noise. This is the day when the higher caste men(yes, the caste system still runs strong in Nepal) traditionally change a thread worn around their arm and under their shirts. For the lower class, there is still quite a lot of music and worship to be had. In Patan, a sort of suburb to the south of Kathmandu, tho historically one of the great Hindu cities in the Valley, many crowded around one particular temple, where dancing processions took place and holy men sat with threads to wind around wrists. It is said to be good luck to leave these bracelets for a few
weeks or longer. At this one temple where everyone crowded and shoved, boys splashed along the pool areas around outside and inside of the temple courtyard. A thin cement walkway divided the inner pool, along which worshippers tiptoed their way to the holy man who blessed them with coloured marks on their heads and colourful words. Incense fogged the air and dancers weaved past again and again.
A day later,
Gai Jatra began, where families who've lost a loved one in the past year pay respects and help the souls on their way by leading processions through the streets and into Durbar Square, where the old Palace is. A Nepali told me that years ago, this was the King's method of taking a census of the dead. Quirkily, those who haven't lost
anyone march a contrasting procession of boisterous music and colourful robes. So on the same day there is mourning and celebration. Cows, as in India, are sacred, and it is very interesting to watch Hindus pass a cow and caress its back. Some caress long and lovingly, others a fleeting touch followed by a reverent touch to their own foreheads.
By chance, I happened
tablas
I am in love with these drums. to be in Durbar Square when a great crowd of people formed. I was drawn by the armed police (who are numerous and scattered everywhere, everday) who started shooting at the birds in the trees, as one does. This was one of the 13 times, so i was told, that
Kumari comes out of her temple and crawls into the hole of another temple for an hour or so. She is the living goddess, a virgin yet. They say that long ago she used to visit the then-King to play games. He was apparently taken by her beauty and tried to take her, wherein she threatened to disappear from his life but eventually conceeded to visit as a goddess, an untouchable virgin. So they say. In any case, a new goddess is sought when the current one nears puberty. The new woman is then given a stipend, and sent back to 'normality,' replaced by a younger version who meets the strict physical and behavioural characteristics. The Kumari I glimsped was tiny, very heavily made-up, very ornately dressed, and carried away, delicate feet never brushing the ground.
Soon it will be Teej, the festival of women, which involved
Ganesh
The story went something like this: when
Shiva, the most powerful Hindu god, the father came home to find Pavarti the mother in bed with some young man, he angrily decapitated the young man. After learning that the young man was, in fact, his son, he desperately brought him back to life, using the head of the first living creature he found, an elephant. So they say. a day or more of fasting and some offerings in honour of their husbands. Not really a country for equal rights, but in a letter in the Kathmandu Times, one woman claimed that Nepali women are proud of this tradition.
Another tradition here seems to be political crises. And so, while the take-over itself was widely publicized, as were the many human rights violations and censorship, the protests do continue. One day I happened to wander near one of the colleges where a protest was near finishing. Heading for it, I was stopped not by the lines of armed police but by a few students who warned me to please not go closer. They said that small bombs are frequently set off, by the students. Distracted by talking with them, I didn't get much closer than about 20m before the protest seemed to fizzle and die. Later, however, I read that a few protests occured that day and that some of them got violent, involving the arrest of many student protesters for their crime of disagreeing with the King.
The King himself later gave an interview on Nepal Television, wherein he declared the main goal of the take-over
Dancer
My temple friends said she was a bit nutty. And maybe she was. Or perhaps she was clever. Whatever, she seemed free, and she liked to dance. to be to "restore democracy and peace in the country by bringing an end to terrorism." He also said "people do not want terrorism," and urged everybody to "work together to find peace in the country. At the same time, social programs have continually been cut and NGOs find strict censorship. So, it would appear that he has been studying the art of rhetoric from the great vacationing leader from Texas.
It is interesting to read and watch Nepali news. Most of what I've seen or read has been fairly full of praise for the great, honoured one. However, respect and tiptoeing can appear similar. There are a few who write of the problems with Maoists and political uniformity, but even they are careful not to type too loudly.
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jojo
non-member comment
namastay
Eva! As always, thank you for posting the pictures and exceptional story. You're not working for "Lonely Planet" are you? =) Keep safe!