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Published: August 13th 2009
Machhapuchhare
from the bus to the rafting trip put-inO, To be in Nepal
Now that t'Monsoon's there,
And whoever wakes in Nepal
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the Himalayan peaks round the local hills
Are hidden by low-lying mists,
While the cockroach sings on the bedroom floor
In Nepal—now!
Some reflections after getting home!
This was my first visit to Nepal and I spent a bare three and a half weeks there - this blog is really directed at those who have never been to Nepal and if some of what I say is obvious, or inaccurate, to "old hands" then I apologise profusely
Weather
I theory I was in Nepal during the monsoon season. That season should normally be characterised by low-lying mists in the morning, hot days and wet evenings as the rain pours down. In my first week in Nepal there was a shower during my first evening (in Kathmandu) but then the remainder of that first week was hot and dry. I should not have been able to see anything above the cloud-line, certainly not the icy peaks of any actual Himalayas. In fact I saw the distinctive triangular summit of Machhapuchhare (6993m) a number of times during that first week,
Typical Menu
from Hotel Exelsior, Thamel, Kathmandu including while driving out of Pokhara on the way to my white-water rafting trip after having been there for a week. The weather finally "broke" at the end of that day - we were only 15/20 minutes from getting back to Lakeside when the heavens opened and it rained continuously for about two and a half days - clearly trying to make up for lost time! After that the weather settled into a more normal monsoon pattern - the mornings frequently had low cloud, the high peaks were rarely visible and it rained most evenings. The days were still very hot - I frequently arrived at school with my clean-on shirt dripping with sweat before the first lesson.
Food
Nepal is a country that has adapted to, and accepted, numerous foreign influences over the millenia. This applies to food, religion, language and many other aspects of life. Although there are distinctive Nepali dishes, most restaurants (or certainly those that cater to foreign visitors) offer Nepali dishes but also Indian, Chinese, Tibetan and European (i.e. Italian) dishes.
Most Nepalis eat Dal Bhat (sometimes called Dal Bhat Tarkari) three times a day: late breakfast, lunch and evening meal. "Dal"
Hinduism & Buddhism
The major Tibetan Buddhist site of Swayambhunath with the Buddhist stupa, a Hindu shikhara temple and numerous Hindu shrines simply means "lentils" and this is normally served as a thin lentil soup in its own dish. "Bhat" means cooked rice - this comes on the plate and you then simply pour the lentil soup over the rice. In a restaurant you would ask for either "Veg" or "non-Veg". In either case you would get another dish or two containing curried mixed vegetables (this is the Tarkari part) and if you had requested the "veg" option you would get a fourth dish containing the curried meat. In a restaurant this often appears on the menu as something like "Nepali Set Meal". On both occasions when I ordered this I was asked if I wanted more of any of the dishes.
Chinese food, and more specifically Tibetan food, is very common in Nepal - most restaurants have Fried Rice and Chow Mein (spelt in more different ways than you could imagine!) on the menu. Common Tibetan dishes are momos (meat or vegetables cooked inside a dumpling-type coating) and thugpa (a thick soup).
Religion
The majority of Nepalis are Hindus but the country is also strongly influenced by Buddhism with the result that the two are often seamlessly mixed
Use of English
I'm still not sure what "Live Kitchen" was meant to mean! together. Hindu temples and simple shrines are everywhere, literally shrines appear on almost every street corner, and at the major Tibetan Buddhist stupas (particularly Boudhanath and Swayambhunath in Kathmandu) the sites also contain many Hindu temples and shrines, so that it is impossible to separate the two - basically each religion (although Buddhism is not strictly speaking a religion) has adopted elements of the other.
Language
The official language of Nepal is Nepali which is very similar to Hindi which means that most Nepalis can easily read Indian newspapers and watch Indian TV programmes and films, however Nepal actually has dozens of different languages, again reflecting the influences of the many different cultures that have come into the country. English is a key subject in Nepali schools - the three most important subjects (in terms of the amount of time given to them on the school timetable) are Nepali, Maths and English. Many of the private schools use English as the teaching medium for all subjects. In the main tourist areas you can get away without knowing any Nepali words at all - I think I had managed to accumulate less than 10 words of Nepali during my
Washing clothes
Most Nepalis have to wash their clothes (and themselves) in public stay. Nepali attempts at using English on shop signs, restaurant menus etc are quite amusing - the number of different ways of spelling certain basic words is amazing!
Daily Life
Nepal is still one of the world's poorest countries which means that the majority of the population live in very basic circumstances. To the foreign tourist this is probably most obvious in three main parts of basic daily life - water supply, housing and transport.
Most people do not have a water supply to their own home so they are forced to collect water either from a public tap or from flowing water such as a stream. All day long you see people carrying all sorts of water containers to and from the public taps. Rather than carry even more water home for washing, most people will take their washing (clothes and dishes) to the public tap and do it there so it's very common to see washing going on, including washing themselves. These public water supplies are not totally clean and while I was in Nepal there was a bad diarrhoea outbreak with a number of deaths through contaminated water supplies. Proper clean bottled water is
Typical homes
These are on the main Pokhara to Kathmandu highway available for visiting tourists and usually cost 20NR (less than 20p) for a litre bottle.
Nepal does not have shanty towns like those in Mumbai or South America but even so the housing for many people is fairly basic, often just 2 or 3 rooms so a whole family might have to share the one bedroom. Roofs are often just corrugated metal sheets held down by heavy rocks. Many people run a simple shop selling basic commodities from their own home, or run another business such as a work shop, tailoring business etc from their home.
Privately owned cars are very rare and the import duty on a car is very high. Most cars are taxis, usually little white Suzukis. The main form of personal transport is walking, pedal cycles or motorbikes. People will attempt to carry almost anything on their back, often with a strap over their forehead. The most common container used is a conical basket and it is very common to see people carrying their own vegetable produce in one of these to sell. They are also used a lot in building sites for carrying sand or bricks etc. It is also quite common to
Cycles ...
... will carry almost anything! see women doing this heavy manual lifting work. People will also carry almost anything on a bike - 3-wheeled vehicles made from a pedal cycle with a platform behind are common and so are 4-wheeled carts that are simply pushed around. On the roads the most common motor vehicles are motorbikes. Because of the lack of private cars, and because Nepal has no train network, buses are also very common for short distance and long distance journeys. I used buses quite a bit, for example just to get from Lakeside into the centre of Pokhara, and a typical fare is 12NR (about 11p). Nominally Nepalis drive on the left but in practice they tend to drive where and when they want. Roads are often in a very bad condition with enormous potholes and can be very muddy after a downpour. There is no such no concept as "give way" - for example vehicles will come out of a side street straight into the main traffic flow without waiting for someone to let them in and overtaking on narrow roads where there is on-coming traffic is common.
Attitudes to Tourists
If you're a white westerner you are going to
Buses
A 3-wheeler Tuk Tuk bus stand out in Asia so there's not much you can do about that! I was never treated disrespectfully in the time I spent in Nepal but in the main tourist areas like Lakeside in Pokhara and Thamel in Kathmandu, people trying to sell you something can be very persistent.
Outside these areas locals, particularly the children, are keen to try out their English on you. Their first question is almost always "Where are you from?" This will then usually be followed by "Where are you going?" and if the conversation gets further than that it will likely be questions about your family. When I did my walking day from Sarangkot to Kaskikot I met one group of kids who really wanted to talk a lot in English and were very keen to get more English teaching materials for their school. I had brought quite a lot of teaching materials with me from England and much of it wasn't appropriate where I was teaching so I promised to post them a couple of books (which I did manage to do on my last day in Pokhara) and to send them a copy of a photo I took of them.
While walking around Lakeside and Thamel I was continually asked by taxi drivers whether I needed a taxi - normally the taxi driver would sound his horn to let me know he was there, then if that didn't elicit any response he would pull up next to me and say "Taxi?" Having a beard, almost every time I passed a barbers shop I would be asked if I wanted a shave. In Durbar Square in Kathmandu, and also at the Pashupatinath Temple, guides offering to show you around can be very persistent, telling you that you cannot hope to understand the importance of the place without their detailed knowledge. To convince you how knowledgeable they are they might offer to tell you the capital city of any country you care to name - one asked me that so I said "Ghana" and he said "Havana" but letting him know that he was wrong didn't put him off trying to convince me I should use his guiding services! In Kathmandu I was frequently asked if I wanted to buy some Marijuana and occasionally if I wanted a "massage". Sadhus frequently offered to give me a blessing (in exchange for a "donation"
Friendly locals
some kids I chatted to during my walk from Sarangkot to Kaskikot - I later posted them some English books I didn't need in the school and promised them I would send them a copy of this photo of course).
In Lakeside Tibetan trinket sellers were common. I actually built up quite a friendly relationship with one persistent lady - the first time she tried to show me her wares was right at the beginning of my time there. I said that I had just arrived and wouldn't be thinking about buying souvenirs to take home for some time so she made me promise I would look at her selection when I was ready. I didn't bump into her again for about another 2 weeks during which time I had visited the Tashliling Tibetan refugee camp near Pokhara and had bought lots of stuff there. I then met her again in Lakeside a few days later during a heavy downpour - she wanted to get out all her trinkets and show them to me then and there in the pouring rain so I said no and she kept reminding me that I promised to look next time etc. I felt a bit bad about that so when I met her again during the Lakeside strike I finally agreed to look at her stock and bought a necklace that I didn't really want! That was actually my last day in Pokhara and later that evening I was eating in a Lakeside restaurant when she passed by on her way home. She saw me in the restaurant and recognised me and shouted out "hello" so I invited her in to have a drink (coke!) and we chatted for quite a while about each other's life, family etc. She lived in the other Tibetan refugee camp north of Pokhara and was very fatalistic about life (the Buddhist karma principle etc.) and was convinced that although she'd had a bad day that day (she said that the necklace I bought was the only thing she'd sold all day!), there would be good days. It was quite a nice way to end my stay in Pokhara.
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Craig
non-member comment
Interesting
Well Done Mike, I hope that your flight home was ok and you have settled back into life in Halesowen! Your account of your time is very interesting and I'm sure that if someone who is going to Nepal found it they would find all of the information, hints and descriptions very useful and inspiring. See you in Sept for some more tales I hope.