Monkeying around in Temples and watching flute rock
Travel Location: Kathmandu,Nepal
Day 1
The flight over Nepal was rather spectacular with the snow capped mountains and scenery below – I was grateful for my window seat and was now getting more excited by the prospect of Kathmandu. This enthusiasm was only slightly dampened by the hour long queue to obtain a visa at the airport.
Outside the airport, there was a mad scum of people but I had arranged for my hotel to collect me and their rep had a big sign outside with my name on. Oh, it’s nice to feel wanted (well for the $6 pick up fee anyway).
Outside the hotel car, lots of blokes surrounded me to help me lift my rucksack into the boot of the car. I was uncertain as to whether or not they were connected with the hotel until they started demanding English money for their ‘services’ – the hotel rep was no help whatsoever with this as he just sat in the driving seat of the car and went on his mobile phone. Hopefully, this was not a bad sign for my time in Kathmandu.
After a short time, I was at my hotel in the Thamel district of Kathmandu. This seemed a very touristy area – I knew this because of the bright lights, English signs and the fact that lots of white people were walking about.
It was now 3pm and the jet lag was kicking in so I went to sleep for the next four hours. I wanted to stay in my bed but I dragged myself out of bed to have a quick walk round Thamel.
I felt popular in Thamel as every 20 or 30 seconds, a shifty looking bloke would come up to me and ask me if I wanted some ‘smoke’. However, I did not need any sleep inducing drugs as half an hour later, I was back in my bed and sleeping away (purely on the drug of jet lag).
Day 2
Next morning, I woke at 9am and as I was tired I said to myself that I would get up an hour later at 10am. When 10am came, I decided that I needed another hour before I should get up. When 11am came, I decided that I needed another hour. This kept continuing until 2pm when I decided that enough was enough and that I would have to get out of bed.
I had chicken chow mein for ‘breakfast’ in my hotel. The day before I had mentioned to the hotel staff that I was looking to go into Tibet and, so with afternoon breakfast, I also had the hard sell of a Tibet tour from the hotel manager. The guy was ‘doing me a big favour’ by getting a price of $870 for a tour. However, the tour did not include seeing Everest Base Camp on the Tibet side so I was not convinced that this was the tour for me.
After breakfast, I met a guy called Robin from England who said that he was going to the Monkey Temple with one of the receptionists, Hem, in a couple of hours. I said that I would join them after checking out some travel agents.
It turned out that my hotel boss was not doing me that big a favour as one tour operator quoted me the price of $780. However, seeing Everest base camp on the Tibet side was proving a bit of a problem as the prices being quoted were what is known as ‘crazy prices’.
In about the sixth travel agent, I was then given a bombshell that if I went to Tibet from Nepal then the Chinese double entry (no jokes please) visa that I had paid lots of money for in England would be cancelled. I had got the double entry visa so that I could see Tibet then India then Japan before heading again to China. I was quite certain that if I had a big fat cancelled stamp on the Chinese visa in my passport then the next China section was unlikely to happen as I doubted the friendly Chinese Government would give me another visa (particularly after visiting Tibet).
The last travel agent was not pushy and said that I had alot to think about (he was not kidding).
In the meantime, he said that I should come and meet some of his friends for a quick drink. His friends were an Australian, Tim and a Canadian, Erin. Both had been in Nepal for quite a while though Erin was leaving in a couple of days for Bangkok. I told them that I would have to be leaving shortly to see some monkeys and temples.
Back at the hotel, as it was getting on, Hem recommended that we get a taxi to the monkey temple. It was one hell of a bumpy ride – the Nepalese know how to test their suspensions on their vehicles.
The entrance to the Monkey temple was rather colourful and soon enough,monkeys appeared. However, the monkeys were not of the cheeky variety as they shied away from humans and did not come looking for (or pinching) food.
The temple was rather busy and hectic and full of tourists, locals, monkeys and dogs. (The Dog temple does not sound that good). Hem said that he liked to come to the place to ‘relax’ – to me, this place seemed the exact opposite of relaxing. The view from the monkey temple over Kathmandu was impressive and it was good to get some sunset photos.
As it was getting dark, we then started to leave but took a detour to a Buddhist school where some kid monks, who were dressed in the red robes, were playing in a yard. Their ‘playing’ appeared to involve doing lots of kung fu moves – ah, the buddhist way.
Hem said that it would be cheaper to catch a bus back to the hostel. The bus was an experience – it was a small mini-bus but the ticket attendant in the back of the bus just kept letting people on the bus so everybody was all squeezed up. Often the bus would start off with the ticket attendant hanging out of the bus with the sliding door still open. Thankfully I was sat well away from the door.
Back at the hotel, I was on the main street in Thamel when I heard my name being called. I looked around and saw Tim from earlier. I went up to join him for a drink. He was going onto a bar later and said that we should join him. Robin and I said that we would after getting online to sort a few things out. We found a rather posh cafe that had a good internet connection – however, despite being posh looking, it still could not escape the regular power cuts that keep happening in Kathmandu.
The next day, I noticed a sign in my hotel which appeared to predict when the power cuts take place – maybe the hotel manager has a hotline to one of the Buddhist Gods for such things.
When we went to meet Tim, we found him leaving with a lady friend – bloody Australians. However, the lady friend was not that good looking and I’m sure that he would regret things in the morning (do Australians regret such things?!?)
Robin told me that he was a flute player and was a session musician and that he was keen to hook up with some local musicians. Near our hotel, we could hear some live bluesy rock music so we went into the place. The music stopped five minutes later – this was rather strange as it was only about 10 o’clock.
We then went over to meet the band who were Ash, Bu and Raz. Ash’s wife, Debbie, was their manager and Riz who appeared to be a kind of roadie. They told us that the reason for the early finish was that they had once played after 10pm and had ended up in jail!
I thought that it was rather cool that they had committed crimes for music rather than against.
The band shared their food with us and we talked and supped beers. They said that they would be playing again the following night and seemed happy for Robin to jam with them. Keep on rocking in the flute world.
Day 3
Got up early today at 1pm and again had chicken chow mein for breakfast. Again, I also had the hard sell of a Tibet tour with breakfast from the hotel manager. I told him that if I went into Tibet then my China visa would be cancelled. He made a phone call and told me that this info was true. After going on the internet later, I definitely knew that it was true too.
There were some tough decisions to be made – going to Tibet was one of the absolute must-sees of my travelling. However, if I did not see it shortly then for the next few months then average daily temperatures would start to be in the minus and frostbite category so I would only be able to see it again in March which would involve doing some major u-turns in my travelling plans. Also, if I saw Tibet from Nepal then it could put my future China travel plans into big time jeopardy.
Ah, the joys of travelling ie having to massively change your travel plans. I decided that I would fly to China and go to Tibet and work my way back to Nepal. There was a £300 (ouch, ouch, ouch) flight to Chengdu in China for the next day on the internet but this involved changing in Kunming in China.
I went to the friendly travel agent from the day before and he said that he could get me a direct flight to Chengdu the next day for about the same price.
Whilst the travel agent sorted out the ticket, I then went for a walk to the famous Durbar Square of Kathmandu.
The streets of Kathmandu were rather charming – small temples, narrow streets and quaint, delapidated housing – I think that ‘rustic charm’ is the phrase.
As for Durbar Square, it was a massive hot-potch of temples, shrines, courtyards, European style buildings and bells. Any walkway in the square was a traffic route for bikes, cars and everything. I had to look in every direction when I moved about the place. Hawkers abounded everywhere and I was regularly asked if I needed a guide. Even the fancy dressed, make-up wearing holymen were looking for money for pictures.
I then heard my name being called (I was getting used to this in Kathmandu now!) It was Bu from the band of the night before. He was sitting with Ras on some steps under one of the temples. He treated me to a cup of tea. I had to stop drinking my tea when some feathers from a bird nestled under the roof of the temple just happened to fall into my tea. Tea with feather was not for me but it also happened to Bu but he was happy to continue drinking.
I was then given a guided tour of the square by Bouk. He took me to the home of the living goddess in Kathmandu, the Kumari. Well, not really the home, but the very small courtyard of the home. He told me that the goddess only ever comes out for very special events and is essentially confined to her home. The home did not seem so big and if I was a living goddess then I think that I would be living in more plush surroundings.
Back at the hostel, Robin said that he had spoken with the lead singer and guitarist of the group, Ash, who was still happy for him to join him on stage tonight at the gig that they were playing.
Ash’s band were starting at 6.30pm and we turned up at their venue around 7pm. Half an hour later, Robin was up on stage with the band jamming on his flute. It was damn impressive as well. They played for a good 45 minutes with only one break in between for lots of applause. It was also really good considering that they had never practised together.
Robin even acquired himself a fan/groupie/stalker – this drunk Nepalese man (possibly gay) kept wanting to have his picture with him and to hold and play his flute.
Day 4
The hotel had arranged for the taxi driver to take me to Kathmandu airport – it was like stepping back in time with this airport. At the check in desk, they were using a 1970s looking computer and there was no conveyor belt for luggage.
Bags were simply thrown on a pile at the back of the check in desk. I was also given sticker to wear with the emblem of the airline on – how nice.
After going through immigration, the departure lounge was also in keeping with the time warp feel. There was no big computer screen with the list of all the flights and whether or not they were boarding. Instead, they had big screens showing films. One of the films was that Robin Williams film where he plays a robot that develops human feelings. I had a feeling that the Kathmandu airport setup was all a little odd.
At the gate, there was also some confusion about the plane to board – it seemed that the people going on the direct flight to Chengdu were also going on the flight to Lhasa in Tibet.
It turned out that my direct flight to Chengdu was not a direct flight at all but that I was having to change in Tibet. Somebody upstairs was having a laugh at my expense.
