Hostelworld.com

It is early July and for the moment I´m stuck in
Kathmandu, considering going back to India. Most
indications, including the local press, are that those
perennial sub-continental rivals India and Pakistan
are ‘de-escalating’ their territorial sabre rattling
and the trouble once again is restricting itself to
the state of Kashmir.

I originally planned to spend all of June and July in
India. Nepal has certainly been a worthwhile diversion though. Kath is an interesting, albeit dusty and noisy, city; over-run with rickshaws, motorbikes and extremely annoying shopfront businessmen. I’ve seen a multitude of Buddhist and Hindu relics here. And there can be quite an overlap between the two faiths. Shrines, stupas, temples, sometimes even just a slab of stone, serve as a religiously siginificant places of worship here. There wouldn’t be a single back street of Kath without one. Most are distinguished from their surrounds by the splotches of red and yellow tika smeared over them.

Of the larger sites, the local ‘Durbar Square’ is a
complex of old Hindu temples and monuments; most major Nepali towns have a Durbar Square. Pashupatinath Hindu temple is a proliferation of stupas, temples, bells, housings, monkeys, Sadhus (holy men that have renounced all their possessions, family and everyday life for a wandering spiritual quest), a river cremation site and a modern Hindu-only temple.

Swayambhunath Buddhist Stupa is the highest point on the Kath valley floor. Prayer flags are in full
flutter and there’s prayer wheels to turn; monkeys
scrounging over food and fleaing each other; pilgrims and monks in circumambulation; many mini stupas; and the piercing colourful eyes of Buddha gazing serenely at you from the main stupa. Boudhanath Stupa is similar save for being able to climb up on its lower levels and spin a couple of enormous prayer wheels. Apparently Boudhanath is one of the most significant stupas for Tibetan Monks. The Dalai Lama’s and Sai Baba’s birthday are to be celebrated at these stupas
some time soon.

The look and feel of religious sites here is very
different from what I’ve seen previously. Here it’s a
lot more organic, multitudinous, lived in, used;
beggars are allowed to loiter. You could even
polemicise the difference by calling it unkempt or
dirty in contrast to the sterile, neat and packaged
style of Hong Kong, Korea and Japan which I´ve seen on previous travels; you never see beggars around religious sites there.

Nepal is the poorest nation I’ve visited thus far and
it shows most starkly with the begging, the nooks and crannies people do business from, the sometimes oleaginous nature of the more successful traders in Thamel - the local tourist centre - and the drone-like rickshaw/taxi drivers and drug dealers. The begging is just sad, I’m at a loss about what to do most of time, I’ve only contributed a few times (and helped not at
all I’m sure), but at least you can sympathise. As you can with the nooks and cranny bunch. But the
businessmen, drivers and dealers are trying at the
best of times. There’s a beautiful local greeting
‘Namaste’. Approximates to ‘may the god/dess within you shine’. The beckoning from shopfronts seem like an abuse of the greeting when it and a little conversation about where I’m from will invariably lead into some sort of pitch to sell stuff I have no interest in buying. The aggressiveness of it is off-putting. This can taint your other interactions
with locals, most of whom are incredibly friendly.

The most genuine experience I’ve had here is with a
friend Pandeet. Pandeet works in the city but his wife and extended Hindu family live in the hills. I spent a recent weekend there and it was revealing and enjoyable to see how the other half live; one that is, for the most part, completely different from my own life. I was treated to the most sublimely delicious Dahl Baht (national dish: light veg curry, dahl, side dishes); meto-ta! Buffalo milk and curd got my poos in healthier shape than they’ve been since leaving Australia. Kids as young as 8 to the grandparents all work tirelessly and with a remarkable strength given their stature; corn, rice the main crops on steep terraced hills, other veggies, fruits. Large marijuana trees cluster in spots. One of the dusty old blokes with a big smile vaguely related to Ram had some rip-snorter gear, they mostly don’t smoke it themselves but took delight in watching the tall goofy pale face foreigner get wobbly on it. Open space was rare and there was quite a lot you could get culture
shocked with but it was an amazing experience. Also the closest I’ve seen to ecological sustainability if it wasn’t for the expanding family cum community
there.

In another recent outing I got up to around 5000m
elevation on a 10 day trek into Langtang National
Park. The nature was variant and beautiful, views were vast and the mountains dwarf anything Australia/Hong Kong/Korea has. Got reasonably close to a retreating glacier and snow capped peaks above the tree-line, got a little cold, got in some stinky and leach-ridden showers and toilets and got eerie in the fog and the quiet. The slow pace, the shy buddhist locals, the self-made stone stupas, prayer stone walls, houses, fences and the oodles of time spent not walking was a little disorientating and solemn.

Before Nepal, Dehli was a rushed visit where I saw the massive Red Fort and Parliament House, tried to cope with the heat and took a 19 hour train ride to Gorakhpur on my way to Nepal.

And before that, Hong Kong was quite a packed 2 weeks of sightseeing and socialising. I climbed a big hill call Pat Sin Leng (downgraded from mountain now that I’ve seen the Himalayas). Swam a few times for the first time in a while. Shutter-bugged at the Repulse Bay collection of Buddhas and God/Goddess statues that bordered on kitch themepark but was actually a temple cum surf live saving club! Had a big boogie while doing
money-pinching sums trying to save money on the
drinking budget with some mates (it’s very expensive in Hong Kong, $20 AUD for a pint of beer!). Saw the largest bronze seated Buddha in the world on Lantau Island and went to Tai O, a (mostly) traditional village on stilts near the seaside. There, a friend and I lucked across an elaborate, colourful incence infused ceremony in honour of a sea goddess and watched a chinese opera in a bamboo constructed theatre.

Oh, and the city is huge, burdened by a smog most of the day, pretty in lights at night, and a pedestrian’s nightmare; the harbour a constant traffic jam of boats. The double decker trams, the profligate sign superstructure overhanging the streets and the bamboo scaffolding on skyscrapers are a sight.