Kirtipur

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Alan Stock

Camille

Day 69 – Location: Kiritipur, Nepal

10/11/12

Whilst I was having breakfast at the guest house Camille appeared. I met her and her sister Gersende afterwards. They’d been to Nargakot for the sunrise and sunset, near Bhaktapur. Although I’d been advised it’s one of the best views in Nepal, Camille wasn’t too impressed and said the visibility was poor. They’d had a good time walking around the area though.

Kirtipur sidestreet

They were off to Kirtipur today, a recommended town close to Kathmandu, and invited me to join them. I agreed and we caught a local mini bus from the bus station nearby. It was pretty big and comfy by Nepali standards. We drove through the sprawl of Kathmandu for about half an hour and wound our way through a short bit of countryside up a hill to Kirtipur. I was expecting some charming village but it was a typical, although very colourful town of stacked houses on the hillside. We were dropped off just outside town, where kids were playing football and a team of guys were stuffing blankets on the grass, beating the blankets with sticks to make the down more fluffy.

Gersende and Camille

We walked uphill from the bus stop along the tall streets and came upon a big Thai-style Wat (temple) which we’d seen from the bus stop, decorated in red and gold with a large large golden stupa next to the main building. There was a memorial stone for a Thai airlines plane crash which had happened nearby. We saw two tourists inside, and for the rest of the day we didn’t see any more, which made a nice change!

We climbed up a steep path from the main road where the houses became more old and traditional, reminding me of Bhaktapur and Patan. We followed the sound of music to find a procession of people in black dress playing flutes and drums. We later learned they were promoting the opening of a new museum in the town.

As it was Saturday there was lots of activity as we wandered around the charming backstreets. The people here were really friendly and quite happy for us to take photos of them at work and play. Lots of women were drying rice on mats in the baking heat of the streets.

After a nice little stone temple we found a group of guys clustered around a piece of paper on which symbols were drawn. It was a dice gambling game. The participants dropped paper money from above to land randomly on one of the symbols. Then 6 dice were rolled, and you got a payout if your money was on the symbols which came up on the dice. The guy running it asked if we wanted to try. I gave it a go and got lucky – double my money back!

Shortly afterwards we passed a cute kid wearing a tiny bike helmet which was really funny, his mum let us take a photo.

Soon we found a collection of stupas at the top of the hill, with prayer flags fanning out like webs from each one. The central stupa was unusually painted blue around the top where the eyes were.

Down the other side of the hill we came to a small temple next to one of the big communal ponds that you can find in the old cities, which was covered in algae and had rubbish floating around in it. Cam had been chatting to a local guy who introduced himself. We’ll call him Kamal as I can’t remember his name, it was something like that! Kamal spoke good English and told us some history of the area, this was one of the five big city states of Nepal back in the day, and we were in the main square. I suspected that Kamal was a guide and was proved right later, but he wasn’t offering his services for money, just curious to get to know us and tell us a bit about the area. He explained that the green pond gets cleaned and filled with fresh water at certain times of the year for festivals.

Next to the pond was a very old and ornate wooden building with sloping windows. He said it was the old house for the king and queen of Kirtipur, back when it was a separate city-state. He offered to show us inside, it’s just a normal house now. The interior was quite dark and had low ceilings, with steep and simple wooden steps separating the floors – I had to bend on them to avoid bumping my head. We went into a simple bedroom where an old lady was sitting. After greeting her, Kamal insisted we sit in the windowsill seats overlooking the square, in the same spot that the king and the queen used to sit to watch their subjects.

We chatted about ourselves and found out about our guide. It turned out he is transgender, a devout Buddhist and does a variety of jobs including an unofficial tour guide. He was enlightened about his sexuality some years ago when a German couple was visiting him, they talked with him about his feelings and ultimately encouraged him to try women’s clothes and makeup! From that point he became open about his sexuality – not something to be sniffed at in this conservative country. He was already in an arranged marriage and actually sent his wife away, telling her he liked men, but romantically she kept coming back telling him she accepted him as he was. Eventually he took her back, and now they have a son and have been together for ten years. Luckily for him the locals are now very accepting of him and his sexuality. He’s now a gay and lesbian ambassador for Nepalese people, and goes to Kathmandu to meet other transgenders. It was pretty random to run into one of Nepal’s very few openly gay guys!

Tip lady

We left the house and I asked to photograph an old women in the courtyard who agreed via Kamal, as long as I paid her a tip. After giving her one small note she kept motioning for more until she had 3 and I wouldn’t give her any more!

Kamal in his home

Kamal invited us for tea at his house a few minutes away. He lives on the middle floor of one of the old street buildings. We took off our shoes at the living area/bedroom where his young wife was, and his two year old son was sleeping in the bed, despite it being about 2pm. It was a simple house, classic Nepali. We sat on cushions and his wife brought us some tasty local sweet tea which I hadn’t tried before. Kamal told us about his wife and his problems making money now he had a son to support. Other foreigners have visited him before and the German couple he’d met had even donated 400 euros to pay for his son’s medical checkups. Because of his sexuality and marital situation he used to have problems getting work, and had to do menial work like cleaning. Now he sometimes works as a guide amongst other better quality jobs. He obviously makes a bit of money from people like us who he invites to his house and shows around – who then pay him for the hospitality.

We were offered food, Kamal’s wife produced plates of beaten dry rice, which is hard and chewy, served with soy beans and pickled spinach. Although it was a simple meal, the flavour combinations were very tasty. Kamal’s son woke up and smiled to see the visitors in his house. Then Kamal did some prayers for us, sitting cross-legged and lighting incense. He prayed for our good luck and health one by one, sometimes murmuring under his breath. At two points he whipped his head sideways, which he told us afterwards was throwing bad premonitions he’d had away, about me and Cam. He’d also forseen a problem with Gersende’s arm and had put a protection charm on it. After this nice gesture we went outside, and he mentioned maybe we could give him something, which is as I’d expected, but it’s not often you get invited into a local house and shown around for nothing!

As we walked up the hill to see a temple we came to a political event in the street, with a big audience and a stage, with a large riot police presence, some carrying huge rifles. There are upcoming elections in Nepal and due to the very troubled political history there’s always the danger of trouble. It was a Maoist event judging by the flags, the party currently in government. First on stage there was traditional dancing by a woman in full Newari dress, twirling, running and swinging her long ponytail around to music. Then a guy came on stage to sing. A band with cymbals and drums marched past the proceedings, we’d seen this setup before, leading political marches around Kathmandu, presumably it was from another party sent to disrupt the occasion, as they were shadowed closely by the police keen to avoid trouble.

Our guide led us uphill to the biggest tiered temple of the town, another really old one with worn wooden carvings on the beams. The stone elephants guarding the steps had big spikes to stop people sitting on them! Kamal told me this was a temple where if you are single you should pray there to get a girlfriend. Of course he made me do it! There was a great view over Kathmandu from up here.

Around the yard there were some Nepali mountain bikers milling around and pulling wheelies. We got chatting to one of them who told us he and his friends go out riding every Saturday exploring the area around Kathmandu. He gave us some recommendations for places to visit too.

View from the temple

We left the temple and said goodbye to Kamal, we figured the cost of a normal lunch each plus a bit more was a fair price to pay him. He thanked us and invited us to visit him for the upcoming Diwali festival. We walked down the hill, passing the political event where an man was shouting animatedly, I guess they got to the meat of the proceedings. A line of riot police had blockaded one end of the street but let us pass. Blacked-out jeeps were waiting nearby, presumably to ferry off the politicians in a hurry afterwards before any trouble could start. The audience were clapping and nodding to the energetic speech.

Skipping game

We twisted our way down the hill through the old streets until the main road, passing some nice views of the Kathmandu valley, until we reached the bus stop. We hopped on a mini bus back to Kathmandu and on arrival tucked into some momos from a street stall. As is quite common here they were served in bowls made from leaves, an eco-friendly way to do fast food! They were really tasty and covered in a tomato and chili sauce. The girls were heading off to a Nepali friend’s house so I said goodbye and went down to the restaurant to write this diary entry, and chatted to Ashman who I’ve got to know the past few days, before turning in early.

Kirtipur “rest station”

Patan

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 68

09/11/12

After a lie-in I spent some time organising my bags. I was carrying things I didn’t really use and so I had a bit of a clearout. Late morning I walked to the main bus stops in the middle of town and caught a tempo to Patan, one of the ancient cities which is now part of greater Kathmandu. Tempos are 3-wheeled little vehicles slightly bigger than a tuk-tuk which can cram about 8 people in the back. Most of them are electric and so make little noise. We had some entertainment whilst we waited to depart – a guy behind us had his car bonnet open fiddling with the radiator, and it suddenly exploded water all over him!

In Kathmandu they sell books on the street like this

The tempo filled up becoming very cramped. There’s a handy metal bar running right along the small of your back just in case you weren’t uncomfortable enough. I’ve come up with a new phrase to help deal with all of Nepal’s little gripes, stolen from Africa. There they say TIA – “This Is Africa” – usually referring to the dangers and chaos of normal life. So for this country – TIN – This is Nepal. We drove for about half an hour in bad traffic (we were only travelling a few kilometers), you couldn’t see anything really through the low and tiny windows. It was super-cheap compared to a taxi, only about 15 rupees (less than 10p!) compared to 250 rupees!

Outside Patan’s Dubar Square

I got off at the Durbar Square in Patan. After being pounced on by an entrance ticket I explored the square. It was very nice, packed with a variety of really old temples and buildings of differing styles, very similar to Bhaktapur, and peppered with tourists and locals. I was pretty hungry so made a beeline out of the square to a recommended café which has a nice little walled garden to have lunch. I caught up in the Lonely Planet about all the sights in the area and decided to walk part of their walking tour around the old backstreets in reverse, starting with the Golden Temple nearby.

Durbar Square

The temple was only small but very old and had a little courtyard lined with golden monkey statues in each corner. One wall was completely gold and set into this wall was a room with the important golden statue inside.

The other statues and carvings in the temple were very ornate and mostly golden or brass. Old people were chilling out on benches around the edge, reading papers or just watching the pigeons.

Upstairs I could hear singing, so I climbed some steps to check it out. In a long chamber was a table surrounded by benches and around twenty people singing to drumbeats.

I watched for a while and then exited to a square outside the temple filled with little stupas. I followed the guide book map for a few hours along little old streets and through loads of tiny courtyards filled with shrines and stupas and passing little old temples, eventually looping back to the Durbar Square.

Now the sun was lower it was better for photos and so I walked around the square taking in the ambiance and snapping shots.

I watched as a bizarrely-dressed old white guy set up some metal bowls on the steps of a temple, wearing a Nepali hat and loose white cotton clothing. An old hippy lady joined him carrying a western harp. She started playing chords and the man produced one of the large metal bowls that create amazing hums when hit or “stroked” around the edge with a dowel.

There didn’t seem to be any purpose for the performance other than for their own amusement and for those around them. Locals soon crowded around to watch, fascinated. The man sometimes lowered the bowl to people’s ears so they could hear its amazing resonance, I tried it and an awesome hum filled my ears. The music suited the mood of the place perfectly as the late afternoon sun turned the square orange.

A classic example of how Nepal’s ancient buildings are still used for daily life – a convenient place to hang your washing!

I chatted to the strange man when he took a break, he was American and seemed pretty spaced out. They were in Nepal to play at a conference in Kathmandu, but he said his motive for playing in Patan was to encourage more people to play the bowls. Back home he has a collection of over forty of all different sizes, but it was so expensive to ship them over to Nepal that he bought a new set here instead!

I stayed for a while soaking up the atmosphere feeling lucky to have come across another nice random event on my travels. Then I wandered around photographing the locals hanging around the square, and hopped on a tempo back to Kathmandu.

A homeless man lies sleeping in the Square

Back at base there was no sign of the Belgian sisters so I went out to get dinner in Thamel at a little vegetarian curry restaurant called Shri Laal that I’d been recommended. On the way I passed through Kathmandu’s Durbar Square to find the end of a big concert going on. A combination of western and Nepali musicians were playing traditional instruments combined with jazz instruments. The atmosphere was buzzing with people dancing and singing along and I stayed for a few numbers. The restaurant curry was very tasty and I walked back home through the dark streets.

The music concert in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square

Passport Woes in Kathmandu

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Alan Stock

The stupa at Bodnath

Day 66 – Location: Kathmandu; Nepal.

07/11/12

Because I didn’t take many photos during this entry, I’ve added some photos from earlier days that didn’t make it into the previous posts.

Camille and her sister didn’t seem to be up so I grabbed breakfast alone and took a taxi to the immigration office, about twenty minutes drive from Freak St. There were lots of tourists queuing up and I wondered if I’d have to wait for hours to speak to someone. Thankfully a Nepali man asked me why I was here, and I explained I needed to talk to someone. “I work here, what do you need?”. Great. I explained the situation and asked how I could extend my visa. “If you don’t have a passport, how can I give you a visa and stamp it?”. Fair enough. “You need to get a temporary passport first and then come here and we can extend the visa.”. Well that was surprisingly straightforward!

A Tibetan woman spins the prayer wheels at Bodnath stupa

I caught another taxi to the British consular. To my dismay, the lady informed me that they couldn’t issue a temporary passport to stay in Nepal. The emergency passport is just to get out of the country. “So what am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Apply for the full replacement passport, confirm it with us and we’ll write a letter for the visa office asking if they can help you.”

So off I headed on a quest to apply for the full passport. This was a mind numbing combination of trawling through internet sites finding out the correct documents to print and forms to fill out, phoning my parents for their personal details, photocopying documents and so on. Even after doing it all I still wasn’t sure if I had all the things they needed, as the websites all have differing information with no clear outline about what you have to give them if it’s been stolen. I took a late lunch at a nice little restaurant called Kumari’s on Freak St which I’d been to before. It’s frequented by locals and travelers, with good, cheap food and a homely atmosphere. I sat outside filling out forms and a local guy sat down on my long table and started chatting to me. He was formerly a pilot and had visited the UK to learn to fly small aircraft. He was starting a business in Nepal with two water tankers who would provide people with water when they have water shortages in Kathmandu, under contract. A friend was going to work for him and send him the money – so he planned to move to Thailand to set up a business. A real entrepreneur this guy! He also moaned about the lack of available Nepali girls and wanted to get a Thai girl instead. He bought me a drink and insisted I try some of his meat balls (more innocent than it sounds!). Another example of the friendliness of the Nepalese!

A “rest station” at Pashupanitath

In the evening I had finally finished getting everything together for the application and walked up into Thamel in the hopes of finding a courier office that was open. Thankfully the area stays open later than the rest of the city and I found a few couriers open. I bundled all the forms into an envelope with a cover letter explaining the situation, asking them to contact me straight away if there were any problems and prayed I had enclosed everything I needed. It should arrive in Hong Kong in a few days and from then the new passport would arrive within 4 weeks in Nepal. The next problem for me would be getting Nepali immigration to allow me to stay without any passport. Exhausted, I headed to the hotel and worked on the diary for the rest of the evening. There was no sign of Camille and her sister but she’d left me a note saying they’d missed me and we’d catch up tomorrow.

Even the bridges have stalls

Day 67

08/11/12

I slept pretty well despite the cold. It’s getting a lot colder here at nights, winter is coming in a few weeks. I found Camille and her sister downstairs in the restaurant, about to head out. They were off to Bhaktapur for a big day of sightseeing. I wished them well, I had another day of visa joy to look forward to.

The dirty river in Kathmandu, with birds of prey circling overhead

I took a taxi to the British consular and told the lady there I’d applied for a full passport. She wrote me an official letter explaining the limitations of the temporary passport and asking the visa people to help me out. I thanked her and caught a taxi to the immigration office. It was chaos there again. I asked a random guy for help who turned out to work there. You wouldn’t know it, none of them have uniforms.

I had to go through the same explanations and was again told without a passport how can I extend the visa? But I said without a passport what can I do? Finally he conceded and said I could stay in the country until my full passport arrived, then I should come back there with all of the supporting documents and I’d have to pay a fine and other visa fees. That was fine with me, I figured it would still be cheaper than buying a temporary passport and getting out of Nepal at the last minute. He scribbled down his contact details so I could contact him if I had any trouble. A big weight was off my shoulders – now I could stay in Nepal until the new passport arrived (fingers crossed the application was ok).

Tikka dye vendor at the Durbar Square

Feeling good I phoned the Consular to let them know, and got a taxi back to Freak St. I spent the rest of the day catching up on the diary, which was still a week behind. I got a snack at Kumaris and again a random local guy chatted to me, curious about my Kindle. It’s a great place to meet the locals.

Durbar Square, this statue gets a lot of offerings

I spent the evening in the hotel restaurant. I’ve got to know the waiter here a bit, a young Nepali guy who speaks English but is often unintelligible. When he reads my diary on the screen you can’t understand a word of it. He inserts S sounds into everything, and can’t pronounce some of our basic sounds like “th”. It makes communication interesting for sure!

Durbar Square, Kathmandu

Alan Stock Photography

My travelling (mis)adventures. It's ok to cry.

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