Dhulikhel

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 70 – Location: Kathmandu; Nepal.

11/11/12

First order of the day was to head to the travel clinic for a rabies booster injection. I walked through the Durbar Square and north amongst the little streets. Today they were looking even better than usual, with coloured metallic ribbons strung between the buildings, and the place was buzzing with people. It seemed today was a big market day and the squares and streets were packed with fruit and vegetable sellers, colourful produce stacked everywhere. There were lots of flowers and tikka powder sellers too, presumably there to sell wares for the upcoming Tihar festival. The area was a riot of colour and noise, it was pretty fantastic to walk through.

After half an hour I reached the clinic and received a quick and painless injection. I then contacted Ashman, the waiter from my hotel restaurant, as he had the day off and had suggested taking me to see Dhulikhel, a nice town south of Kathmandu. We met back at the hotel and walked to the bus station where we took a big, comfy local bus. I learned a bit more about Ashman on the hour-long journey. He was 22, had been working at the hotel for 6 months and was from a village a few hours from Kathmandu. He lived with his uncle in the city, who also worked at a hotel. He was from a Buddhist family and returned to see them about 4 times a year, giving money to his parents who can’t get work in their village.

Drying rice at the temple in Dhulikhel

We passed through the suburbs of Bhaktapur and went further out into the countryside passing through a big, dusty place called Banepa. We passed a huge standing, bronze-coloured statue on a hillside complete with trident, visible from miles away, and soon climbed up a hill into the town of Dhulikhel. It wasn’t anything remarkable to look at initially, but the views were already nice over the terraced hills below. It was a really hazy day and you couldn’t see far.

We walked uphill into the maze of old backstreets which were reminiscent of Kirtipur where I’d been yesterday. It was really nice, and the streets only had the occasional motorbike puttering past. Everywhere the strong sun was falling, women had rice out on mats to dry, and were raking and filtering it. We came to some nice little temples in a square and went down some alleys, coming out at a school where they were having a sports tournament. It looked a bit like the handball I’d seen in Thailand, with a volleyball net, but with a ball the size of a tennis ball, which the boys were keeping off the ground using their feet.

Ashman asked an old lady for directions and we climbed up some steps to a tiered temple on the hilltop. We had a good view in all directions and could see for miles. All around the temple, rice was laid out in swirling patterns where it had been raked. Ashman chatted to a woman up there as I took photos.

We could see a really big golden Buddah statue rising out of the forest on a hillside some distance away, and he asked her about it. We decided we’d head there after lunch, walked back to the main road and ducked into a little local restaurant where we ate some tasty chow mein and tried some Choyla, a local snack – fried buffalo pieces covered in chili sauce – and Sandeko – fried meat with onions – which was much nicer. Ashman insisted on paying, saying I was his guest, despite my protests!

Sandeko

I needed the loo and he warned me they weren’t good at this place. I didn’t really care, I’ve seen some nasty toilets on my travels. He led me around the back and there was a little shack. The squatter inside was standard but the stench was overwhelming, I’m not going to rose-coat this; a massive stinking poo was just sitting right there in the flat bit, mocking me. There was no water in the bucket to wash it away and no tap. I held my breath, did my business and got out as fast as I could, choking a bit and laughed with Ashman when he saw my face. He *had* warned me!

We set off to find the big Buddah and climb to the viewpoint above it. We followed a road through the town, past a football field where the kids were playing with full team kits.

The road led to an ornate gateway where a long flight of stone steps led up the hill into the woods. It was a steep climb and hard work. We walked for about half an hour passing little shrines along the way, and schoolkids running down, part of a school trip. We reached the Buddah sooner than I expected and walked around it. It offered good views of the valleys around us. It was really peaceful here too, we could only hear the birds and the breeze. Ashman chatted to an old man who maintained the site, who told him that it was 5 years old and built by the people of the Newari caste.

Ashman

A few minutes further up the steps we reached the hill’s summit, where a small army camp surrounds the temple. Nepal still has camps like this as the political situation is volatile and the people in charge fear a return to civil war. Razor wire was pulled back to allow access up the steps to the temple, and guard posts with armed soldiers were dotted around the perimeter. They even had trenches dug here. I wondered if there’d been fighting here during the Maoist insurgency.

On lookout

We soon saw why it was such a good spot for the army – the views up here were awesome, offering a 360 degree view of the hills and valleys stretching into the distance. The temple was only small and just a small hut-like building, with an ugly concrete viewing tower alongside. We climbed up and admired the views for a while. You could see Dhulikhel stretching out below and Banepa, the big town we’d driven through in the distance. It was quiet up here, a nice place – it’s known for its sunsets and sunrises, but unfortunately it was cloudy and hazy and we could only see a glimpse of the Himalayas through the clouds.

We descended the long flight of steps quickly and walked in the lowering sun back to the bus park, where we caught a bus back to Kathmandu. The views on the way back were nice with the setting sun, passing harvested rice fields and towns. It was a great sunset with the sun a big glowing orange dipping behind the clouds, casting golden light on the surroundings. The bus conductors are often young and one of them on this bus must have only been about 8 years old – clearly his education was being sacrificed for work. He was just as loud and energetic as his colleagues though. Bus conductors in Nepal have a chaotic job, they yell out the destinations as the bus cruises past bus stops, they hop off and take money, load people onto the bus and usually have to run and grab the rails as the bus speeds off – slapping the side or whistling if it’s taking off without them. I wonder how often buses leave their conductors behind in the dust by accident?

From the bus back to Kathmandu

We hit major traffic entering Kathmandu in rush hour and the trip took an hour longer in this direction. We hopped off at Ratna park and walked through the post-work crowds back to the hotel. Ashman asked if he could use my shower as he doesn’t have one at home (that sucks) and it was the least I could do. I chilled out down in the restaurant, and he emerged happy from a hot shower, a treat for him. I spent the rest of the evening chilling out in a bar across the street with low tables and a decent wi-fi connection, actually managing to almost do a full photo blog post, and bought a bunch of Kindle books online which were downloaded onto it in minutes. Very handy!

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.

Tag Archives: Kathmandu