Nepal part two (unreliable electric boogaloo) – 22nd to the 26th April

From Pokhara to Kathmandu I had another 10hr bus ahead of me. This time instead of opting for the £3 option I took the £10 option. And boy, was that a good shout. I had a huge, very comfy, armchair type seat. I boarded fairly late as some other foreigners disembarking which I thought was weird. It was about an hour later I spotted the likely reason for their departure. We were sharing this luxury bus with quite a number of roaches. But to be honest this didn’t bother me, I’ve been on the road for nearing on three months now, and it takes more than some roaches to shake me lol. Mosquitos/sandflies are more of a concern anyway.

Arriving in Kathmandu I headed to a hostel recommended by a friend. As usual at this point, I hadn’t booked and just rocked up. I went for the second cheapest option, an 8 bed dorm, which came to 500rs a day, or about £3.12 a night. 

I’d rushed from Pokhara to Kathmandu to rendezvous with Filip (with an F) who I toured Assam with – he was leaving the next morning for a trek the next morning hence the rush. Inconveniently he wasn’t responding to my texts. But as luck would have it, while I was brushing my teeth in the hallway where the sinks were located, he came up the stairs and walked behind me. That evening we shared a beer (with another one of his friends) and caught up in the courtyard outside the hostel. He gave me some more very usual recommendations for Kathmandu. Lovely to catch up with him again. Until next time in the next place.

For the next couple of days I explored the ancient city of Kathmandu. The city lies in a valley that plateaus at 1,400m and is one of the longest continuously inhabited places in the world – being occupied since 100 AD. Walking around the city you can see its age, the tight streets are littered with beautiful buildings hanging over the roads. Wooden facades adorn the buildings engraved, or maybe carved(?), with Hindu and Buddahist mythology… (not to say there aren’t modern buildings though)

While on mythology, I’ve recently taken to listening to a Hindu literature podcast which has been fascinating, and brought the temples and symbols I’ve been seeing across India and Nepal to life. I’ll share one such story about Ganesh’s origin (or Ganesha or several other names) – Ganesh is the god with the elephant head. 

Ganesh’s origin, likely somewhat butchered by me:

So within Hindu mythology there are over 30 million deities. Yep, 30 million. So if you devoted yourself to a different god each day, you wouldn’t get close to worshipping them all. However, there are three main very powerful gods – the Trimurti. These are the most powerful gods on earth, who rule earth, however there is a god above them but he is the master of all the universes and not so relevant for our purposes.. 

The Trimurti are made up of: Brahma, god of creation; Vishnu, god of preservation; and Shiva, god of destruction. Our story starts with Shiva, well actually with Parvati who is married to Shiva.

For the actual story part here I’m gonna have to move at a quick pace so hang on tight:

It was said Pravati was lonely as Shiva was often away. So Pravati takes to neglect her own personal hygiene. She then decides to create a child, moulding him from the accumulation of her body dirt. With her son she becomes happy and no longer lonely.

At a later date Pravati, wanted to take a bath and asked one of Shiva’s servants to guard the door – so that Shiva didn’t catch Pravati in an immodest position. Shiva returns, and the servant lets him in. Which makes sense because the servant works for Shiva and Shiva is the destroyer and is a pretty vicious character at times. Mission failed and Shiva walks in on Pravati in the bath.

Later again Pravati wants to take a bath, but this time instead of asking one of Shiva’s servants to guard the boy she tells Ganesh (a boy at the time) to. As expected Shiva comes home, and is met with resistance from Ganesh when trying to enter. It’s worth saying neither of them know they are related at this time, and Shiva chops the boy’s head off. Perhaps a bit extreme.

Pravati comes out at this moment is inconsolable but she manages to convey the boy was their son. Shiva knows he’s made a right hash of this and sets out to fix it. He instructs his servants to go out and bring back the head of the first animal they come across. This happens to be an elephant and Shiva reattaches the head and hence Ganesh has an elephant head.

[I should add there are a number of variations etc]

But that is broadly the end.

Tangent aside. I continued my exploration of Kathmandu. Some of the main sites are the Durbar squares – of which the Kathmandu metropolitan area has three. I visited two of them. The first was in Patan, kind of a neighbouring city but more just an area of Kathmandu (if you ask me). Patan is know as the city of beauty and it was stunning. The square was surrounded by old buildings packed into small streets, the square was then filled with temples / stupas built by various kings, and finally on one side the palace stood (now a museum). The museum was good, the highlight of which for me was a series of stone labs engraved as physical walls of text (much like this blog at times – self-zinger). These slabs detailed the history of Nepal and are one of the only surviving forms of records. They detail things from wars, to laws, to trade deals and of course taxes.

I’ll end this entry with my final night in Kathmandu. I’d left the hostel early to explore, and returned early for a call with my friend back home (Matt ‘better than Hunt’ Acton as he’s known if you know him). I was sitting in the common room doing my own thing, planning on painting until the call, but one thing led to another and I joined a group of three guys. One Latavian (Toms), one Aussie (Issy), and a German. Toms had been staying at the hostel for over a month at this point and took us through these tiny back alleys (which felt like we were winding through the houses themselves) for some food. We came out on a main street and headed into the kebab shop opposite. His experience was invaluable as we all had these huge and outstanding falafel wraps. Some of the best I’ve ever had, including in the Middle-East. After our phenomenal and cheap wrap, he then took us to a semi-subterranean shop. Basically a big hole in the wall just above the floor – a convenience shop type thing selling mostly cigs etc. He had a quick chat with the bloke and a door next to the window flew open. We all entered, ducking under the door of course, and at the back of the tiny shop was a bench formed out of some cardboard atop stacked beer crates. 

We took our seats and all got a beer which we enjoyed in Krishna’s shop. Apparently it’s a bit of a kathmandu right of passage to have a bev in Krishna’s basement. I fucking loved it – like so weird but just fun. After our beer we headed back to the hostel. Some board games came out including Carcassonne and then some Penguin Chess. I brought Penguin Chess as it’s a fun, light-hearted, and quick/simple kids game – at least I thought it was. Within five minutes we had four men deep in concentration, considering what move maximises the fish they could collect. I didn’t expect it to be taken so seriously but there we go. I was flying out the next day at midday, but I was having a great time so ended up staying up to past 3 with Toms – playing penguin chess lol.

Despite the risk, the next day I made the flight fairly comfortably. This was also the first flight I’d ever paid to book my seat – booking a window seat on the left hand side of the plane. The geographers may have a good idea of my plan… My thinking was flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok the Himilyas including Everest would be visible out of the window – assuming it wasn’t cloudy. And sure enough I was spot on and enjoyed some stunning views of the mountains towering above the clouds. I’ll include the snap which I think is Everest but grateful for any mountain experts to confirm.

I leave Nepal excited to team up with a friendly face for a while.