Lips of an Angel

Inexplicably, my song for Kathmandu is Hinder's Lips of an Angel, the song playing in the wet Thamel night, navigating the narrow, crowded streets in the nightly drizzles, the bars and restaurants and bakeries, the bookshops, souvenir shops, trekking shops, Tibetan shops... all a blur of lights, people and sound in the rain. Beautiful. And being broke (well almost) staying in cheap rooms and carefully budgeting my money - part of the fun of which was taking long walks to surrounding sights in the Kathmandu valley and finding innovative ways to skirt the ticket counter.

Thamel has really gone upmarket though, that its almost sad-funny (and builds camarederie) when you walk past the really posh looking restaurants with their doormen and the impeccably clean glass facades -and theres no one inside. In the monsoon, the only people here are backpackers, who gather in the small alleys off the main street at the hole-in-the-wall juice shops and Tibetan restaurants for that cheap smoothie or momos, and who all seem to enjoy the Thamel bakeries' 50% off breads offer at 8 p.m.

I kept to 2 meals a day, breakfast at the rooftop at Helena's - at 90 NRs (1.5 USD) for eggs, toast with butter and jam, excellent sauted potatoes, a grilled tomato and tea/coffee. Quite a steal. Then i'd walk all the way out of town into the Kathmandu valley to visit the sights, often as there's nothing in the way of transport due to the frequent bandhas (strikes) over the president issue and the fuel price increase/student discount issue. These are pretty much a fact of life in Nepal, and as the Himalayan Times sum it up perfectly, quoting a student leader, "if we don't burn tyres, no one will listen to us." Talk about diplomacy and dialogue. The common response of the Nepalis is usually, what to do, Kathmandu, accompanied with a little head wobble and a shrug.

And so i walked, out of Thamel, into the old, medieval, fabled city, marked by the regal Durbar Square in its heart, past the Rani Pokhari (Queen's pool) and the fantastic gardens of the Kaiser Mahal on days, out of town into the Kathmandu valley, where the buildings thin out, and roads become more pot-holed and uneven, forming pools of muddy brown water after the nightly rains. And sharing the road with the Nepalis from all walks of life, porters carrying huge, impossible loads on carts and on their backs, women balancing urns of milk on their head, children in fresh school uniforms running off to school, youths enjoying a cup of hot chiya (tea) seated around an ancient square, a tole that marks most of the intersections of Kathmandu's streets, playing badminton, the odd saddhu, the saffron robed Tibetan monks... I enjoyed these walks immensely, disappearing into a Nepal that felt so ancient with tradition and its architectural quirks and splendour, yet so alive and breathing, and welcoming.


*As usual, pics coming up soon - i have yet to sort through my 5 CDs and 2 DVDs worth of photos taken on this trip - so far im only about halfway through it...