kathmandu (1)

Exotic doesn’t begin to describe this city. Every few steps there are shrines and temples, dedicated to the Hindu pantheon, most of them active. People as they are passing bow, make an offering, turn the prayer wheels or ring a bell according to the particular devotions they follow. Each deity has his or her own powers that can be appealed to – from death, to life, to toothache. The grip of religion seems greater, or at least more overt, than even India.

Almost every road is lined with shops – most of them tiny – and in the old centre many of them are in the striking traditional style, even if many are badly decaying. Typically in brick with inserted elaborately carved hardwood screens and struts supporting projecting upper storeys and roofs.

In addition most open spaces and junctions are full of market stalls – often just a sheet on the ground with a few vegetables brought in by local farmers, or just sold from the panniers on their bikes.

The day I arrive is a very auspicious one. Everywhere on the streets as it gets dark, small butter candles in clay pots appear, down the centre of the road, on the steps of chedi and temples and people gather around, to celebrate the peace treaty signed the day before between the interim government and the Maoists. It’s been declared a public holiday, and although no really overt shows of celebration, there is a real buzz of excitement on the streets.

My hotel, Dwarika’s, is a real oasis from the busy streets. It has been carefully restored (and discretely extended) in traditional style. The original owner recognised 30 years ago the importance of preserving traditional architectural forms, at a time when there was a risk they would be swept away. The buildings with their traditional carvings are very handsome, and the gardens restful. My room is in the central block, Lumbini, with windows and views in three directions. On arrival I received a marigold garland from the travel company and a yellow scarf from the hotel.

On the first full day I decided to just walk around on my own and see a few sites near the hotel – but it wasn’t to be. As soon as I arrived at Pashupatinath, which is the most holy site in Nepal, a young guy latched on to me and wouldn’t let go. He was actually very good at explaining everything, so it wasn’t really an imposition, but he got a good tip at the end ‘to help with my books for study’.

The site is on both sides of Kathmandu’s sacred river. It is the most auspicious place to die and to be cremated, and the bodies of everyone in the valley are brought here, usually within hours of death in the case of Hindus. Buddhists are also cremated here. I began to experience the intermingling of Hindu and Buddhist culture. There is a large temple dedicated to Shiva the destroyer on one side of the river and a series of small memorials containing lingams, stylised phallic symbols, on the other. Death and life, the eternal cycle in both religions.

Along the river edge are a series of platforms or ghats, six for the ordinary people, one for the elite and one for the royal family. All six of the first group had cremations under way, and one was being prepared at the elite ghat. I watched from just across the river as my guide explained. The body was laid out on a timber pile, in this case an old woman, garlanded with marigolds. The fire was started and the first burning coal is placed in the body’s mouth. Then more wood is piled on top and the flames and smoke take hold rapidly. Soon the smoke is reaching high above the temple roof. The ceremony is almost non-existent. A Brahmin in vest and sarong does the work while the relatives and others look on from the steps of the temple and nearby bridge, impassively. There is no emotion – the hope is the deceased will pass on to a better life, or reach the next level and escape the rebirth cycle altogether.

All around the place are sadhus, Hindu ascetics, covered in ash, half naked, and posing for the tourists for 20 rupees, though I feel a little too uncomfortable about this to take up the offer. There are also endless hawkers and it’s difficult to move for them. Tourist numbers are still down and you are an inevitable focus, from people who have little other opportunity to make money.

I also visited the nearby monastery that now serves as an old people’s home (and hospice – it is auspicious to die with your feet in the river). The people inside are many of them extremely aged and confused. It’s a sad sight, a waiting room for the next life.
Then I went with the guide up and over the monkey populated hill behind to the famous Tibetan Buddhist enclave, where the huge central stupa is a familiar image – a great whitewashed dome, a square element above painted with eyes, and crowned with a brass structure symbolising the seven stages of life, culminating in Nirvana. I visited one of the shops where monks and trainees produce devotional art, to assist meditation, and bought a couple.

Everest

It's the day for the Everest flight - 5am start for 645am flight. But when Bhanu the agent gets me to the airport it's foggy. The view of the mountains from Kathmandu has been obscured since I got here with a general mist/pollution haze, but this is real fog. After kicking around in the waiting are for 2 hours or so we eventually get called.

The small prop plane has 20 window seats which are all taken (the fuselage is only 3 seats wide) . I've been told by Bhanu that he's secured the best seat in the plane for me, because he knows the Yeti Air (!) manager at the airport - and it turns out to be true - book C10 if you go, last seat on the right.

On the way out I'm on the 'wrong' side - the full range of the mountains is there on left, though you can see quite a lot across the narrow plane. I get called for my turn in the cokpit just as the plane approaches its closest to Everest and starts to turn. It is an unforgettable sight - a complete panorama of rock and snow, with Everest dead centre and its flanking peaks. Yes, there it is, really, just a few miles away and the peak still 4000 or so feet above us.

Back in my seat, as the turn continues, and the plane tilts, I glimpse one of the trekking halts up to Base Camp, a container village, still far from the peak. Everest is such an icon, and there it is in the clear blue light, with its characteristic jet stream plume of snow. The view continues. I seee the whole sector of the Himalayas all the way back to Kathmandu as we slowly drop back towards the valley. Remote high settlements cling to the mountaninside with their
terraced strip farming and little stone houses.

This is another experience I will never forget.

[I will post notes on Kathmandu and Bhutan as soon as I can.]

[Pictures of Everest and Kathmandu on www.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m]

comments

Please feel free to comment - I accidentally blocked this for a few days but it's enabled again now.
Comments about billy elliott, disneyland or last week's shopping list may be deleted in future but comments relevant to this blog will be welcomed, nurtured and encouraged. Especially about billy elliott. Grrr! Not jealous at all...
There are more pics now on www.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m and I hope to add text on my trip to date tomorrow, Sunday, my last day here in Kathmandu.

desert trek

After lunch in Jaisalmer it's time to go on an overnight camel trek. This is pretty much compulsory in Jaisalmer, but it was an experience I will always remember.

I admit I never really found out the details of this part of the trip when I signed up, and so it was with some trepidation that I boarded the ageing, smallish Indian jeep with my fellow . Somehow we managed to cram into this rattlebox: me, 2 charming Australian ladies called Choo and Sherlene, 4 gap year Australian lads on the traditional 12 month trip to Europe and Asia, their Indian guide, and the driver, Khan. I was riding shotgun (there were no doors) with the Indian guide between me and Khan and the gear stick between his legs.

30km west of Jasialmer we encountered a group of camels by the roadside with what looked like a band of Afghan tribesmen. Also joined at this point by 2 charming Swedish young ladies on a 5 month all India trip, Mary and Madeleine.

Getting on is the first problem, for me anyway. I have never been that stretchy and getting my leg over needed a bit of help from the tribesmen after I nearly knocked the camel over. The camel suddenly lurched upwards and I remember to lean back as it unfoldsitself, first back legs then front. The worst bit was when it decided to give each leg a vigorous shake - well I suppose even camels get pins and needles.

So our little caravan was off, led by the tribesmen, some of them boys as young as 10. They seemed to like putting me in the lead (order of seniority). We moved through stony ground, with patches of watermelon growing - surpsisingly). Then the dunes appear, real sand dunes, just like Lawrence of Arabia. We get off and frolic in the soft sand for a bit. I pull of my shoes and slide downa sand dune or two. Then off again, until we reach a point where we are told we are going to camp for the night.

Like most of the party I was expecting tents at this point, but no, this is going to be a real back to basics trek. Well want do you expect for 500 rupees?

Dinner is cooked as the sun sets. The camels are hobbled and let loose to graze (later the boys have to find them and bring them back in the dark). It's romantic - the smell of woodsmoke, the quiet, the fading sunlight. By the time we eat our vegetarian curry it's almost pitch dark. The Milky Way appears arcing right across the sky, clearer than I have seen it for years. There's a shooting star or two.

Then our 'beds' are made up. A thin mattress, a pillow and 2 quilts. We bunk down early and for a while I sit listening to the Goldberg Variations and tracing the constellations I remember from when I was a boy. I think, this is why I came on this trip, for experiences like this, and I'm glad I'm here, right now, out in the open, in the desert.

Of course I wake up freezing in the middle of the night. The wind has sprung up and though it's warm if you can keep tucked up, the slightest chink and the heat drains away immediately. Also, my bed steadily fills up with sand so that whenever I turn over it's like rubbing yourself on sandpaper.

But I wouldn't have missed it for the worls, and I'm sure I will remmeebr it clearly for the rest of of my life.

I sleep fitfully; at one point I wake up with something nibbling my little toe - one of the black beetles they have hereabouts is curious - but it's quickly shaken off; at 5am the thin crescent moon rises on its back; then a distant cock crows, though well before I can detect any light; then the sky is perceptibly grey, not black. By the time the sun rises below the moon, the sky is clear blue and seems very bright.

A light breakfast and everyone is subdued. The lads in particular seem to have suffered from the cold, dressed in shorts and tshirts. We head off back, past a very poor village, just reed windbreaks without roofs, where the kids come running up begging for money; and past the tent encampments we could have stayed in if we'd splashed out. I think we all suddenly feel virtuous, having survived a 'real' night in the desert. I'm convinced our experience was much better - seeing the sun set and rise, the stars wheeling overhead as the night progressed, the Milky Way bright and clear so that you could almost imagine you could see the structure of the galaxy right there in front of you. No wonder we once read so much significance into the night sky.

One final surprise. When we get back to the jeep we find an ancient tribesman sitting in having a fag. He looks like he might be Khan's great granddad, wrapped up in his traditional dress and weatherbeaten as an old boot. He needs a lift into town, so we have to squeeze 4 into the front row. We make it (struggling a little up the hills).

A good hot shower, and I take the rest of the day off, just wandering around the town a little. I decide to get my hair cut and drop into the local barber shop, where as dad is out to the lunch I am dealt with by his two apprentice sons. Actually they do a good job, but I really take my life in my hands when I let them loose with the cutthroat for a shave. Topped off with a face and head massage (by dad who has now returned) I feel good and relaxed after the rigours of the night.

jaisalmer

View of the fort from an old town haveli

Jaisalmer appears across the desert like a mirage - just like it says in the guidebooks. Soon we are at the hotel, a haveli that I believe is largely new but has incorporated some older features well. I had hoped to be right in the centre near Gandhi Chowk but this is fine with a bar opening onto a central garden that is peaceful and a rooftop restaurant with a great view of the fort.

The first day I go out at sunset to a Brahmin burial site. The cemetery is a calm, almost eerie place, with the ash piles left to blow away in the wind, and small monuments to the dead. The fort looks magnificent - huge, with bastions all around the edge of the defensive rock that brought the maharajas here. 99 of them, big, rounded tapering piles like a sand castle builder's idea of a walled city. I watch the light change in the last sunset rays. The Golden City lives up to its nickname tonight.

Next morning I'm up for an extensive tour of the Fort and the Old City. I'm taken round by a local guide, Manu, laid on by our good friends at Abyss. He gabbles 20 to the dozen, having been doing this for 12 years, so it's a bit difficult to get the gist.

I would have preferred to go around on my own, though he probbaly reduced the hass factor considerably. The whole town is given over to tourism, and every 2 steps someone is trying to drag you into their little emporium of genuine Rajasthani artworks, pashmina scarves or cushion covers. In a city of 50,000 where the only industry is tourism, it's inevitable that everyone is looking for chances to empty our wallets, and I can't blame them a bit.

We start off at the entrance to the fort, where the only route in twists through a series of elephant proof gates, six in all, designed to protect against invasions, of which there have been many, but none successful. Muslims from Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Moghuls, other Rajput clans - everyone's had a go at some time.

Just inside is the main square, bustling with people and with some of the finest examples of the carved sandstone for which the town is famous. Carved as fine as hardwood, delicate pierced screens and ornamentation.

The fort encloses a dense network of narrow lanes, most less than 2m wide. Wading throught the touts for tourist trinkets we arrive at the Jain temple perhaps the most impressive individual building here. Actually, it's two temples side by side, one daylit, the other extremely dark and secret, with areas recessing into pitch darkness.

I'm busy taking a photo looking out of one of these when a voice hisses next to me: 'Hey Keith, fancy bumping into you here!' In the tomb-like darkness somehow Rita has spotted me, and scared em half to death. Rita I've met at two successive lunch stops on the way from Delhi, and got to know on a tourist on the road sort of way. She moans about her guide, and how she wants more space and quiet. Meanwhile I'm trying to soak up the space and quiet of the sanctuary.

The intricately carved interior includes scenes from the sex lives of the gods. The priests get me to sit and contemplate for about 2 minutes (Rita has slipped away) but even they are on the lookout for a donation, it seems.

We also visit one of the Hindu temples, and I watch the people going abut their rituals: a genuflection to the image, a chant, lighting of candles, layinbg of flowers, touching various points, ringing bells.

There's still a population of 1000 in the Fort itself, but only Brahmins and Rajputs, the two highest clan groups, are allowed to live here. They are also of course the closest supporters of the Maharaj, who still lives in the palace. However, most of those that live here appear to be very poor. Most of the city outside the fort is Muslim now, 95% of it in fact, though it's hard to tell by dress in most cases.

We continue, dropping down to the old town outside the fort, for a tour of the best haveli. One is designed for two brothers to live in, and the two halves of the facade, though harmonious, are different in detail.

The best are group of five, built for 5 Jain brothers in a row, and with amazing quality to the details. One of them is open to the public and you can get a feel for how they worked - inward looking but with all rooms open to the central courtyard, and at the top some of them open to the sky. There are some of the best views of the fort and the city from the upper levels. They rise up 5 storeys from street level and reputedly have 5 levels of cellars below. The brothers were merchants, the Jain non-violent philosophy prohibits them from taking up most other professions. Who do I find on the roof? It's Rita, with guard in tow.

Manu tries to drag me through his mates' shops but I manage to avoid most of it, which doesn't do much for his commission, and he shows it.

on the road

haystack on wheels - not the biggest we encountered


Nandu is amazing.
I couldn't even begin to drive here. Our sturdy Tata car gets us through some amazing scrapes.

Driving is a case of seeing a gap and going for it, and knowing the strict caste system of vehicles that establshes precedence, with lorries at the top, through vans, cars, autorickshaws, camel- and ox-drawn carts, motorbikes, bicycles, to humans. No, that should be cows first. They won't get out of the way for anyone.

The basic principle is: see a gap and go for it. Nandu navigates us through with great aplomb, just managing to dodge the vehicles, the donkey carts, camel trains, tractors with haystacks two lanes wide on them, herds of goats, herds of sheep, autorickshaws stopped in the middle of the road for a chat, puppies without any road sense, people with less, placid groups of cows chewing the cud, giggling gaggles of schoolkids, broken down lorries (usually right in the middle of the village high street), potholes, dogs flat out in the middle of the lane, abandoned roadworks, unmarked speed humps, oddly located traffic islands (but it's ok, you can go round them the wrong way), market stalls, mounds of rubbish, and more and more people.

Lane discipline is unknown. It's true some roads have a white line painted down the middle but this is purely for decoration. The same is true of zebra crossings. And everyone is honking, honking, honking. Every lorry has the phrase Horn please on the back. They want you to honk so they don't have to bother checking the rear mirrors. You honk to tell other road users you are there, honk to tell other lower caste vehicles to get out of the way, honk to say the guy in front should be going for that gap that just opened up, honk just for the fun of it. Nandu is a master of the art.

rajasthan

Inside Bikaner Fort

+++ More pics at

ww.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m

Now a lightning tour
of parts of Rajasthan by car, with my very good driver Nandu.

First stop Mandawa, a dusty little town that got rich on the opium trade and has since fallen asleep. The town has many spectacular mechants' houses, or haveli, now mostly run to ruin, and I did a quick tour of them with a friendly local guide who got me into them (they are still lived in) for 10 or 20 rupees a time. So I was there looking at teh carved stonework and faading frescos as the families were making their supper. All very frinedly but slightly odd. They are mostly arranged around an outer courtyard (for entertaining) and an inner courtyard (for the family - the women were kept in purdah). My hotel is one of these haveli but has been well restored and makes a very comfortable first night stop on the road west.

Next day and another long drive, through countryside getting drier and drier, and villages poorer and poorer. Though the costumes, particulalry the women, get more and more colourful. I've noticed when you see 3 Indians together, they somehow manage to colour coordinate in the most spectacular way possible, so there will be sienna, electric blue and yellow ochre. Or lime green, that wonderful rich Rajasthani red and mauve. I don't know how they do it, consciously or not, but do it they do, whether it's ladies in saris or men in shirts. Colour is everything here, everywhere and on everyone, shouting out from the dull plae yellow soil and dark green vegetation.

Before my next night's stop at Bikaner, Nandu swerves off the main road, saying we are going to the Rat Temple, just outside. I've heard of it, but wasnt quite prepared for it. Actually the rats - and there are literally hundreds, are sweet when you see them. None of them huge, and many of them just babies. I got into an enclosure full of them where i don't think I was supposed to be, and there was a whole little rat community going on. Rats playing, rats fighting, rats sleeping, rats eating and drinking big plates of milk kindly put out by the temple authorities, curious rats, friendly rats, fighting rats, sleeping rats, rats in big jumbled groups, even a white rat, whch is supposed to be very lucky, although this one didn't looked a bit off-colour (!) and maybe wouldn't see out the night. As I was photographing, I felt a a little tickling sesation on my foot, and there was one running across my socked foot (no shoes alowed in the temple of course). I think the point of it is that even rats have souls, and may have been people once, so treat thej with respect and maybe they will treat you the same.

Bikaner has another of Rajasthan's wonderful forst. This one seems to have a different wing - or even palace - built by each successive maharaj, some of them exquisite, some of them bizarre. The city centre was anic but great fun. I watched as peole played dare with the railway crossing barriers - the line runsright through the town, and why wait for the barrier to go up when you an just dash across. The problem is that everyone was dooing it in both directions and there was soon a hopeless jam spilling onto the track. Somehow it all got sorted before the train plodded past.

delhi

inside the Red Fort in Old Delhi - very popular with the locals on Sundays - they have a thing for colour coordination!

+++ more pics at www.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m

I'm here!

I was slightly apprehensive about hassle but it's been a dream. Maybe 3am is the right time to arrive at Delhi airport, but I sailed through, easily found a taxi and was at the hotel in Karol Bagh in an hour on quiet roads (did I say quiet? apart from all the honking trucks).
I'm staying at what you would have to describe as a basic, even shabby, hotel, but these days that's what you get for the price. The rooms are at least clean, with basic A/C and a good shower, so it's fine.
Karol Bagh is a very lively area. I quite like it. Faded art deco town houses around little squares of park, and the main street hums during the day and evening, full of market stalls and hawkers who are fairly insistent but friendly. If you treat it as a game and smile a lot they are fine.
On Saturday night there was a huge racket outside the hotel. A wedding party went by, the groom on a white horse, with hundreds of family supporters, and three bands of drummers banging their hearts out. Portable electric chandeliers linked by dodgy cabling illuminated the whole thing, all linked to a generator on a wheelbarrow bringing up the rear (with a spare white horse just in case). Much more fun than a sombre English wedding. And then there were fireworks.
As soon as I got up on the first morning I was taken to a travel agent and within 20mins had everything booked for my trips in India, before and after Nepal, including trains, hotels and the rest. Later entries to the blog will fill in the details.
They also threw in a car to take me round Delhi for 2 days so it's all been amazingly easy.
It's been foggy - or smoggy - most of the time I've been here, especially Sunday, so reasonably cool, but the long imperialist vistas of Lutyens' administrative centre have been invisible. However, seeing the vast dome of the Presidential palace looming through the mist has its own rewards.
The Red Fort was spectacular and very full of locals on a weekend outing, most of whom wanted me to take their picture - not sure why as they will never see them, but good for my portfolio of local colour. The site was badly mangled by the Raj but you get the feeling of how it would have worked under the Moghul Emperors. You pass through line after line of gates and walls until you reach the inner sanctum of the Audience Chamber, where the Emperor on high dispensed daily justice; then beyond the purely private pleasure grounds, harem and hammam. Similar to Topkapi and other Islamic capitals.
The best sites for me were Humayun's Tomb, beautifully restored with gardens full of running rills, around the grand mausoleum with its cool, austere interiors. This form of grandiose memorial seems to ahve been invented here by the Emperoro's widow, and was copied at ther Taj Mahal 100 years later. Then there is the tower Qutb Minar, which seems an almost impossible feat of engineering for its time, and in design terms almost alien in its appearance, like something out of Lord of the Rings. It was designed to show off the power of the conqueror, the first major centre of the Moghuls in Delhi. The adjoining mosque has an outer courtyard built from the wreckage of 27 Hindu and Jain temples, a metaphorical boot on the head of the vanquished.
I couldn't help feeling that the Lutyens development had much the same purpose, with the Governor's Palace and civil service given far more prominence than the sidelined Parliament building, and there is a rather dodgy message over the Administration buildings' main doors about freedom being earned by a people, not handed down.

+++ More pics at www.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m

final preparations

Monday 6th November. My first day of freedom... so what am I doing at work? Fact is, I've had to do a bit more handover and sorting out than I hoped, as the project I was most heavily involved in has not quite settled dwon as smoothly as I had hoped. But then they never do.
I've spent the last few days ticking off lists and getting the last few bits and pieces I need. Probably I've got too much. The problem is dealing with everything from a tropical island to the Himalayas. But I'm sure it will be fine.
Not helped by the fact that the boiler is being replaced all week and there is no hot water or heating. And I'm also organising details for a new bathroom carefully timed for installation when I'm away.
Finally it's Friday. The customary long queues at Hethrow, then I'm actually on the plane and in the air. I lay back and think of my plans for 180 days ahead...

travel party

Just a few images from the party. The usual suspects were there, and it was enormous fun, with the travel theme taken seriously (?) by a few at least.

nearly off

Keith intends to get into the local culture during his trip


It's nearly here and I can't quite believe how fast it's arrived. I haven't done a load of things I ought to have done... When talked about it with my bosses and got the nod 4 months ago it seemed ages away. And when I set up this blog 2 months ago it still seemed remote. But suddenly here it is.

I've had a great send off from friends and work. Last weekend there was a great party here at home where everyone got drunk (some of us more than others Tony). I put together a video with Yasser around my trip with some great images. And there was a video of last year's Christmas party.

Then there was a nice drink up at the work. Everyone has been very kind about it. especially the management who have never treid to dissuade me, even though the office is very busy. I feel slightly guilty about leaving now - but then I suppose there never is a good time. It was a great evening at the Prophet. I shared it with Dom, my colleague who left the same day to go and work in Hong Kong, so I will be meeting up with im just before Christmas.

Plans have had to change for the New Year segment as Yasser was refused a visa for VietNam, without any reasons given. So now I'm going to Bali instead at that time and VietNam a bit later. There were a couple of nights of major reshuffling and rebooking but we got there. Now I might be able to get all the way by train from Hanoi to Saigon in one journey.