NEPAL

Dear overcrowded, dirty Nepal with its lovely smiling polite patient people, the myriad colours, the dilapidated buses and taxis, the fascination of the teeming mass of humanity dodging out of the way of the darting, honking motor bikes, little cars, tiny men pushing laden down bicycles carrying huge amounts of fruit and goods, pushing heavy carts packed high with every type of building requirement – the women’s bright shawls and trousers, the men in their little Nepalese caps all adding up to a kaleidoscope of bustling life.

I’m back in Kathmandu after a very early flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and from there to the capital of Nepal. The airport here is just as crowded and dusty as ever with very long lines to obtain visas, go through customs etc. Having handed over $100 for a visa along with the usual required photos I was on my way in one of the tiny rattling taxis through the streets milling with people.

The situation here does not seem to have improved at all. Piles of trash still thrown around every piece of waste ground, women squatting down on the dirt with their children beside them, horrendous traffic with most vehicles blowing their horns and motor bikes weaving in and out between cars. Compared to here Thailand is spotless and so easy to navigate.

I am staying in an apartment rented by a friend, Murray, who is from Australia. His wife Maureen is from Ireland and they visited me there last summer but now she is in Australia and he’s doing some research here. It’s a shame she left just a few weeks ago so I didn’t get to see her. The apartment is very nice, it is not close to places where I have been before like Thamel, but the neighbourhood has some lovely houses and it is mainly residential although one sees the cows strolling by and the roads are a disaster.

There is the usual shortage of electricity so there is no power for many hours of the day but there seems to be more water available than last time. I heard that there was quite a monsoon season this year.

Murray is a walker so we explored all the streets around strolling through the dusty pot holed lanes keeping very much to the side as the motor bikes and taxis tried to go around all the holes. Going back to Thamel is fun with the huge mix of vendors, knife sharpeners, the heavily laden bikes of the fruit sellers and the offers to sell every imaginable type of outdoor trekking ware, wildly coloured tops and trousers and the huge curved knives of the Gurkas. There are the wild, dreadlocked Indian Sadues with their whitened faces and bright robes, sad street children, Nepalis, Newaris, Gurungs with the women wearing their nose ornaments, the Tibetans with the women attired in their beautiful aprons. I’ll put some pictures of street scenes in an email that I'll send out to my family and friends.. Everywhere is perfumed with the smells of incense offered to the many Hindu altars to their deities.

My friend Carol has been here from Israel where she has a shop so we went around buying lovely goods wholesale and I, of course, was tempted and bought a few nice things like water shawls and rings. It is fun shopping here and sipping on the Nepali tea that is offered at every stop. The sellers are really nice people and so gentle.

There is a fun market in Kathmandu every Saturday set up mainly by foreigners for ex pat people living here. Many of them are teachers or work with NGOs. Some are married to Nepalis. There are nice things available that are not in the local shops like cheeses and sausages made by the French vendors. There’s a great air of fun and meeting other people and chefs from nearby restaurants are kept busy flipping omelets and serving good smelling food while buyers joke, nibble on cheese and sip on wine, another expensive item in Nepal.