Life

Obviously, during this week I spent a lot of time marking, checking and totalling the kids’ exam papers. I didn’t have an awful lot of energy for socialising or the inclination to do so until the exams were over and done with. I’d become fast friends with Michael in the short time since his arrival – to the point where I’d invited him to come trekking with me and Don in Jomsom as the school holidays would prevent him from teaching for a few weeks anyway. We were both aware that we might not be in the best physical condition for nine days of climbing and descending mountains and we had decided that we ought to have a training run the weekend before we set out. The reason the school week had finished on Thursday was due to the Hindu religious festival of Holi. Michael and I decided to use this extra day in our weekend to take a little trek around the Kathmandu Valley – up to Nagarkot and then, on the Saturday, down to Dulikhel and Banepa. The night before we were due to set off, Ram and Sarita had kindly invited me round to join them and Michael for supper – an invitation I accepted with eager delight after the culinary delights of my last visit.
After leaving school, I had time to get home and change before heading over to Ram’s for the appointed time. We sat in the kitchen and chatted and I noticed just how proficient Michael was becoming in Nepali…and I also saw the great rapport he’d established with Ram and Sarita after such a short time living there. I must admit to feeling some regret at my decision not to come and stay with them after the concrete floor had been laid as I’m sure I would have really enjoyed getting to know them and little Roshan. However, in retrospect, not having to commute to school in the ludicrously small tempos nor having to worry about being home in time in the evenings were two things I was happy to forego. Having my independence staying at Lotus played a big part of my experiences in Kathmandu and, much as I’m sure Michael wouldn’t wish to alter his experience, I wouldn’t change a thing about mine. After another delicious meal and some pleasant time spent chatting about my teaching experiences, I left shortly after 9.30 and Michael and I arranged to meet at the Bouddha Gate for 6am in time to get our bus out to Sundarijal where we were planning to begin our hike.
I should perhaps explain that Holi is the Hindu festival of colour and water, meaning that the streets of Kathmandu on Friday were likely to be filled with roaming gangs of kids (and adults) carrying water bombs, buckets and large bags of red dye with which to attack anybody that moved. Michael and I had surmised that the earlier we left, the less chance we’d have of being pelted.
When he arrived, bleary-eyed and a little green around the gills, he began to apologise for being late and explained that he’d been awake most of the night, feeling unwell. While he hadn’t actually been sick since getting up he professed to feeling nauseous and a little weak. Of course, I asked him if he wanted to cancel the hike and head home and made it clear that I wouldn’t be at all upset if this was what he felt he should do. Bravely though, he decided to soldier on and we caught a taxi down the road to Jorpati, where we hoped to get a bus out to Sundarijal. Little did we know that from that moment on our little expedition was to be beset on all sides by a variety of troubles.
Our taxi driver was unsure as to which bus would take us to Sundarijal but, unfazed, we simply asked around on the street. I had correctly identified the road that would take us to our destination so both Michael and I were surprised to be directed to a bus facing the other way on the opposite side of the road. On the bus, we enquired several times, enunciating clearly, whether this was indeed the bus to Sundarijal and our queries were met with emphatic affirmative nods so, when it set off still facing in the wrong direction, we were not unduly worried.
Twenty minutes later, when we still hadn’t made any noticeable turns towards the direction we thought we should be going, we began to think that something might be wrong. For whatever reason (none that I can actually think of, looking back) we remained on the bus until it arrived in the centre of Old Kathmandu. Pointing at a famous landmark, with a big grin all over his face, our conductor announced, ‘Sundara Tower’. The poor guy had obviously thought we were stoopid toorists, unable to pronounce the name of this famous site and had kindly ignored our questions to bring us safely to our intended destination. More than a little irked, Michael and I strode off towards the old bus station, ignoring his shouted demands for payment.
Well over an hour later – in no better mood – we arrived back at the Bouddha Gate and decided we should make the most of the delay and go to get some breakfast now that some of the restaurants were actually open. As we were walking alongside this most holy of Buddhist shrines, I turned to ask Michael how his stomach was feeling. In answer, he suddenly turned away from me and produced a large puddle of bile and stomach lining on the paved route around the Stupa. After a little remedial work with the roll of loo-paper I’d fortunately packed, I ushered him back to my guesthouse for a proper clean-up and a council-of-war about our plans for the day.
It seemed unlikely at this point that Michael would want to spend all day walking in the sun, getting further and further from the comforts of home. However, after a wash and brush up, he professed himself to be feeling much better and even seemed interested in the idea of food. We went to Double Dorjee, where I had a full Tibetan breakfast and he restricted himself to a more sensible option of toasted Tibetan bread and butter.
Far behind our intended schedule and not a little disheartened by the course of events thus far, we decided to modify our plans by getting a taxi out to Bramhakhel and using the day’s hike to see a couple of important Hindu temples in the Eastern Valley, on the way to Nagarkot. Our taxi ride was made somewhat more interesting by a loud knocking sound which developed about 10 kilometres outside Jorpati. Our driver stopped and we inspected the four tyres for a puncture, fully expecting to find a flat. However, nothing was immediately obvious and we went on our way again…only for the same loud knocking to reappear the minute we topped 10km/h. Again we stopped and this time, whilst warily eyeing some hopeful looking local youths carrying large water syringes and bags of red powder, I managed to spot that the nearside rear wheel was within a few threads of falling off. Totally unperturbed, Drives simply tightened the nuts and we set off again at the usual breakneck speed, while I tried to ignore the fact that the tyre I’d seen was completely bald anyway. We overshot our intended destination at first but this gave Michael and I ample opportunity to study the offensive strategy of the local Holi celebrants as our cab (all windows tightly wound up!) careened through water and powder ambushes at either end of the next village. When we finally got back to Bramhakhel, we both agreed that we would likely get ‘nailed’ at some point during our 25km hike.
As we walked over the hills towards Changu Narayan (a 17th century temple standing on a site with origins back in the 4th century!), Michael seemed to be on the road to recovery and we had a pleasant time chatting about the pleasures of getting out of the city and comparing the local surrounds to the lush, green fields of home. Here in the fertile bottom of the higher reaches of the Bagmati Valley, verdant fields of crops swayed and sighed in the light breeze, very reminiscent of an early summer day in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, it was a little warmer than that and, while I was sweating profusely by the time we’d climbed a steep hill to the temple, Michael had begun to feel unwell again. As I sat in the shade of tall shrine, I witnessed the highly amusing sight of Michael vomiting on his second sacred religious monument of the day. The poor guy was heaving painfully into a gutter and all I could do was giggle and think about reaching for my camera. In the end, though, my sympathy got the better of me and I wandered over with a bottle of water and some more loo-roll for the poor sod. While he recovered in the shade, I took a quick look around this ornate and highly sacred temple dedicated to Vishnu in his incarnation as Narayan. The delicate carving of the roof struts (depicting many-armed avatars of the Hindu pantheon) and the richness of decoration was akin to anything I’d seen in nearby Bhaktapur and the commanding views of the valley from its hilltop setting were worth the climb up…for me at least.
Needless to say, after this second episode, Michael decided to call it a day and after a slow walk back to Bramhakhel, I waited for him to hail a passing taxi before continuing alone to Sankhu, where the path led off to the Vajra Jogini (one of four Buddhist /Hindu temples in the valley that are dedicated specifically to the Mother Goddess). This temple, nestled on the side of a steep hill in a beautiful grove of old trees had a definite air of tranquillity and was devoid of the camcorder-toting tourists I’d seen at Changu Narayan. I spent a peaceful half hour here, relaxing and drinking in the atmosphere, whilst cooling down from the exertions of the walk up. When the resident monkeys (a regular feature of most religious monuments in Nepal) started to take offence at my presence and began to throw twigs and berries at me, I realised, reluctantly, that it was time to go. Apart from anything else, I still had a good long way to go to get to Nagarkot and the morning would soon be turning into afternoon. Shouldering my pack (a full 20kgs in preparation for trekking) I set off back down the hill to cross back over the river and head on towards Nagarkot.
It was a long, hot afternoon as I found my way across the river and then worked my way through 1000m of climbing up the long path to Nagarkot. Up to Telakot, where the path meets the winding, hairpin road to the top, I had managed to successfully talk or run my way out of Holi drubbings. The ‘I’m a Christian not a Hindu and we don’t celebrate Holi’ line, whilst a little spoil-sport had extricated me from a few scrapes with older locals and, even with my pack and low fitness levels, I was quick enough to escape from the gangs of marauding children and their less considered tactics. In the end, it was inevitable that I’d get caught and a big gang of beer-fuelled local twenty-somethings gave me the good news with great handfuls of bright red powder. They were perfectly good-natured about it and I succumbed to my fate with a wry grin on my face but all the time I was silently regretting donning my favourite Café Del Mar wife-beater as its light grey became a uniform pink.
I eventually arrived in Nagarkot feeling knackered and ready for a hot shower. After my last 5-star sojourn, any different accommodation was going to seem a little poor by comparison but even had it been my first time, I would have found the Galaxy View Tower just as irritating and poorly staffed.
I took my room under the impression that I would definitely have a working hot water shower and, after watching a disappointing, pollution-obscured sunset in a stiffening, cold breeze, this was exactly what I wanted. To my chagrin, I found that my shower was not working and then, to add insult to injury, I was forced to walk half a mile to the other end of the hotel’s complex to get to a shower that was hot. On top of this the food was cold and my bed was uncomfortable…and I’d managed, unaccustomed to the strength of a Nepali Spring sun, to get burnt during my hike. I went to bed a less-than-happy camper, very much hoping that dawn would bring a better day.
When I woke up to the pain of sunburnt shoulders (I’d fortunately kept my sparsely-covered pate under my trusty North Face hat) I realised that my hike was over. There was no way I could envisage shouldering my big pack for another 20km…especially as I’d want my shoulders back in perfect health in time for the trek proper, the following weekend. I didn’t bother to get out of bed for what was no doubt another disappointing sunrise and, after a late breakfast and a ‘discussion’ with the manager about the bill, I wandered, slightly disconsolately, down the road, wincing from the pain on my fried shoulders and pondering the pleasures of a local bus back to the city. As I trudged down the hill towards the bus stop, a long, sleek classic Mercedes glided past and, surprisingly, came to a halt a few yards ahead.
A nice-looking lass leaned out of the back window and said, ‘Are you wanting a lift to Kathmandu?’ Suddenly, it seemed my luck had changed and, as I eased into the the beautifully upholstered leather passenger seat, I couldn’t help but smile. The two girls in the back (Vickie from England and Claire from New Zealand) were also teaching volunteers and we spent a pleasant hour comparing notes on our experiences before they dropped me off in Thamel. I spent an hour in the internet café and popped in to see Santosh at the gallery (and made moon eyes at my Ganesha again!) before heading back to Bouddha and kicking back for the rest of the day with a book in the cool shade of my bedroom.