Nepal, Kathmandu, Himalayas, and All

I spent just over four days in Nepal, beginning and ending in Kathmandu, with a couple of days in the “low” mountain town of Nagarkot. Additionally, I had some downtime during which I created another video, this one of my drive through the misty Austrian Alps on Halloween.

My redeye from Dubai arrived at 8:15am local time at an airport two hours ahead and a hundred years in the past. Our stair car rolled up to the plane and we walked into customs. There was no instruction provided, limited signage, and a number of different places we could go. I wound up needing 3 different counters, one to pay, one to scan my passport, and then the customs agent to paste the visa in my passport.

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Nepal was the only country I planned to visit where my overpriced Verizon international plan wouldn’t work, so I picked up a sim card and swapped over to a local number for a few days. Then to the taxi that was waiting for me. In the meantime I was aggressively pursued by about 10 other cab drivers.

My driver took me to my hotel which was located in the noisiest spot on earth. I took a nap to the soothing sounds of construction, car horns, motorcycle engines, children crying, and people shouting. I then headed into the center of the city and the tourist market of Thamel. Turns out this is the noisiest place on earth. On my walk the sidewalks were paved in trash. Everywhere was home to hungry dogs. I recognized quickly that drivers were supposed to be on the ‘opposite’ side of road, but I saw them on both sides, zipping and zooming their way. Wherever there was an opening, some vehicle found a way through it. Crossing streets was most literally a live action frogger, with sometimes 6 improvised lanes of traffic. Complete bedlam.

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Some streets and sidewalks seemed to be paved in trash. Wherever there’s water (I crossed two small rivers) was the smell of sewage.

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In Thamel there were few sidewalks, and they started and stopped without consistently. Tons of tiny shops. I rejected multiple guys who came up to me and wanted me to see their art or something or sell me weed. I grabbed momo dumplings for lunch before and after checking out bootleg gear and clothes. Most things had a North Face logo on it. In a couple of words, the market was a crowded crazy cacophony.

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I then headed a bit south to the main cultural part of town, Durbar Square. Here Dilip intercepted me and began giving me a tour before I knew what was going on. I soon recognized that this was his hustle, but obliged as he was friendly despite being pushy, knowledgebale, and gave me a lot of interesting information about the many temples I saw that I otherwise wouldn’t have known.

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He also took me to see the living goddess (we weren’t allowed to photograph her) in the courtyard of her small palace. She’s 5. She was identified at age 3, having had the 30-some-odd criteria required.

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Dilip explained which gods are which, there are hundreds of millions, but the big three are Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu. We saw temples and/or shrines for each. Whenever we walked through a doorway where there was a risk I hit my head, Dilip would say “tall mountains small doors” (or the variation with “tall mountains, small people”). One of the larger ones was a pile of bricks now, having been destroyed in the earthquake of 2015. There were other similar piles of rubble throughout the city. Other temples were being repaired or had been shored as a result of the quake. Among the destroyed temples was the one nicknamed the hippie temple, which the Beatles visited and George in particular drew inspiration from. The Nepali outlook is “were all in this together,” and the more I learned about and observed their culture, the less of a surprise that the hippies really took to it. The way people treat and help one another, the karma, and overall positive outlook made it special.

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Included on his tour was a trip to a small art shop where i learned about mandalas and he and the young proprietor tried to get me to buy one. I had to politely decline 10 or more times before being able to move on.

After the tour I got chat (pronounced chaaht) street food. I knew it was good because of the mob of people standing around eating it and crowding the booth (which was also well rated on Google). Oh my. Crunchy, saucy, sweet, spicy, potatoey, and all veggie. It was so good I ate two. A little messy for a street food dish, but totally incredible nonetheless.

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Being jetlagged and disoriented from the flight my sleep schedule was totally off. I headed back to the hotel and passed out, only to wake up at 11pm to the soothing sounds of dozens of dogs barking. Around 3am it dwindled to one dog, and I fell back asleep with the hopes that I could maintain some semblance of a schedule from thereon out.

Just a day earlier I had seen the Burj Khalifa, the biggest building on Earth. It was great, but I needed something even bigger. There was nothing bigger in the manmade world, so I sought nature, and was rewarded with Mount Everest. I didn’t budget enough time in Nepal to go trekking, so my only surefire way to see this massive mountain was an Everest flight. This was a roughly one hour airplane ride that flew a roundtrip route to the Kathmandu airport. The propeller plane had 16 seats, all windows. As we flew over the Himalayas the mountains were pointed out, and each passenger got to stand behind the pilots.

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Pretty incredible. I saw Everest in all it’s glory. Given the decent mountain views I got from my flight in, and the low cost of nearly everything in Nepal, this one activity probably wasn’t worth the price of admission. But no regrets, because I got to see all of this:

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After my flight I didn’t need to see more of Kathmandu and got a ride up to Nagarkot. The ride took nearly two hours to go 30 kilometers (19 miles). On this ride I realized that here honking is primarily to let someone know that you’re doing something reckless. The road quality worsened as we left the city. Once decently paved, it eventually gave way to a gravelly pothole ridden dirt road switchbacking up the wooded mountainside. Cliffs were both above and below with homes and gardens on the terraced landscape. Eventually the more exotic jungle-like plants gave way and long needled pines dominated the mountainside.

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Nagarkot provided a much appreciated respite from the insane chaos of Kathmandu (and I knew similar situation I’d encounter in my following city of Delhi). The quiet lended itself to a meditative couple of days, and the fresh mountain air was particularly nice because Kathmandu was heavily polluted. A number of locals and tourists in Kathmandu wore masks to limit the particulates they took in with each breath. I found the Kathmandu pollution irritating but not debilitating.

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I arrived in Nagarkot midday, a stunning tiny town along a ridge in the green mountains. Nagarkot was nestled above and along colorfully farmed terraced hillsides. Intermittent views of the white capped Himalayan powerhouse mountains defied logic. It was basically like taking a gorgeous landscape and plopping a painting of the world’s most epic mountain range and plopping it on top of what your brain said should be the horizon. Photos can’t do it justice, but here goes:

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I grabbed a thukpa (soup) and momo (dumpling) lunch and headed out on the local panoramic hiking trail. Some of the above photos were from that hike, here are some more.

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About 2/3 through my mountainside walk I encountered a gaggle of school children prob ages 3-10. The first one assertively said “give me money,” and after a few failed demands, it became “no money.” Decent English for an 8 year old. While I didn’t have rupees for him, I later realized I had something in my bag I’d more readily give to random children: Widdershinning Weiss stickers! I gave a couple to the last two smallest children I crossed (no other child requested money).

Toward end of hike I accidentally missed the trail as it diverged from a local road and darted into the brush. I stayed along the road and wound up at temple nestled along a couple of hostel/hotels. I walked up the steps to the temple and was rewarded with 360 degree views of mountains. Here I chatted with Rozanna, a British backpacker who like me had quit her job to travel. She had been in Nepal for a month and was next heading to Thailand. Rozanna showed me a better vista from a nearby hotel roof where we got tea and watched the sunset. With the sun gone and nothing left to see, I headed back to my hotel in the increasing dark.

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The hotel I stayed at was predominantly solo backpackers. They provided vegetarian traditional Nepali dinners each night, which did well to build a good community vibe. I chatted with my roommates who I hadn’t met yet ( I was in a 3-bed dorm), Katya (German) and Laetitia (French), along with Eoani, a 70-year-old American vagabond who looked like Raz Al Gul.

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The next morning I woke up before 5 and headed out with Laetitia to the observation tower about a 45 minute walk south. We also met up with two other french folk she met on the bus to Nagarkot, Lucas and Sophie. Sunrise was utterly stunning.

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After staring at the sun and mountains, I went back to hotel to get picked up for paragliding. After a roughly 10km ride on a bumoy road we got to the location. I received a brief explanation from my tandem pilot, David (Dumbar), who had been at-it for 6 years. The instructions were generally “when I say run, run.” We waited until the wind was in our faces and then it was time to go. 3, 2, 1, run! All of a sudden I wasn’t running because my feet had left the ground, and we flew. It was unreal. Incredible. Amazing. Soaring over terraces staring at the mountains. An eagle was flying below us. Pretty much no thermals so we weren’t able to gain much height. Thermals are the pockets of warm air that rise and give paraglidgers their lift – the birds use these too. As our flight began to end David did some acrobatics.

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After paragliding we got lunch, and then I was driven back to the hotel. Today I did a shorter walk to a picnic spot. This secluded small clearing was in a natural bowl of medium sized wooded hills. It felt very big and very private. I couldn’t see white capped mountains or anything manmade. The only stimulus was the sounds of birds and bugs, and occasional laugh or shout. As I sate here I tried meditating, but this turned into a nap on the low grass. I then walked along road into town watching the sunset before going back to the hotel for dinner again. Eoani was the only returnee, as he entertained a new group of folks with his conspiracy theories (global warming is BS, the federal reserve is a for profit enterprise run by the Rothschilds, etc.) and lifetime of travel stories. After serving in Vietnam he became a surf bum and mostly made Hawaii his home, but had spent significant time in 6 continents (he regrets passing up an opportunity to join a scientific expedition in Antarctica, while I regret not taking a picture of him).

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The next morning I slept in before taking a cab back to Kathmandu. This one took a different route, we drove past observation tower and down hill into the edge city of Bhatakpur. There were somewhat better paved roads this way. Bhatakpur was similar to Kathmandu but less dense/intense.

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After getting to my hotel I picked spot for lunch an hour walk away and tried to see slightly different parts of city en route. The food was good but not standout. I sat with 3 Mexican guys (two now living in Texas, one in Australia) who were about to trek to Everest basecamp. We had good conversation and traded travel stories before I went off alone and they went to rent gear.

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I then headed to my last big destination in Kathmandu, the Bouda Stupa temple. On my way there, crossing a bridge, a Nepali guy told me I was taking the wrong bridge. I tried to resist his recommendation but he assured me he was an honest trustworthy local who knew the right way for me to go. I agreed to follow him to the nearby more northern bridge. As we walked by a couple of shrines and small temples he began explaining things to me. I recognized this hustle from Dilip in Durbar Square. I explained I didn’t want a tour. He said it wasn’t a tour, he would walk me to the Bouda and then leave me alone. The tour and narration then continued. Once we got near the next bridge I told him I’d rather go the way I began and started to walk away from him. He encouraged me not to, that it was the wrong way. I thanked him, but its how I wanted to go. He said ok, reached out to shale my hand, and then uttered the now infamous “give me money.” I apologized and took off to the more circuitous bridge.

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I neared my destination, which was up on a hilltop. So many stairs. So many monkeys. One guy more politely tried to become my tour guide. I told him I was out of rupees, he said thats ok, it was important to him that I understand the site and significance fully, it wasn’t about money. I thanked him and declined. After (365?) stairs i arrived at a gorgeous 2,500 year old temple covered in monkeys and tourists. I didn’t plan it this way, but it was about a half hour before sunset. Perfection.

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The Hinduism in Nepal is fascinating and I appreciated the way people respected and made offerings to temples and shrines. I only wish that they respected nature equally. The amount of trash everywhere urban and rural was disheartening.

After the Bouda I headed back to the hotel and was still full from my late lunch so I skipped dinner. When I got back into hotel room I saw a number of little bugs. I couldn’t tell if they were bed bugs or not, but they looked similar enough that I freaked out. I had some loose clothing which I shook and doused in lavender oil. Packed everything up. Smushed a few bugs on a piece of paper and took it down to reception. Told them i cant stay there, bedbugs in my room. Now he got freaked out. I showed him the paper, he relaxed and said, “oh, no, those are just small cockroaches. Not bedbugs. It’s still a problem we need to fix but it’s alright.” Ok, well I’m still not staying here. Onto another hotel to spend the night before an early morning wake up for my flight to Delhi.

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I boarded my flight to Delhi where I sat next to two retired german women. We had very pleasant conversation, which included some trump bashing. However we mostly talked travel, they were coming back from Bhutan and had previously traveled extensively in Asia. I told them about my Germany trip, but didn’t give details on my heritage. When my neighbor mentioned her son was in Israel and asked if I had been, I said yes and described birthright while outing my Judaism. We then talked about how my Germany trip in part retraced my ancestry, and when I told her the story of my family’s emigration from Germany to the US she began to cry. She also shared her own family’s story; the war was nearly over when her father was recruited to join the SS at 19. Her father poisoned himself to become sick enough that the SS wouldn’t take him. He was studying chemical engineering and likely would’ve had to develop chemical weapons. Our conversation continued about some other things until we got close to Delhi and began starting about how terrible the pollution was.

The night before, At my hotel I was Facebook messaging with Aungeer, my friend who lived across the hall sophomore year in Buffalo, and the Delhi native who I planned to see. He warned me of the pollution and suggested I delay my visit to northern India until after the smog has cleared. If I come, I should buy a mask before leaving the airport. I began research on the smog and my options. The air quality scale goes up to 500 (bad). Kathmandu had around a 200 during my visit – a few minutes walking outside and I began to feel it in my throat. It was tolerable as long as I remained hydrated. For reference, my suburban hometown of Ossining is a 13. Boston was a 26 and NYC was at 28. Delhi meanwhile has been the most polluted city on earth for over 10 days running, had closed schools, and maxed out at 483. At that moment the top 5 most polluted were all in the subcontinent, 3 in India, 1 in Pakistan, and Kathmandu at #5. The pollution in Delhi was a combination of construction dust, carbon emissions from cars and industrial sources, and an annual big contributor when regional farmers burn their fields after the harvest. I had everything booked at this point, so any changes would require me to spend upwards of $200, and probably still layover in Delhi when flying from Kathmandu to some new city. I therefore decided to stick with the plan. If Delhi was truly intolerable I would spend all my time indoors and leave a day early. I hadn’t seen Aungeer in almost 15 years, so I wanted to keep hope alive that we reunite regardless of the haze.

And this cliffhanger is where I’ll leave you. You’ll have to tune back in next week for my dramatic visit to the most polluted place on earth.

And my song for Nepal, Phenomal Cat, is the song that a few months ago gave me the idea to associate a song with some (later becoming all) posts…