October 27

For breakfast, I walked a short way down the street to a German Bakery, which looked like it had good pastries. I bought a croissant and cinnamon roll, with coffee. The pastries were very good. Some Germans were in the bakery as well, and they had pictures from the Everest Region, where they had just been trekking. They said they wanted to send some pictures to their guide, and asked if I would bring them to the Himalayan Hotel in Lukla. I said I would do so if they dropped them off at the Hotel Manang.

I had to move this morning, because Hotel Manang was full today. I chose a somewhat less expensive hotel, Hotel Garuda in the center of Thamel, which sounded good in the guide book. I got a room with a private bath (the only kind at this hotel) for $13 a night. This price makes it still one of Kathmandu's more expensive hotels, but two stars instead of three. Unlike Hotel Manang, this hotel had no elevator, just a lot of stairs. The room is more basic than my last one - no heat or air conditioning, no TV, no phone, and no shower curtain. This last feature is typical of Nepalese bathrooms. When taking shower, the whole room gets wet. Shower shoes were provided outside the bathroom door, but I had my own. They are needed after showering, since entering the bathroom without them gets your feet wet, and wearing street shoes in the wet bathroom makes a mess. As before, the room is spotlessly clean. This location was much noisier, being directly on the street. There was constant hammering during the day in the building next door. Also, the hallways are open-air, not enclosed as in Hotel Manang. A Tit Bit deli and pastry shop is next to the hotel desk, near the entry, and a doorman holds the door and salutes whenever you come or go from the hotel. The hotel lobby is open to the sky, but enclosed, and covered by a metal roof high above, over the fourth floor high above. I took a bicycle rickshaw to make the move, of several blocks. The driver asked for 100 Rupees, and accepted 30 when I started to walk away.

After settling into my new room, I got both my cameras out and set off on a long walk through town to the Swayambhunath Stupa, better known as the `Monkey Temple' after its inhabitants (monkeys are sacred), across the Vishnumati River. Now that I had been in the city long enough to realize that it reasonably safe, I had no further concern about carrying my expensive camera. I have never been in a city anywhere that felt as safe as Kathmandu.

I originally was not sure weather Nepal's reputation for having little crime was due to cultural reasons, or strict enforcement, Singapore-style. However, few police are seen in Kathmandu, and they are usually unarmed, so it seems to be cultural. Still, I was reasonably cautious, since I was not sure I knew what a shady character or bad neighborhood would look like here.

The Monkey Temple sits high on a hill overlooking Kathmandu, and was visible from my room on the top floor of the Hotel Manang when I stayed there. As I crossed the river to the temple, I came upon a Buddhist funeral ritual, in which a body was being prepared for burning next to the river. A large number of monks were present, and some tasteless tourists who were video-taping it. Drums and other instruments were played. In the river, which was very shallow, was a wild-looking pig. The other side of the river was more peaceful than the city, with little traffic and few westerners (most of whom take a taxi to the temple, rather than walk).

Hundreds of steep steps lead up to the temple. At the base of these was a congregation of gamblers, and makeshift shop stalls. Gambling near a temple is apparently lucky. The steps were full of beggars, mostly cripples, and `holy men'. Before I knew it, one of the holy men got me, and I had flowers in my hair and a red dot on my forehead. I didn't give him as much as he asked for, just a few rupees. There were a lot of monkeys and dogs on the temple steps. Kathmandu is swarming with dogs, but these were the first monkeys I had seen here.

Eyes of Buddha

At the top of the stairs is a huge stupa, which is a bell-shaped temple representing the Buddha watching over the earth. The stupa is white, with gold panels and a pinnacle, surrounded by prayer wheels. The eyes of Buddha are painted on the pinnacle. These appear often on stupas, and look like a pair of eyes, with a small `third eye' centered above, and a `nose' which looks like a question mark, but is actually the number `one' in Nepali script. The eyes look in all four directions.

Monkeys climb all over the stupa, and people feed them. There is food inside some of the windows in the gold panels. A Buddhist temple sits to the right of the stupa, with a big Buddha inside. Visitors are allowed inside on a wooden walkway. Behind the stupa were women making holy substances from flowers and some kind of red stuff, which is often smeared all over the statues at temples, making them look gory. There were souvenir shops all around, and a bunch of `mini-stupas' like stalagmites growing around the big one.

After taking numerous pictures with both cameras, I went back down the stairs and took an auto-rickshaw, a little three-wheeled cab, back to town. On the way, we had numerous near head-on collisions. (Actual collisions seem to be rare. I saw a rickshaw and bicycle collide once, but that is all.) Once a herd of cattle came up the street the other way and blocked our path. The driver reached out and whacked them as they passed. He originally said he would just take me to the river, because going back all the way would cost more than he quoted. For some reason, he changed his mind and took me all the way to Durbar Square (much further) for the same price. I stopped at the tourist office there for their trekking pamphlets. The Himalayan Waves Trekking Agency did not appear in their list of registered agencies, but the list was old, so I would have to check this.

Meat Market

I walked back to Thamel via the grocery district. There were numerous stalls where people sold vegetables, beans, spices, and meat, all without the benefit of refrigeration. Many of the vegetables looked like they had seen better days. A cow walking down the street sampled some vegetables from a bin, and was chased away. Cows are sacred and are allowed anywhere they want to go. The butcher shops are disgusting: big bony carcasses with scraps of meat on them sat on the floor drawing flies. Chickens were also available.

Back in Thamel, I went to the trekking agency to meet my prospective guide. I asked first if the agency was registered, and was told that it was, and shown a certificate which apparently said so. I was told they had been in business for only two years. Then I was given a Coke, and a guide was brought in. I was disappointed in their choice. He barely understood English, and had to answer most questions through the agency owner. He also seemed reluctant to go to Gokyo, the second valley I planned to visit. His main qualification was being from the Solu region, which is near where I am trekking. I said I would decide tonight whether to hire him, but had already made up my mind not to. I would rather give up the $50 I paid for his plane ticket than hire a guide I did not feel comfortable about.

This morning, the Germans in the German Bakery (who never did drop off any pictures at the hotel) said they had obtained a good guide through the Himalayan Hotel in Lukla. That is another possibility. It may make more sense to see what the situation is like in the hills before making a decision. It is important to hire the guide through a responsible business, however, since most problems trekkers have seem to be caused by irresponsible guides or porters they hired off the street. If no business is responsible for them, you have little hope of finding them if they decide to run off with your equipment during the trek. Solo trekking is another possibility. I think the dangers of solo trekking are overstated for popular routes, such as where I am going. Hiring a guide or porter brings much more money to Nepal, so they try hard to encourage this.

Tonight, I set out looking for an Indian restaurant. They are surprisingly rare in Kathmandu. Most restaurants have menus that try to cater to foreign tastes. It is not unusual to find a single restaurant which serves American, Nepalese, Indian, Italian, Chinese, and Mexican food, or at least attempts to. The interpretations can be unusual. While I searched for a restaurant, I stopped in some outdoor equipment shops to look at the down jackets, since I was thinking of buying or renting one. The outdoor shops are typically very small, and contain a limited selection of items, many of which are used. Most items are locally produced copies of American brand-name items, down to the labels. Most packs are `Lowe' and most down jackets are `North Face.' Really good equipment is rare, but there is plenty that is adequate. One store had a blue used `North Face' jacket I liked for 3500 rupees, or about $70. I did not buy it, however, and was not carrying that many rupees.

In fact, I was getting short on rupees, since the trekking agency had had my passport since I arrived, and I could not legally change money beyond the $50 I changed at the airport. It is easy to change money on the black market at a rate a few percent higher than the official rate. However, the difference is not great, and to change rupees back to dollars when leaving Nepal requires an official receipt showing that the money was changed legally. Up to 15% of one's legally-changed rupees can be converted back to dollars when leaving, and I wanted to be sure I had enough receipts. Also, in principle, I do not think it is good to support criminals by changing money on the black market.

I ended up settling for a Nepalese restaurant, the Nepalese Kitchen, which has a pleasant courtyard where you can eat outdoors. It is a fairly long walk downtown from my hotel. I had a full-course traditional meal with nine-bean soup, a chicken curry, a vegetable curry, dal bhatt (rice with lentils), spicy pickles, and a yogurt-based dessert, all for about $3. It was my best meal yet. As usual, the service was really slow. Nepalese waiters don't expect tips, except in the fanciest restaurants, so they have little incentive for fast service. I returned to the hotel rather late, and went to bed.

Copyright Scott A. Yost, 1994. All rights reserved.