Kathmandu and Countryside by Motorbike
Touts and hawkers are an everyday thing here, with everyone you pass trying to catch your eye and seel you something. Aside from the carpets, shirts, Tiger Balm, rickshaw rides, beads and all I have also been offered enough hash, opium and marijuana to kill a horse. The long hair seems to be a billboard. You learn to just not even catch the eye or just to not respond - - your first instinct is to say "no, dhandhibat (thank you)!" to everything, but the best response is just to ignore, it seems. It is no insult, it's just part of the business process - - you respond in anyway, and the deal has begun.
With this in mind, I have become skeptical of people walking up and trying to engage you in "small talk," because eventually the sales pitch begun. Naturally I was hesitant three days ago when a young, well-dressed (tucked in shirt, black pants and leather shoes) "student" walked up and began with the small talk. However, very soon he began to talk about the signifigance of the sculptures in the square we were in and the respective religions they represented and I became intrigued. He offered to give me a walking tour, and thus began a two-day relationship that culminated in an exciting motorbike tour of Kathmandu, nearby Bhaktapur and a mountain (large hill, by most standards) outside Kathmandu from where you can see the city and the panorama of the "white mountains" (his, and other Nepalese's term for the Himalaya).
His name was Hari, and after I spent the first half day with him on a walking tour of Kathmandu I got a good feel from him, that he was a sincere individual who was indeed offering a real service for a fair price. He claimed to be a very good motorbike driver and we met his friend, an older business man, who owned many nice motorbikes. "Hari is a good boy!" Would he say any less about someone who was to bring him business? Maybe not, you think if you are a skeptic, and I was a bit hesitant, but I said "what the hell," and agreed to a very appealing tour.
The day on the motorcycle was incredible. We drove to many places in the city of Kathmandu first - - Pashupatinath temple, a Hindu temple where bodies are burned and cast in the river; Boudhanath stupa, a Buddhist stupa of great importance (largest in Nepal, you have no doubt seen pictures, you just don't remember . . .) and then we drove to Bhaktapur.
Bhaktapur is a small city to the southeast of Kathmadu, and is Hari's hometown. It costs to get into the main square where the temples and such are, but Hari is a local and knew the ways to get into the city without paying. That was actually the theme of the day, as we skirted many fees and took side-alleys to arrive in the middle of squares to see temples and stupa. Bhaktapur was the most exciting, however, as we raced through narrow streets on a bike, weaving around venders and popping out in the middle of the main square to stop with him still gunning the motor - - "take picture, take picture, we go soon."
After Bhaktapur we drove many kilometers through the country side to get to Nagarkot, passing farms and going through small towns. Hari avoided the main highways, also a theme of the day, and I saw much of everyday Nepalese life. Nagarkot is a high hill that is to the northeast, and again there was a fee that we avoided, this time Hari simply told the gate at the bottom he was a local. "No problem!" A long, winding road through pine trees that were just slightly different from what we know to a hotel on the top, one of many. We had tea on the roof and lamented the lack of a view. It was cloudy over the Himalaya, but the valley below was beautiful and broken sun came through to spotlight the terraced hillsides and fields below.
We began to drive back but some of those clouds over the distant mountains had come over Nagarkot, and it begain to hail and rain, so we stopped at a roadside tea-house to wait it out. The sun and rain chased each other as we watched, waited and drank Nepalese coffee, making for some good pictures. Finally it stopped enough to keep going, but it kept showering all the way back to Kathmandu. Luck was with us and the wait at the tea-house was worth it, too - - just as we were about to drop off Nagarkot the clouds cleared over the Himalaya and we stopped to see the mountains.
We took the highway so I could see the maddness of Nepalese traffic, which is crazy, but in some controlled manner - - everone weaves and blends together in something that appears chaotic, but when you are part of it makes a certain kind of sense. Hari was a great driver, and I never once felt any worry. My mom would not have lasted thirty seconds, though! (Sorry, Mom! By the way - - I did wear a helmet the whole time!)
An incredible day, all for $20 USD, plus 500 Rs (about seven dollars). The only downside was the incredible amount of pollution I sucked up on the bike and this morning I finally admitted my nose "might be a bit runny" - - I think I have a bit of a cold.
I took many pictures of the bike tour and today found I can have them developed and digitally scanned for less than five U.S. dollars here in Kathmandu. Look for them on the website soon.
This morning we bought our tickets for the flight to Lukla to begin the Solu Khumbu research trek and this afternoon was a real treat - - we went to lunch at the house that the sherpa, Tashi, who Micah and company were with in Tibet, had just completed major construction on.
"Tashi Sherpa," as he is called, has been the guide for many of these trips that one of Micah's advisor from Oxford, Mike Searle, has been on for many years and made a grand party to receive us. We were met by a big crowd that all hung scarves around our necks and banners with "Heartily Wel-Come Senior Oxford Research and U.S. Viginia Polytech Research Party," and another like it were draped from the front of the house. We were taken to the rooftop of this four-story house where we were plyed with copious amounts of beer (everyone else) and juice (me). It was tremendous. Very nice sunny day, beautiful fields and other houses around us and the noise and pollution of Kathmandu in the blessed distance. There were also several gompas (Buddhist monastaries) on the hill behind us. We met the sherpa who will be accompanying us to the Solu Khumbu and looked at maps after a really nice lunch was served. I have only just returned to Kathmandu about 45 minutes before this, and now I need to go meet the rest of the party for pizza - - yes, pizza, with Nepalese cheese. There is a wonderful variety of great food to be had in Kathmandu, for incredibly cheap.
Parting thoughts: yes, people will try to sell you all sorts of things here. The major economic input are the tourists. But if you are going to get an honest service for a decent price and help out a local, maybe you should stop and listen, because you just might find something that is really cool. You get a little gun-shy with all the pushy selling, but you have to be careful not to get jaded. You can still keep walking past the creepy people saying "hash, hash, opium, right now, right now," however.
With this in mind, I have become skeptical of people walking up and trying to engage you in "small talk," because eventually the sales pitch begun. Naturally I was hesitant three days ago when a young, well-dressed (tucked in shirt, black pants and leather shoes) "student" walked up and began with the small talk. However, very soon he began to talk about the signifigance of the sculptures in the square we were in and the respective religions they represented and I became intrigued. He offered to give me a walking tour, and thus began a two-day relationship that culminated in an exciting motorbike tour of Kathmandu, nearby Bhaktapur and a mountain (large hill, by most standards) outside Kathmandu from where you can see the city and the panorama of the "white mountains" (his, and other Nepalese's term for the Himalaya).
His name was Hari, and after I spent the first half day with him on a walking tour of Kathmandu I got a good feel from him, that he was a sincere individual who was indeed offering a real service for a fair price. He claimed to be a very good motorbike driver and we met his friend, an older business man, who owned many nice motorbikes. "Hari is a good boy!" Would he say any less about someone who was to bring him business? Maybe not, you think if you are a skeptic, and I was a bit hesitant, but I said "what the hell," and agreed to a very appealing tour.
The day on the motorcycle was incredible. We drove to many places in the city of Kathmandu first - - Pashupatinath temple, a Hindu temple where bodies are burned and cast in the river; Boudhanath stupa, a Buddhist stupa of great importance (largest in Nepal, you have no doubt seen pictures, you just don't remember . . .) and then we drove to Bhaktapur.
Bhaktapur is a small city to the southeast of Kathmadu, and is Hari's hometown. It costs to get into the main square where the temples and such are, but Hari is a local and knew the ways to get into the city without paying. That was actually the theme of the day, as we skirted many fees and took side-alleys to arrive in the middle of squares to see temples and stupa. Bhaktapur was the most exciting, however, as we raced through narrow streets on a bike, weaving around venders and popping out in the middle of the main square to stop with him still gunning the motor - - "take picture, take picture, we go soon."
After Bhaktapur we drove many kilometers through the country side to get to Nagarkot, passing farms and going through small towns. Hari avoided the main highways, also a theme of the day, and I saw much of everyday Nepalese life. Nagarkot is a high hill that is to the northeast, and again there was a fee that we avoided, this time Hari simply told the gate at the bottom he was a local. "No problem!" A long, winding road through pine trees that were just slightly different from what we know to a hotel on the top, one of many. We had tea on the roof and lamented the lack of a view. It was cloudy over the Himalaya, but the valley below was beautiful and broken sun came through to spotlight the terraced hillsides and fields below.
We began to drive back but some of those clouds over the distant mountains had come over Nagarkot, and it begain to hail and rain, so we stopped at a roadside tea-house to wait it out. The sun and rain chased each other as we watched, waited and drank Nepalese coffee, making for some good pictures. Finally it stopped enough to keep going, but it kept showering all the way back to Kathmandu. Luck was with us and the wait at the tea-house was worth it, too - - just as we were about to drop off Nagarkot the clouds cleared over the Himalaya and we stopped to see the mountains.
We took the highway so I could see the maddness of Nepalese traffic, which is crazy, but in some controlled manner - - everone weaves and blends together in something that appears chaotic, but when you are part of it makes a certain kind of sense. Hari was a great driver, and I never once felt any worry. My mom would not have lasted thirty seconds, though! (Sorry, Mom! By the way - - I did wear a helmet the whole time!)
An incredible day, all for $20 USD, plus 500 Rs (about seven dollars). The only downside was the incredible amount of pollution I sucked up on the bike and this morning I finally admitted my nose "might be a bit runny" - - I think I have a bit of a cold.
I took many pictures of the bike tour and today found I can have them developed and digitally scanned for less than five U.S. dollars here in Kathmandu. Look for them on the website soon.
This morning we bought our tickets for the flight to Lukla to begin the Solu Khumbu research trek and this afternoon was a real treat - - we went to lunch at the house that the sherpa, Tashi, who Micah and company were with in Tibet, had just completed major construction on.
"Tashi Sherpa," as he is called, has been the guide for many of these trips that one of Micah's advisor from Oxford, Mike Searle, has been on for many years and made a grand party to receive us. We were met by a big crowd that all hung scarves around our necks and banners with "Heartily Wel-Come Senior Oxford Research and U.S. Viginia Polytech Research Party," and another like it were draped from the front of the house. We were taken to the rooftop of this four-story house where we were plyed with copious amounts of beer (everyone else) and juice (me). It was tremendous. Very nice sunny day, beautiful fields and other houses around us and the noise and pollution of Kathmandu in the blessed distance. There were also several gompas (Buddhist monastaries) on the hill behind us. We met the sherpa who will be accompanying us to the Solu Khumbu and looked at maps after a really nice lunch was served. I have only just returned to Kathmandu about 45 minutes before this, and now I need to go meet the rest of the party for pizza - - yes, pizza, with Nepalese cheese. There is a wonderful variety of great food to be had in Kathmandu, for incredibly cheap.
Parting thoughts: yes, people will try to sell you all sorts of things here. The major economic input are the tourists. But if you are going to get an honest service for a decent price and help out a local, maybe you should stop and listen, because you just might find something that is really cool. You get a little gun-shy with all the pushy selling, but you have to be careful not to get jaded. You can still keep walking past the creepy people saying "hash, hash, opium, right now, right now," however.
posted by JAshby at 5:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home