What can I say about Kathmandu? I felt so dragged out, coming in. The plane ride from Hong Kong was almost more than I could bear, five hours of torture. I kept falling asleep abruptly and darkly, and waking to find I hadn't even the wherewithal to keep my own mouth shut. Not a nice feeling. We arrived in Kathmandu, I was told, at 10:30pm but as a time it was meaningless - I had flown 13 hours from Vancouver to Hong Kong and crossed twelve time zones. And then flown to Kathmandu via Dakar. I think.
My trepidation coming out into the darkness at Kathmandu airport, after having navigated the visa-getting process, was alleviated by two young men holding a big red "World Expeditions" sign up against the glass wall that keeps non-passengers out of the airport. I smiled at them and nodded at the sign, and they popped out from behind the barricade and said, "Catherine?" I agreed.
They put me in a sort of tin minivan, and drove me off, one of them told me, towards the Radisson, through dark streets. The one who spoke English explained that there was a power outage. There was supposed to be power between 6pm and 1am but it didn't always happen. There seemed to be storefronts or something with roller doors on all the ground floors, but above there were the occasional lights in windows.
He also told me not to drink the water, but that the Radisson would provide bottled water. And he said I would be safe to walk around by myself, in the morning.
At one point, he was driving straight towards an oncoming car - and he turned to me and said, "This is a one-way street". In fact the better idea would perhaps have been to let the other fellow drive, as the driver kept turning around to talk to me, the whole trip. I wasn't capable of much more than occasional assent or interested noises.
When we arrived at the hotel, it looked like any nice hotel anywhere, even though it was situated at the bottom of a narrow alley and surrounded by buildings in various states of being built or dismantled, it was hard to tell. I got my room keycard and went up, had the usual "How the hell do you wokr this?" thing. When I finally got the magic green light and let myself in, I put my bags down, the door closed behind me, and I was in total darkness. I found a light switch but nothing happened when I pressed it. Which seemed odd, as the lights were on in the lobby and the hallway. Tripped over my bag, sprawled on the floor, got up and said, out loud, "Fuck this", stripped off my clothes, found the bathroom and used it, found the bed and got in. A hard bed, but I slept like the dead.
When I woke up in the morning I felt much better. Anxious in a way, but physically better. It was light in the room when I opened the curtains, but the light switches still didn't do anything, and I grabbed the wrong little bottle in the dark bathroom and washed my hair with the bubble bath the hotel had thoughtfully provided. Man, did that stuff foam.
I wandered downstairs and found some coffee, then went out into the early morning and walked around the Royal Palace walls, feeling strange and adrift. I had nothing official to do until 4:30. I went to Thamel and managed to buy a towel, but that was pretty much it for my courage. The traffic started building up, all the inhabitants of the city seemed to be buzzing about on motorcycles or in little beat-up cars - lots of honking and as there were no traffic signals, lots of chaos. People were walking, too, but nobody bothered me. A little lady even helped me to cross the road, I was standing there waiting patiently for a break in the traffic, and she came up next to me and said, unsmiling, "You want to cross the road?" Then she just stepped off the curb and held out her hand, and everyone stopped, and we crossed.
In the afternoon I went upstairs to the pool on the roof and had a swim. I got talking to a man named David, who had been medivaced off his trek to Everest and was waiting for his friends to return from their trip. We drank beer and had a late lunch, and for some reason he asked me to go with him for dinner at his friend's house.
He actually did me a huge favour - his friend was Nepali and the food was home-cooked and lovely - the other members of my trek went to a restaurant together and some of them got sick from the food. Well, two favours, even, he told me that in order to get power in your room you have to put your room key in a little plastic card reader on the wall. Arrgh.
I realized today that I was very lucky when I went to Thamel by myself - maybe in my jeans I didn't look like a tourist.
Today we went as a group to Boudhanath, a Buddhist temple, and Pashupatinath, a Hindu temple, where funerals were ongoing - I still have the sweetish smell of cremation in my nose. Boudhanath was very clean, being polished by ladies with whisk brooms, and we went round the bottom and pushed all the prayer wheels.
Anyway. This afternoon we went back to Thamel to look for some gear, and I saw what really happens to tourists there, we were constantly accosted. Tiger Balm, my lovely necklaces, ma'am, flutes, even 'smoke' which I took to be drugs.
I got a good hat, some sunscreen, and a purple pouch to keep my camera in. I'm set to go. Gotta pack my bag tonight so we can leave for Lukla tomorrow morning.
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