Ken at the Movies

Random Bits

I employ a housekeeper. She comes twice a week, cooks, cleans, does the laundry, etc. We communicate through notes. All in all, it is a very satisfactory arrangement. Except I think she believes that there are four of me, and that we all have poor taste in color coordination.

Four of me? I guess this by the amount of food that she makes for my dinner. The salads are enormous. I take them to work the next day to share with my office. Of eight. On top of the salads (which are good, don’t get me wrong, just enormous. I’ve learned that if I eat the salad at every meal, it will take me two days to finish it. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner), she’ll make a main course. Tuesday it was a Japanese stew that I could consume about half of before it went bad. Thursday it was a roast chicken with potato, carrot, and onion. And another salad. And a huge bowl of cut-up mango.

Thursday’s roast chicken posed another problem beyond the amount. It was a full chicken. Not chicken breasts. Not all parceled out like they do at KFC. Just a whole chicken, balefully staring up at me from its bed of root veggies. I’d had a long day at work and was starving. So I scooped up some veg onto a plate then grabbed a knife to cut some chicken.

And realized

that I’ve never in my life (32 years)

cut up a whole chicken.

I had no idea where to start. It was smallish as it was not one of the fancy American hormone filled chickens. So that was a plus. But still. Where do you begin? I kind of stabbed at it with the front of the blade, trying to find a fleshy part. I heard random small crackings and imagined I was cutting through some tiny bones or whatever were in there. So I stopped smacking the blade into the curved top of the chicken and started hacking at the appendages, figuring that if i separated them off, maybe the ‘meat’ part of the chicken would be more visible. So I got what I believe to be a wing separated from the body and pulled some of the meat off to throw to the cat that was attacking my feet and crying trying to get to the bird. Then I poked the knife in at the torn-away site to see if there was more fleshy bits. There were, so I tried cutting them and eventually flipped the whole thing over to find a treasure trove of flesh. Yay. So I sliced a few more bits off, wrapped the rest up, and went to eat my dinner.

The next day, I was going to cut up the rest of the chicken to take for lunch. Except I still wasn’t really sure HOW you cut meat off the chicken. Either the birds here just don’t have any meat or I’m an idiot because I couldn’t really FIND any more meat. Not in serious hunks anyway. There were more bits and bobs that I was able to scrape off, half to me and half to the demoncat, but nothing substantial. I’ve heard two people can eat off of one chicken, but are these fairy people or diet maniacs? Because there was a good bit of skin and bone on this thing, but not a lot to eat.

But other than the chicken, which I’m sure has more meat on it that I just can’t find, my dinners are ridiculously substantial and almost scary in proportion. Hence, I believe she thinks there are four of me.

The struggle with the towels and bathmat is what leads me to believe that she thinks I have crap color coordination abilities.

I have two bathrooms (okay, I have 3.5 bathrooms, but two that I keep stocked) and two sets that go in these bathrooms. One is lavendar and dark brown, the other is orange with cream and light grey zebra striped towels. At least, this is how I imagine it should be as those are the color schemes I had in mind when I bought the items. However, I’ve noticed that the towels migrate. When I set things up with the orange bathmat, grey/cream and orange towels, after my housekeeper comes in, they migrate to where the grey/cream towels have been replaced by the rest of the orange towels or by the brown towels. Then, the lavendar towels are left on their own with the lavendar bathmat and lavendar and white shower curtain. So I’ll go back and change everything around. Then the next time, it will all be changed around again. It is a silent battle of wills and taste.

Which, if she has a lack of faith in my taste, that can only have increased over the past few days, as I’ve decided to paint my apartment. My walls are beige-y white depression color. So I’ve been painting them red and blue and orange. I have a few blocks of color on one wall in the hallway and am using them as permanent frames to place photos in. On another wall, I’ve painted red and orange polka dots in varying sizes. On a third wall, I’m painting a series of red, orange, and blue stripes.

It will either look awesome, or like insane clown children attacked my house.

My housekeeper hasn’t commented on the paint job yet. But she is making fajitas for dinner on Tuesday. I have a friend coming for a visit so we may actually get through most of the food. Although, I did tell my housekeeper that I had a friend coming to town. So she may decide to make more food than normal. So that we each have enough.

Naked About Town

The Case Against Me

Things are getting pretty dire here.  I may have passed straight through quirky and rushed full-on into “Notes on a Scandal” territory. This may be one of the dangers of not getting married. You start to become full-on insane. Not because of missing a man or what have you. But because there is no one else in the house going, hmmm maybe that’s not a good idea. No checks and balances against your taste or brilliant ideas. Just you in your house, listening to music and thinking, oh that wall could use a bit of color. Red? Orange? Blue? How about all three? But tasteful. It will be tastefully done yet unusual. Or, my hair seems kind of dry, what kind of deep conditioning treatment can I find in my very own kitchen? Eggs and olive oil! Of course! Very good for the hair!

Which is how you end up at the hardware store, idly spending a mint on custom mixed paint that looks nothing like the paint chips that you’ve been handed to pick out the colors. Oh, it is in the same color family, but where the colors on the chips have taken on a faded, nice patina by virtue of having been there since the store opened and taking on the oils of all the hands that have fondled them, the colors you will actually get in the can will make you exclaim things like, “Wow, cheetohs” and the favorite of the clerks, “That looks like a hooker’s lipstick!”. You will then trundle these, along with what should have been a slight wash of blue but is actually a chalky soul-less blue and what was supposed to be a deep rich brown which instead is cheap chocolate from christmas brown, to your apartment. The initial plan was to paint frames on the walls and fill them with photos. But idly, with no real purpose in mind, you pick up some masking tape and start blocking off a small section of the wall the in the hallway next to the door on the corner with the dining area. Within the box that you’ve blocked off, you place the tape in a staggered stripe fashion. Using the hooker red and the chalky blue, you fill in the block and then go make yourself a snack. Coming out of the kitchen, eating mango and drinking calamansi juice you happen to catch sight of the blue and red freak show on the wall. At that moment you fully realize, more than anytime before, that paint is rather permanent. And this may have been a bad idea.

But in for a penny… Later that night, after doing some research for a volunteer project, you google at-home hair treatments, as you’ve noticed a ton of split ends lately. So you find a recipe for egg and olive oil conditioner. That sound reasonable. Lots of fat in that, and didn’t the Romans use olive oil for cleaning themselves? The last bit of the recipe reads rinse well. Head off to the kitchen and mix up the recipe, which smells like mayonnaise or egg and while not unpleasant, isn’t the usual floral assault wave and so doesn’t particularly smell like a nice hair treatment. It is very runny and so you can’t quite figure out how to put it on. You try various methods, pouring it in your hands, pouring it directly on your head, etc etc. Eventually the cup of goop is empty, which may have more to do with the cat deciding it is delicious than your ability to put it on your head. The recipe then said to wrap your head in saran wrap and leave it set for ten minutes. This ends up taking a good ten minutes as sections of hair keep slipping out of the saran wrap so you have to go another round about your head to capture the renegade section. Eventually your head is almost white with saran wrap but all the hair seems to be contained. But not all the goop, as it is running down your face and neck and your cat is whining trying to get you to pick him up so he can continue eating.

Ten minutes go by and you rinse it out. After standing directly under the spray for five minutes, you figure it must be all rinsed out. So you wrap your head in a towel and head off to the foyer. Because while under the spray, you came up with the brilliant idea of writing, ‘You’re so money, baby, and you don’t even know it’ above and below the mirror in the entrance. You grab a pencil and start writing on the wall. Then you realize it is crooked as and you should have drawn a line first with the meter stick that you bought particularly for this exercise. So you go grab your eraser and your meter stick. Erasing a dark pencil line on a glossy white wall? Doesn’t work. So now the wall is smeared with black from the eraser and the marks are still there. Glass cleaner doesn’t take this off. Neither does vinegar and baking soda. Then you think, I’ll just paint a large frame around the mirror, which will cover up the marks and then write on top of that!

As you’re thinking this, standing in the foyer in your bare feet, your cat divebombs first your left then your right foot, biting as hard as possible to let you know his anger or boredom or that he’s finally completing his satanic ritual to fully transform to a devil. The tops of your feet start bleeding in what you imagine might be a decent rendition of the stigmata.

You use your meter stick to mark off a frame but due to the placement of the light switch, are unable to make it large enough to fully cover your brilliant quote idea. You opt to ignore this and deal with it later, concentrating on filling in the frame as it is getting late and you need to go to bed. However, you did not remember that the paintbrush was still reasonably full of water from the earlier box excursion, and so the paint starts running freely down the wall, past the masking tape barrier. With nothing else handy to take care of messes, you hike up your tshirt and use it as a rag and think to yourself, i should get a rag. Yet you continue painting, the paint keeps escaping the masking tape boundaries, and you keep thinking, I should get a rag. Then you notice that the paint is also hitting the newspaper (that you thankfully thought to put on the floor) in large quantity, which your cat has become fascinated with. Trying to pick up the cat with the non-painted hand, he fights back and gives a vicious swipe to your arm and earns a big blue splotch on his head for the effort. Eventually you get the frame filled in and the cat out of the foyer. Time for bed.

You take the towel off your head to go to bed and realize that there may actually not be enough water in the world that will adequately fill the recipe’s request to rinse well.

And that, you may have to start scouting for a marriage partner. If only to stop you from doing stupid things like this. And to read maps.

Naked Ken in Darbur Square

Unfortunately, getting a little dirty. Traveling around the world isn’t always pretty.

Oh, Hippies

In need of peace and harmony, and because my friend needed a roommate, I decided to go on a yoga retreat last weekend.

I have not taken up yoga. I’ve been to a few yoga classes over the years and they always have annoyed me. Guided meditation in that faux-soothing voice. Realizing that the seventy year old man in the corner who had to stash his walker is far more flexible than I am. But deciding that not doing things because they annoy or intimidate me is going to limit my activities to eating chocolate and watching america’s next top model, I opted to go to the yoga retreat. What better way to start a healthy lifestyle than by diving in full stop?

The yoga retreat had been arranged by my friend’s yoga instructor and you could attend her classes as well as those at the farm, just her classes, just their classes, or just stay in your cabin. No pressure!

The farm offered yoga classes, flower arranging, live cooking (as in raw), sprouting for home use, and breathing and walking classes. in addition, they have a spa with scrubs and massages and facials. They also have a doctor onsite and all kinds of fun natural medicine activities. Such as, a blood read where they will draw some blood and tell you how crap you’ve been to your body just by looking at your blood. They also have a salt bath where you sit in a bath with loads of salt dissolved in it. It is supposed to draw out the same amount of toxins in thirty minutes as a 3 day cleanse does. That one looked intriguing mainly because the water gets darker with how ever many toxins are being drawn out. Kind of like a gigantic biore strip for your entire body. Tempting. They also had a clay foot bath that did the same thing, but sucked all the toxins through your feet instead of out your pores. While I liked the idea of seeing how dark the water would get, for any of the medical treatments you had to get the blood thingy done first. And I didn’t really see why I had to have a medical consultation before taking a bath. Also, as I’ve stopped smoking, rarely drink anymore, and eat fruit a lot, I thought I might be disappointed in my toxin load and thus in my ability to turn the water vile colors.

The other medical treatments they had either involved your rectum or colon. What is WITH natural health people and your ass? Seriously. These are some poop obsessed people. One treatment was, I kid you not, a wheatgrass rectal insertion. Oh my god. No way. There was just nothing about that that sounded like a good idea. The colon cleanses as well. I know there are many pollutants and chemicals and bad things and many people don’t chew their food well enough and so on and so forth. But I believe most firmly that for the most part, your body gets rid of your literal shit. Your body pushes that out. And if for some reason it doesn’t, drink the water somewhere that you shouldn’t. Everything possible inside of you will be out sooner than you would like. (This is of course discounting those who have unfortunate health conditions. But in the main… self-cleaning. Also, I don’t think my colon or rectum should be whistle-shiny.) After reading about several medical treatments that will clean you right out, I informed my friend/roommate that she was not allowed to partake in any kind of rectum/colon/ass-cleansing treatment as we would have to share a bathroom for the three days. She agreed.

We had to leave for the retreat after work on Friday and so didn’t get to the Farm until after the last yoga classes for the day. So we checked in, she signed up for her massages and then we went to our room. Oh it was beautiful. The entire Farm is secluded from the main roads and so far from everything that the only sounds are the frogs and birds. That alone is worth the cost of the rooms. The grounds are covered with trees and paths and the suites and rooms and huts blend effortlessly into the background. The majority of the walls of the buildings that need to be enclosed are glass and any structure that doesn’t absolutely need to be enclosed isn’t. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Our shower was outside and covered by a low overhang so that you felt as though you were showering in a stone grotto that happened to have hot and cold running water.

After getting settled in the room, we went for dinner. On each table was a set menu which you could either get the five course meal or an ala carte selection. There was a separate drink menu as well (with many cleansing drinks that I pointed out to my friend were a no-go on this trip. remember, cleansing equals poop.) with the strangest section–organic coconut alcohol cocktails. interesting. i ordered a ginger lemonade, she got mango juice and we tried to decide between the set and an a la carte.

Neither of us thought we could eat five courses. Soup, salad, appetizer, main course, dessert. Who can eat all that? Especially with no yoga classes or anything. But then they told us that we could get three of the set for a reduced price. So I got the asparagus with miso and red pepper sauce, the smoked tofu and mushroom sandwich and the tropical fruit cassata.

There were four spears of asparagus artfully arranged in a criss-cross with miso and red pepper sauce drizzled elegantly about the plate. Lovely, tasty, and just the perfect amount with more food on the way.

One might expect that sandwich = one if not two slices of bread. One would be wrong. One might imagine that a ’sandwich’ would be somewhat larger than a Kennedy half-dollar. One would be mistaken in that regard as well. Were one to expect that a sandwich is a small slice of grilled tomato, an equally small portobello mushroom cap (you’re thinking of the gigantor portobellos in the grocery store. Stop that. Think of a baby bella, otherwise known as a crimini.) grilled on top of the tomato, and a chunk of smoked tofu about the size of two sugar cubes with some sauce drizzled on top then one would have been more prepared than I for the ’sandwich’ that appeared before me. It was delicious and I kind of felt like a fairy or a doll while eating it. By this point we had realized WHY they offered five courses and that clearly five courses would not make you feel overly full. As we were in midst meal, our yoga teacher came up to our table and handed out the schedules for tomorrow. My friend noted that our first yoga class was set for right after breakfast. She doesn’t like to do yoga after eating a full breakfast. I noted that luckily we wouldn’t be eating before yoga class as I picked up the last half of my sandwich on two tines of my fork.

Realizing that I had forgotten to pack a book in a place with no tv, we set off in search of the library. I tried not to believe that I would be able to read the map properly and handed it to her to find our way. We wandered all over the grounds, found the biggest most beautiful mango tree in all creation and sat under it for a while, then continued on our way past the waterfall pool, the salot lounge, and the spa in our vain attempt to find the library. After we found the spa, we noted that this was the same road to our villa and so she left to find a bathroom as I decided to continue to hunt for the library and hence a book. The sun was far past set, there were few to no lights on the path, and I had no map. I should be able to find the library in no time!

I kept walking past the places we had walked because certainly that would lead me to the library we never found. I ended up crossing paths with one of the groundskeepers who luckily had a torch. I asked him where the library was and he immediately started going down this side path I hadn’t been down yet as it looked exceedingly dark and mother may I sleep with danger. As I was following him and idly wondering at the likelihood of a serial killer posing as a groundskeeper at a hippie healing joint in order to lure stupid torchless expats into his underground cave, he pulled up at the lounge we had passed earlier and dismissed as not the library as it was clearly marked lounge and not library. After opening the door and turning on the lights, it was very clearly the library. He left me to find something. Amidst the Danielle Steele and Dr Phil self-help books, I found a very clever and British travel writer’s book about tropical places.

We slept rather early that night. I was hungry about ten minutes after we left the dining hall and had little to no hopes for breakfast.

I of course woke up at 5am and read for ages until the restaurant opened at 7am. I went earlier than my friend, who slept forever and woke up just in time to tell me to go ahead and she’d meet me there.

Breakfast was a revelation! Buffet! YAY! Fresh fruit, nut granola (absolutely the best granola in the world. i tried to beg the recipe to no avail), ‘live’ breads, ‘chocolate nutella’ (total lie. completely tasted of mashed dates with some cocoa powder stirred in. liars.), farm tofu scramble (completely delicious), and sweet potato and yam home fries. and some salads and things as well. also juices and nut milk and green tea. However. There. Was. No. Coffee.

At. All.

Stupid hippies. Coffee is GOOD for you. Antioxidants! Keeps you awake during guided meditation!

Having already decided I would go to the 9am Tibetan exercise class and not the 8am yoga class, I loaded up my plate and tucked in. mmmm. granola. Eventually other people made their appearance and tehre was general chatting and merriment. Then everyone scattered to get ready for their classes.

As I’m congenitally early, I got to Tibetan exercise class before everyone else. I sat down and enjoyed the view out the crystal clear glass windows into the forest. The teacher came in as did another student. As the other student and I are getting to know each other, the teacher picks something up from the floor near the window. It is a small blue bird tied to a branch by its foot. Someone who works there had tied the bird to the branch. Poor little bird. The teacher tried to untie it but it was stuck fast, so she had to leave to find scissors. Other students had come in by this point and one of them laughed and remarked, that poor person is going to be so disappointed when they come to get their bird and it is gone.

Yes, that poor person.

So the teacher comes back, we all get ourselves situated and begin the class. First exercise we have to hold our arms out shoulder height and slowly turn clockwise. After four turns, we kind of squat and stare at our thumbs until the dizziness stops. We’re turning and squatting when BAM! a bird flies right smack into the crystal clean window. The teacher rushes out to take care of the bird and says, oh it is just stunned, and brings it inside to take care of after class.

Seeing as how the poor bird’s head is a bit…. off-center and.. frankly… floppy… i’m not holding out much hope for it.

We return to our exercises. During which I realize that my doctor was wrong about me being as flexible as a seventy year old man. I am in fact MORE flexible than a seventy year old man as there are two of them in the class and I am CLEARLY kicking their asses in the bendy and stretchy portions of the exercises. Go ME! Stretchier than seventy year old men! Awesome.

We finish up the exercises and the teacher hands out glasses of ice water. As I go to place my empty back on the tray, I notice that I cannot because she has placed the dead/comatose bird on the tray to take to… the doctor? I make a mental note to watch the trays from here on out. I also rename the room where we have been doing our exercises ‘The Bird Slaughterhouse’

I then have free time until my 3pm yoga class. So I read, eat lunch, wander. Get to yoga and it is me and four other students. I am the only beginner of yoga. Everyone else has been doing it at least a year if not a hundred. The aircon isn’t on and I’m fair and as I have told the teacher, lazy so I exercise as little as possible. She doesn’t believe me until I become so red that it is rather alarming. I blame this on the heat and the fairness. I am also, as I believe I’ve said before, slightly bendier than a seventy year old man and so she keeps coming over and adjusting me. At one point she tells me to just lie there as the other students are doing things. When I stir and perhaps look as though I’m going to attempt movement, she calmly yet firmly says, just relax! Breathe! So I lie there and breathe and concentrate on being a paler shade of pink. At one point we have to do these stretches with our legs that I can only do by physically holding my leg in an approximation of what the others can do by casually looping their legs behind their ears. It isn’t pretty nor is it dignified. I start laughing at the site of what my pitiful hamstrings are doing which earns me another, relax! Breathe!

We finish, the teacher leaves, and we students head out for tea break. As we’re walking, one of the male students, in a vain attempt to have me feel better about my crickety body, tells me how when he started two years ago he couldn’t really do anything. It is actually working until he starts going on and on about how humiliating it was not being flexible. After he used the word humiliating several times, I stopped feeling better.

At tea they still didn’t have coffee but they did have balls of cacao rolled in coconut. It was almost like something tasty and indulgent. I ate three. Then everyone else trooped off to another yoga class and I went to take a nap. I was tired but more importantly, tired of being the lame ass student holding back the class. And the teacher we were about to have was supposed to be the toughest. I wasn’t mentally prepared.

That evening I decided to try the organic coconut liquor. Definitely a mistake. It tasted a bit of coconuts and a bit like fermented mare’s milk and a whole lot like an utter waste of my money and the name liquor. However, the dessert that came with the set meal (I got all five courses this time. I learn. At least when it comes to food) was quite delicious. It was frozen ‘nut cream’ on top of pineapple and some kind of ‘oatmeal cookie’ crust.  By the way, nut cream should only be eaten frozen. Freezing stops the assification of flavors. Thawing? Enhances them.

Slept weirdly that night. Dreamt George Clooney tried to take a taxi from me in Vegas. Then Red Man was driving the taxi and I thought was trying to hold me up for my laptop but he was just kidding.

Next morning were yoga classes that I skipped in favor of sleep and a long huge breakfast where everyone shared their stereotypes of other cultures. We were a rather diverse cross-section of the world and so it was very interesting. Then my friend went off for her final massage as I walked around the grounds and read my book and almost bought a raw vegan cookbook. Then I realized that at home I also have an Anthony Bourdain cookbook and perhaps the two do not really belong in the same kitchen. I’ve never made anything out of the Anthony Bourdain cookbook nor do I expect to. I just kind of love him and want to go to cafes with him and listen to him swear.

Patan-the Final Chapter

Patan was by far my favorite of the three palace squares of Kathmandu.

This may have something to do with the ‘no-guide-factor’.

My last day in Kathmandu, I finished work at noon and so had the entire afternoon and evening free for site seeing. I decided to go to Patan by myself and meet up with some people for dinner.

Upon getting out of the taxi at Patan, I was immediately set upon by guides. They pointed me toward the ticket booth for getting in to Patan (side note: ticket booths to these World Heritage sites, with the exception of Bhakhtapur, seem to me set in the most random place where you wouldn’t first look to buy a ticket. I obliviously walked past multiple ticket booths Some of which I didn’t discover until later when I was leaving the site.) I buy my ticket, ask for a map, and ask after a few places I’ve heard of (okay, one was a cashmere shop) and start mentally planning my route for the afternoon.  As I’m walking into the palace square, a man starts with the ‘namaste’. I say, namaste I do not want a guide, thank you. But I can show you the palace and museum. I say thank but no, I do not want a guide. Why won’t you help the people of Nepal? Because I’m a terrible person and I hate guides. He goes away.

As I’m walking around the square, staring breathlessly at these beautiful structures and trying to ignore the guides, I feel as though I’m being followed. I turn around and see this stealthy beautiful little five year old boy half-heartedly clutching some postcards in his hands. Not bothering to show them to me, he starts saying hello and asking me to give him candy. What was notable wasn’t that he was doing this, but that he was doing this in Spanish. So I answer him in Spanish that I do not have any caramelos and so cannot give him any. So very reasonably he suggest i go buy some caramelos and then come and give him some. I just repeat that I don’t have any, as I’m wondering why he’s speaking Spanish to me. Deciding it is a fluke, I continue on to the far part of the square. As I am walking, every single child who speaks to me speaks to me in Spanish.

Disturbed, I go into the museum. Which is decidedly the most lovely museum I have ever been in. It is in one of the old palace buildings and chock full of buddhist and hindu art. Everything is grouped together, all exhibits are in Nepali and English, the lighting is incredible. All together a fabulous museum. On the way out I buy a rubber stamp of an uulzii or eternal knot that is a tibetan buddhist symbol and so used in nepal and in mongolia.

Leaving the square I walk down the street toward a festival. And again, as I’m walking, everyone who speaks to me speaks in Spanish. I decide that Patan must get many many Spanish speaking tourists.

Because I now own Kathmandu’s ass, I am able to find my way all the way from Patan to my hotel in a complete other section of the city with absolutely no problem. It is a long walk, and exhausting in the heat and pollution, but I’m so proud that I can find my way WITHOUT a MAP or GUIDE or asking directions, that I can’t quite stop walking. Until I end up buying a rug and so need a ride back to the hotel because my bag is heavy. As I am walking while trying to find a cab, I pass a couple of beggars. And of course, by this time, I have absolutely no cash on me whatsoever.

(I have no right to ever call myself poor. Ever. Neither does anyone I know. We have homes and jobs and food every single day. Every single day. And water that is safe to drink. And can go to the doctor. We have no right to ever refer to ourselves as poor until we are in circumstances such as what I saw in Kathmandu.)

That night I meet some people I met for dinner and walking around. They have all been in Kathmandu for longer so I ask if when they go to Patan if they are spoken to in Spanish or English. English to a one. THey’ve never heard of anyone being spoken to in Spanish. I don’t think I look Spanish but… Typically I get British or Swedish in the Philippines.

Weird. The town of Patan thinks I look like a native Spanish speaker.

A Trio of Sites in Nepal

On my weekend in Kathmandu, I decided to go to Bhakhtapur. In the Kathmandu valley, there were three kingdoms: Kathmandu, Bhakhtapur, and Patan. Each of these kingdoms had a Darbur (Palace) square. Not having much of a plan of site seeing before I went, once there it seemed a good idea to see the different palace squares of the former three kingdoms. Kathmandu Darbur square was the one I saw with my accidental guide. On the weekend, I hired a car for Saturday to see Bhakhtapur. The travel agency offered three places, Bhakhtapur, Nagar Kot, and Pashupati, a car and driver and guide for $80. Not feeling like looking around, I booked it.

Normally, I do not like guides. I prefer to read brochures and poke around on my own. However, knowing virtually nothing about Nepal, I went against my normal ‘no guides for me, thanks’ and went with the guide.

We left the hotel at around 930am. Rather than sitting next to me in the back seat, the guide sat in the front seat next to the driver. So for the initial part of the ride, he kept craning his neck awkwardly to look at me while explaining about Buddhism, the three kingdoms, and the other little bits I’d gleaned from my co-workers and random other guides. Eventually, either due to physical discomfort or that riding in a car while looking backwards makes him as nauseous as it does me, he stopped nattering at me and chatted with the driver in Nepali while I gazed out the window at the towns we passed through.

We drove past Bhakhtapur and up into Nagar Kot first. Nagar Kot is a hill station with fine views of the mountain ranges. In the fall. Not in the summer during monsoon. I was there during monsoon. So we’re driving up and up and out of the pollution and traffic of Kathmandu into the peace and relative quiet of the hill country. The road widens a bit and the driver stops. We get out to survey rice fields and farms. It is pretty and the air is quite fresh. Rice farmers keep looking at me as I am commanded to take photos of the lovely nature by my guide. He tells me briefly about the cycle of rice farming in Nepal and the lack of education of the farmers. Then he begins to tell me about his family and his education and experience. We get back in the car and keep heading up into Nagar Kot. Driving driving driving and hearing more and more about his family, especially his family in the states and how close he is to getting a visa to be able to live there himself. I’m not quite sure that when I paid for a guide, I was paying for a guided tour into one man’s soul, but that is the tour I received.

At the top of the hill station, we get out and walk around the fanciest resort they can find. Apparently, at this resort, the air is especially bracing. It is in fact far more bracing than the air found in the town. The town that is right outside the gates and stone fence of the resort. The town that you could throw rocks at with ease from the resort. The air is so much better ten feet up. We toddle around the resort, stare breathless in amazement at the view that is visible during the fall when the clouds are not covering the mountains as they were that day. It was truly amazing. He tries to hustle me back to the car but I ask if we can walk to town and walk down the one street I saw in town. Looking a bit puzzled he says, if that is what you really want. yes, it is.

We clamber down the ten steps to the town and slowly make our way down the main street and up the tree covered road towards a few of the other resorts. As we are walking, he continues to tell me about his family and education. Bored and trying not to get annoyed, I start asking about education in Nepal in general. He then begins telling me how when the farmers’ children become educated, they no longer want to become farmers but want to travel abroad and work in other work and not till the fields. I say, oh so when they learn english they want to go study in america and live there and then get visas to bring their families over? exactly. not everyone should be educated.

indeed.

i then ask if his family that is currently in america is planning on coming back to nepal to work and live and help their families. he says no, they are already citizens and/or have their green cards and life is much better in america for them. But of course, he says, not every Nepali needs to be like him.

Indeed.

We have by this point turned around in our walk and are heading toward the car. Next stop, Bhakhtapur!

He doesn’t bother to really talk to me at all on the road to Bhakhtapur. We get there and the car is arranged to meet us on the other side of the old city. The old city of Bhakhtapur is quite amazing. It is walled and one must pay to get in. The streets are narrow and everything is in brick and wood. There are so many temples and shrines within the walls of the city. I look at the map my 750 rupees have bought and see so many interesting names and walks within the walls. Then I look at the route that my guide has mapped out for us to take to meet the driver. It is the shortest route possible within the city.

At this point, I feel I have two choices. On the one hand, I don’t know when I’ll be in Nepal again so I can say that I’d like to spend longer in Bhakhtapur and wander all over to these many interesting looking places. I may not get to Pashupati that day, but I can see this fascinating World Heritage Site. On the other hand, the quicker I get done with Bhakhtapur and Pashupati, the quicker I can stop having to be around this horrible guide.

I chose the latter option.

It is always the weirdest little things that people focus on and think you should get all excited about. The national bird of Nepal is the peacock. There is a window in Bhakhtapur carved into the shape of a peacock. It may in fact be the most beautiful peacock window in the entire world. So we troop off to the peacock window. I end up buying a carved table at a shop nearby and am stunningly not interested in the peacock window. The guide is faintly disappointed in me that I am utterly uninterseted in the peacock window. because. it. is. a. small. window. shaped. like. a. peacock.

Though this is rather more stunning than a large old wooden shrine or temple. Or anything with historical significance. even the peacock window may have been more stunning if I had gotten a, oh i don’t know, history of why the damn thing was significant other than, it is the bird of nepal! a peacock!

We continue walking and end up in one of the plazas. As we are walking, we keep passing groups of men having a laugh and chat and drink in and around the smaller temples. I ask where the women are. Oh they are tending to the home, cooking and cleaning (he had just told me it is the day of rest). So I asked when the women were able to rest like the men. He said, oh they are never out in public, always in the home. It is our culture.

Now. Keep in mind I’m already annoyed with this man (and myself for not finding a way out of this situation), but the whole, oh it is our culture that the women stay home and cook and clean and mind the children and run the vendor stalls and weed the rice fields while the men go have a bit of a chat with the boys at the temple squares thing just GETS to me. I’m all for cultural sensitivity and what have you but come ON. You run your country on the backs of your women and they have nominal power in the public sphere and it is just CULTURE? Give me a freaking break. Culture is not a catch-all excuse for every crappy thing that people do to each other! Culture is not a reason for treating one group within a society as lesser than another!

BAH!

Then he asks if i’m hungry. I am and he says, what restaurant would you like to eat at? Then looks at me expectantly, as though he’s SO intrigued to hear what my favorite in Bhakhtapur is. I say, well, I’ve never been here before, so what would you recommend? Oh, I don’t know. Let’s keep walking and see if we see one.

yes. Let’s keep walking and see what we happen to come across, man who supposedly does a tour a day here! Yes! An adventure into the unknown!

We walk into another square of a temple and I see a restaurant that says, Peacock Cafe. i point and ask, is that a good one? He starts laughing, Oh, you’ve just seen the Peacock Window so of course you should eat at the Peacock Cafe! Yes, that is good.

While we are taking our lunch, and he’s explaining about the square (There’s a temple over there. And over there is the washing area. People wash there once a week.Look! They are washing!) He gets a phone call. And takes it. After ten minutes, I get up, pay the check, and walk out. He’s still talking on the phone. I walk over to the washing area, where people are bathing themselves and their clothes in water that is pouring out of the mouth of a dragon spout. Then I wander too near to some vendors who would like to sell some carved items. I’m about to continue following the route to the main palace square when I see a familiar baseball cap bobbing toward me. Oh, it was my son calling me from America. The rest of the walk through Bhakhtapur, through the gorgeous main palace square, down a very quaint street with loads of charm and I imagine history, is taken up with the tales of his wayward son in Los Angeles who did not listen to him about …. something. I stopped listening and started pretending I was a rock in the middle of a river, with all my annoyance and hostility flowing around me but not affecting me.

Car. Driver. Pashupati. The biggest Hindu temple in the world. This is where the Hindus of Nepal cremate their dearly departed. One portion of the river is free for cremation (you supply the wood) and another portion is for payment. It is a sprawling massive complex and there are tons of people. There are buildings into which I as a non-Hindu cannot go, but plenty of places where I can. It is a breathtaking snapshot of humanity and worship and activity. There are holy men called saddu who wear paint on their face and have long hair and accept money in exchange for pictures and are so used to tourists that every time I walk by, they straighten up and try to catch my eye. I do not take their picture. I’m too enamored of the entire scene. In one section you can see where other holy men have set up their homes in the crevices of the cliff facing one side of the temple complex. As we are walking, I gesture up toward a path and ask what is up there. Oh, more of the same.

As we are walking to the car, he keep stelling me about his rotary club and the school for poor children that he and his friends are trying to start, and about hte scholarships that they give. He then tells me about various and sundry scams that children and shopkeepers run against tourists. One where the children ask tourists to buy them a dictionary. The tourist does, seeing no harm in it. They go to a shop, they get a dictionary and the shopkeep sells it for $10 US. The tourist leaves and the children take it back to the shop, where they get $4 and the shopkeeper gets $6. He reassures me his school is not a scam like that. They only take in good children.

We get back to the hotel and I get out, shake his hand, and walk rather quickly to my room. Terrible or not, I didn’t give him a tip. I just couldn’t. By that point I was so annoyed and felt as though absolutely nothing had been added to my trip but rather much had been taken away from one of my two free days in Kathmandu. I did tip the driver, though. If for nothing else than he was quiet the entire time.

Nepal-The Saga Begins

Let’s get the major disappointment out of the way first.
 
Yes, I flew through Bangkok, one of my favorite cities. Street food! Fresh fruit as far as the eye can see! Ridiculous foreigners parading around in tshirts they can’t understand! Everything wonderful and glorious about Asia! I was SOOOO looking forward to an evening of thai food.
 
Get to my hotel, get checked in, trundle off to the elevator. Push the button. Nothing. Push the button again. No lighting up. Finally an elderly gent from the land of Oz informs me that I have to use my key card to use the elevator. And your key card says what floor you can press. Should you like to visit other floors, no WAY! I find this highly annoying. But in my neverending quest for self-improvement (which frankly, as I get older, I get more crotchety and irritated with everything, so this quest for self-improvement appears to need a kickstart) I take a deep breath, imagine I’m a rock in a river with the water of troubles and annoyances flowing around me but not affecting me (I don’t want to hear anything about erosion, thanks.) drop my stuff off, and go downstairs to eat.
 
The hotel doesn’t offer a free map of surroundings or anything close to a book of where to go or even a pamphlet. There is a map heavily sealed in plastic that once opened, you must pay for. So I try to use the only map at hand, which is on the back of the key card holder, and find out how close I am to Lumpini and my favorite night market. I look to be close, so I head down the street.
 
Bangkok is hotter than Manila and even more sticky. I’m tired and after I walk for what feels like three blocks but according to my oh so detailed map is one, I decide I’m just going to anger myself. So I turn around, pick up McDonalds and an ice cream, and go to the hotel room to watch the Hallmark channel. 
 
Yeah, that made me angry at myself too, but the sugar, fat, and salt I consumed sent me deep into a coma so I didn’t even finish watching the french version of hte amazing race called pekin express and they were in UB with the biggest Mongol inthe world. dude was like seven feet tall.
 
On to Nepal!
 
Further details to follow, but suffice it to say that my first day was rather a success. I got a good deal on a taxi (once i remembered that the exchange rate here is NOT the same as in Thailand. my math was off the entire day, which caused me to give really stupid amounts of money for tips. everyone thinks i’m cheap, rode my first motorbike ever (and kept thinking, i’m either dumb but this will make a good story OR i’m dumb and this is going to be tragic. dumb and good story!), and i saw a living goddess. not bad.
 
now i’m going to go eat room service, watch bollywood movies, and get some sleep.

And the Saga of Nepal Continues

I had been advised to go to the Thamel area after arrival for restaurants and shopping.i catch a taxi and after one of the longest two kilometer rides of my life, get to thamel. if anyone has been to bangkok, it is like khao san road without a kfc or mcdonalds.
 
i’m wandering around, soaking in the fact that i’m in NEPAL, when i hear NAMASTE! NAMASTE MADAM. so i turn around, it is a youngish guy.  oh, what are you doing? walking around? would you like me to show you around? no thank you, i don’t want to take you away from your hanging out. oh no, i’m on holiday and so i’m just bored at home. so you went out lookin for random tourists to talk to? i like to show our guests around. i’m going to durbur square. i’ll take you.
 
okay, fine.
 
so we walk around thamel a bit and then to durbur. on the way we stop at many temples and he explains to me six of the important hindu gods, their methods of transportation (which also helps in identifying the gods’ temples), and other random facts. as we’re heading to durbur square, he starts mentioning other tourists he’s shown around and how when they are really happy with what he tells them, they sometimes give him a little money.
 
fine, okay. i wasn’t looking for a tour guide but whatever.
 
we go to the temple of the living goddess, the kumari. it is a little girl chosen at about eight years old to live in a temple and she only goes out in public in the square once or twice a year (i’d kind of stoppedlistening carefully at this point. it had been two hours, it was hot, and i’d just gotten off the plane earlier that day) and there’s a little window in the temple at the top floor that every day she looks out at the gathering crowd. we were there after four pm, which is a bit late for the kumari. but the priest saw the gathering people (ten of us i think) and gave a signal and the kumari came to herwindow and looked decidedly non-plussed at the folks who had gathered to see her. she kind of waved a bit then turned around to go do kumari things. she was a very pretty little girl. when she starts menstruating she’ll be sent from the temple and they have to find another kumari. but she can never marry. i thought it sounded a little lonely, but her friends can come visit and play with her so…
 
after that we went to a ‘tower’ which was in fact a terrace restaurant where we had a drink. then he started telling me about the other tours he could give, including a motorcycle tour. i did NOT spend my childhood watching lifetime television for women movies along the lines of the tori spelling classic ‘mother may i walk with danger?’ to get on the back of a motorcycle with a lone nepalese man and be taken off into ‘the mountains’. i make non committal noises then the subject of payment comes up.he asks if i’m happy with the tour. yes. would you like to give me a tip? i ask how much he usually gets. he’s all, whatever you think. i then say,just tell me how much, as i’m tired of the back and forth.
 
25 euros.
 
for two hours.
 
25 euros is i don’t even know how many rupees. it is 66 rupees to the dollar (which at that time i thought it was 40, so the price sounded even higher) and i only had a $20 (well, i had a $100 as well but i’m sure not handing that out) and then about 1500 rupees. so i say, well, i don’t have any euros and i don’t carry cash on me. i have 1500 rupees. at which point he looks extremely EXTREMELY unhappy and says, rupeesaren’t worth anything.
 
so i offer the 20 and a thousand rupees and say, that’s all i got.
 
and i’m thinking, shouldn’t you have mentioned this whole price thing before we went on the little walk??? you either should have chosen your mark better or made it clear that you are an expensive tour guide.
 
looking disappointed still, he pockets the cash, swallows his coke, then mentions his motorbike and that he can take me home instead of me getting a taxi.
 
i ask if he has another helmet. no, but backseatriders aren’t required y law to have them. ahhh. that sets my mind at ease.
 
after much back and forth, i ultimately decide to take the ride becuase 1)i spend too much time not doing things and 2) i felt he owed me a ride back to my hotel after the high cost of the tour.
 
he goes to get his bike and rocks up in this speed racer type outfit,complete with matching helmet. insane. no helmet for me (i know I KNOW I KNOW) and we ZOOOOOOM off. til we hit traffic. at which point we slow down a bit and then see a truck smack into another motorbike! and he’s all, see i’ma good driver! and says this as he takes his eyes off the road and turns to look at me! then as we’re driving he’s turning to explain things to me, all of to which i reply keep your eyes ahead! then the traffic gets realy bad, so we start driving on the sidewalk.
 
and i’m thinking
 
i never thought
 
i’d be riding a motorbike in kathmandu
 
with knight rider.