Naked Ken in Darbur Square

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

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.