Back in Kathmandu

So. For those of you who have been worried, we're safe and sound here, and have only done risky things accidentally; for those of you who don't read the newspapers, well, there's no excuse for you.

I'll write a bit about the political feeling here when I'm out of Nepal and not so worried about government censorship - I doubt I'd be arrested, but anything goes here at the moment, and most of the lawyers we know are currently in or have just come out of jail. So all the goss from the safe, warm embrace of Mother India - and sightseeing news from Nepal.

(If it's been in the news, though, we were at Durbar Square on Saturday, holed up nice and safe in a little temple courtyard with a Colombian woman named Maria, at the time of the protests. Remember those pesky protests that kept us (and the rest of Kathmandu) indoors all Friday? Well, they were rescheduled for Saturday, which was actually in the Kathmandu Post that morning; but we didn't read it and apparently neither did the taxi-driver who merrily took us into the thick of things about an hour before the protests kicked off. That is, before the roads were closed off. It was pretty interesting - again, see news sources for details. Sorry - being here tends to make you a little bit paranoid.)

Anyway, we decided to get out of Kathmandu for a bit, and so drove up a very windy mountain road in the back of a seatbelt-less cab to a place called Nagarkot, which has nothing there except spectacular views of the mountains. We stayed at the topmost of the hotels, and climbed many wrought-iron, rickety Stairs O'Death at dusk to watch the sun sink over the valley housing Kathmandu. After the sun set, there was nothing left to do but eat dinner and stare at the stars, which came out in force at about seven in the evening.

And my, how they shone. They shone hard and clear and bright like diamonds in that frigid sky, far more so than anything I've ever seen. We admired them for about five minutes before our toes fell off and we had to go to bed. Helen was only wearing thongs on her feet, which for lack of a discernable reason I'll attribute to general insanity - sad, cold rubber thongs, in the thin mountain clime. So we went off to bed, though not to sleep, and with fresh, cold air in our tarred-filled city lungs, thought pleasant, warming thoughts until the morn.

For some reason neither of us slept very much - we're not feeling it yet, but I'm sure we will. In any case, at about six-thirty we rugged up to watch the sun rise over the Himalayas. The hazy snow-capped mountains came into focus beneath a blanket of fairy-floss clouds - the sort of view that takes your breath away but makes for fairly mediocre photos. We took heaps anyway, of the two of us looking unimpressed at the cold and at the ungodly hour of the sunrise, and of the view. Only time will tell which turn out to be the more spectacular.

Helen also took some gorgeous photos of village kids who ran up to the cab to ask for lollies at the foot of the mountain. We have taken to carrying a big bag of them around to give to kids who ask for chocolate or sweets, as often that's all that kids on the street want. They take the lollies, we take their photos, and we tell ourselves that everybody wins.

We're leaving for Delhi at lunchtime tomorrow, and despite the craziness, we're really going to miss it here. There's really something about the place that gets under your skin (I say from my full five days of experience here). It's the calmest place I've been to yet, which is saying something, what with the political situation what it is. In any case, we never made it to Pokhara, so I guess we'll just have to return. Rats.


Helen says:

Helen is in a self-professed foul mood and as such will not be making a comment today. Incongruous as this may seem with the above comments - Nepal is truly a land of contradictions.