Patience, Perseverance and Perspiration II

It was supposed to be a late monsoon and I was counting on it as I desperately wanted to see most of the country on the hard leathery back of my Hero, my Honda Hero. But monsoon was not as late as I hoped (or it was just a passing phase). And when that came, it was upon and underneath everybody at once: your inoffensive slight afternoon shower turned into a never-ending downpour with some hail thrown into the equation, which no umbrella could face it unturned: the rivers (a tiny trickle just a week ago) invaded the city of Tansen and took over the streets. That is to say the streets became rivers, which beautifully flowed downhill on the abrupt roads, yes, the same streets that just a few hours before had terrified me. Certainly, they still terrified me but not in the same way. Now, apart from the anguish of falling down on the ginormous incline or taking an unwilling passenger onto the front wheel, I also feared drowning said passenger on the way. Was this how monsoon season would be like? I had put my money on daily showers not unceasing baths in muddy red waters (which, by the look of it, seemed unpleasantly chilly).

The main activities in such weather are, by tradition, counting money or practicing the basic steps in becoming parents. Having small amounts of the former and no possibility for the latter, I resorted to other meanings Tansen could include: food, I conceived a plan to return to the guesthouse by entering all eateries so as not to get too wet but the master plan failed due to the lack of restaurants and available storage space (I started storing the food in the most obvious place, that is my stomach but its capacity soon came to an end). Bags I could carry but, thinking that having food usually involved consuming it at some point, I soon abandoned my plan and hatched another one: shopping, with its endless opportunities of getting useless junk just for the sheer weight of it. But this too soon came to a dead end, as most of my (as yet uncounted) money went on food.

It rained all night and I was getting tense, with a horrible itch to move out. And, come morning, so I did. Driving from Tansen to… let’s just say west, proved to be a whole day long business. I knew there were many uncomfortable kilometres to cover so I started early and put a considerable amount of effort into driving faster than my usual 50km/hour. So I drove (almost) 60! 70 on two occasions, a true performance, considering the continuous incoming (and outgoing) perils that surrounded me. Still, the early hours of the sunless morning were smoother than expected, as traffic was scarce and the weather was an impromptu shade of chilly, just until I hit the plain, some 40km later; the Terai plain, Nepal’s southern strip of land, where water could only be found by digging a well deeper than the length of a football field. As far as complaints go, none can really compare to the ones expressed by my, ahem, backside, an incredibly tender backside at the moment, what with trepidations from the bike, rocky roads and endlessly gruelling hours sitting in the saddle of the world’s most uncomfortable bike, always tilting and slipping in front, propping myself in the steed’s hump, which would be its bulky petrol tank. I really needed to stop a couple of times and, after too many hours of sitting, I desperately wanted to get up and find a nice shady coffee place, what with going through the whole singing repertoire of The Road, Draga Otee (my personal driving song), My Way and, remarkably enough, Matilda… well, that time, I finally managed to find a place in the Nepali scorching lowland, where no coffee was to be had (or, probably, known about), but lemon tea poured in such quantities that could quench the thirst of a herd of camels, and where one of the women in charge stroked my hair – surely her first encounter with dreadlocks – as if she was searching for a child to adopt. She liked me; I liked her and her gentle, if somewhat distressing caresses; we could not communicate one single word in a common language.

The next step was to get instructions and, mind you, there has been many a moment when I wondered if the instructions I got were right but I always pushed on and, sure enough, some kilometres later (usually around 40), the road proved to be the right one. As soon as I start driving towards [you name it], the first milestones and signposts stare blankly at me, whitewashed and clean. After said 40km I start making out distances on the milestones, usually in Nepali, which means that after a few more dozens of kilometres, I might spot an English sign.

This is why when I stopped in Kohalpur, a city with a major junction from where the roads could either take me to the Indian border or to Bardia National Park, the place where I wanted to stop for the night, I asked if I chose the road well. A confident, English speaking Nepali confirmed my choice and, after the usual 40km, I realized the Nepali (and me) had been wrong (and I was thinking that one of the perks of inquiring English speakers would considerably decrease the chances of misleading information). I was not heading towards Bardia, nor was I in India so I could only be lost. The mystery was easily solved when I glanced at my crappy Lonely Planet map and my eyes started watering: I had involuntary chosen the scenic route to my ultimate destination, Jumla. Why scenic? Because it looked as if the mountains had decided to move over just enough to leave a tiny passage for a minute road to insinuate into the cracks, all the while looking down on a riverbed with some actual water in it for a change. Pure poetry, if you disregard the exhaust from the trucks edging by. 

Scenic was also the wrestling match between busses, trucks and me fighting to get some wheels on the tarmac, with them winning by a nose (or tire, if you wish), pushing me benevolently off the narrow road.

I didn’t give in and, by late afternoon (as is my latest ritual), I arrived in Surkhet where I gave up the fight. The map proclaims that Surkhet has an airport, so I was expecting something more than just a road, a checkpoint, a gamut of busses, a handful of houses, and one (!) ‘Hotel and Lodge’. To my lack of surprise, the Hotel and Lodge was full but four sympathetic elderly Nepali men joined forces to put together an English phrase (totally incomprehensible) and pointed at another hotel, where I found a room. It would probably pass as a broom closet but it had the pride of the local tribe: an attached bathroom, a slightly smaller, damper broom closet.

Patience, Perseverance and Perspiration I

First stop outside Kathmandu: Bandipur. A small, smart hilltop town with picturesque buildings and a sleepy atmosphere, where locals refuse to rent out rooms because it would only cause them trouble with cleaning up and interacting with foreigners. It’s also a place where vehicles are not allowed.

Driving up hairpin bends on a road wide enough for a bus and a skateboard was fun, as it was late afternoon and no traffic. I stopped in front of the main gate of the town and realized that the little flight of steps thoroughly expressed the message that no motorised vehicle would get onto the main street. So I parked and, exhausted and sweaty (very possibly, actually dripping) went in search of a place to sleep. Time seemed to be forced back. People seemed to have emerged from long-forgotten times. The whole place seemed to have somehow come through a black hole out of medieval times. The only thing that gave the place a metaphorical slap in the face were the few tourists grinning stupidly and looking, well, like tourists.

But time is short so I decided I would leave the next day, not before going on a small trek to a remote village in the hills to see the so much advertised rural lifestyle. This is how I spent my morning hours the following day: sweating profusely and walking up and down a narrow path through the dry jungle (yes, I think there is such a thing), Namaste-ing small children passing me on their way to school. I busied myself with chasing insects and trying to capture some impressive images but all I succeeded was amateurish photos with tiny dots close to the centre, the type that need a convincing, complicated explanation: ‘see that little dot right next to the fifth big leaf on the right, yeah, that one that is not entirely focused…? Now that’s the bug I spotted!’ If you ask me, bugs should rule the world. And they probably do, only we’re too ignorant to realize that. But I did get the scare of my life, or, at least, of the last year or so; while walking exactly how I imagine Little Red Riding Hood capering friskily through the forest, something moved quite fast and grasped my attention by the throat: a shiny green snake decided it would be time to move and darted in front of me and into the shrubs without a glance back. I almost had a seizure and stood there like a statue, having trouble breathing. Come to think of it, I would not have moved a muscle even if the rather large snake (easily over a metre) had crawled in my direction. I wish I had taken a photograph but my clumsy immobile self was not capable of holding the camera for the next 30 minutes anyway.

The little village of Ramkot lacked any element of grandeur whatsoever

so I soon returned to Bandipur, all the way looking down on the path for something snakelike. But it was so hot that probably even the snakes went for a siesta.

No siesta for me though; I was on my way to Pokhara, where I would enjoy a couple of lazy days with music (too loud), swimming (too polluted) and a variety of foods (too many), but I’ll skip that for now and turn to the next stretch of my drive: the road towards Jumla. I still don’t quite know where it is (I haven’t got there yet), but I had a vague idea which way I was supposed to go and the first palpable stop on the way was Tansen, yet another small and sleepy village perched on a hilltop. This one, though, came with a bike access so I had no trouble prying all over the place, although at first I was prepared to set my Lonely Planet on fire:

Tansen, 119km south of Pokhara, is far enough off the radar to make a rewarding detour for independent travelers. Perched high above Kali Gandaki River on the road between Butwal and Pokhara, Tansen’s main attraction is both its Newari charm and distinct medieval feel. Lining Tansen’s steep cobblestone streets, which are too steep for cars, are wooden Nerari houses with intricately carved windows, from where the clacking of looms can be heard.

And that’s it. There are some other quite limited annotations but this is pretty much where the information stops. I was still meditating on the ‘too steep for cars’ part when I realized that Tansen is really quite vast and labyrinth-like and I couldn’t find the place I was looking for and my full-hearted question about the homestay went either ignored or completely disregarded. In short, it took me about an hour to find the guesthouse and in the meantime I also found the ‘too steep for cars’ part of the city: I experienced vertigo just by looking at the streets and I’m sure I’d have slipped while walking downwards and panted while climbing them. But I had to drive on them, which sort of looked like a hospital trip in the making. By the end of the hour I was starting to feel like being on an endless rollercoaster ride that’s going nowhere but I was judiciously guided towards the guesthouse by some nice restaurant owners (a place I would grow to love, as it would become the one I favoured).

I couldn’t leave Tansen without seeing Ranighat Durbar, Nepal’s Taj Mahal or so they say and, having the bike practically attached to my back side, I decided to follow Mr Man Mohan’s (the homestay’s owner) broad instructions and drive the 16 or so kilometres to there. It did seem odd that the trek would take 3 to 4 hours to the palace when the road only took, well, Mr Man Mohan did not really give any specifics, although he did say the road would be a dirt road. And I was surprised to find the first kilometres quite asphalted. But then…

Well, that’s the palace. And the road.

And that’s roughly how close I got to it. Let me explain: when you see a flight of steps in front of you, you’re prepared to walk up or down, depending on your position relative to the stairs. When you see a rock wall in front of you, you’re prepared to climb it with your bare hands (or, otherwise, turn around and run away). But when you see a mass of mountain ambiguously, misleadingly, maliciously disguised as a road, you’re sure to be in Nepal, close to Ranighat but not close enough to actually get there. The slopes are at an angle at which you’d sooner build buildings or rocket launchers and, once you passed the first couple and you’re still in one piece, the concept of Russian roulette comes to mind. When you still insist and end up in someone’s back yard (back drop to be precise), you weigh the situation and try to go back…

I managed not to fall down… more than once, which was not so bad, as some fresh bamboo trunks softened my fall. Getting the bike up and running uphill from an impossible position with the help on an elderly, really chatty old lady was the delicate part. I eventually found my way back to Tansen and thoroughly committed myself to getting lost again.

The Motorcycle Dairies

I don’t think it’s any news by now that I have a rather unhealthy fascination with motorcycles. And with dairy products. This is the post that acknowledges the merits of both items even though there’s really no connection between the two. I could tell you how fabulous it is to have an ample bite of cheese while riding a motorcycle but I haven’t tried it yet. Now, that I mentioned it…

Anyway…

Yak cheese in the mountains was a big part of my diet. And things didn’t change so much when I arrived back to the dusty civilisation of Kathmandu. If cheese is less available, there will be milk and milky products at every meal, even if the meal consists solely of milk coffee or, sometimes, when my brain fails to consult my culinary tastes, milk tea. There is no dairy-less day in my life.

On the other hand, there are the bikes. Motorbikes, of course. I wouldn’t be caught dead on a bicycle even if it represented my only means of salvation from a city on fire; I would prefer to walk and swelter to the rhythm of my ambulatory legs than to cycle around Nepal on dirt roads and under a baking sun. So I decided that motorbikes are the way to go. And, given that the opportunity arose not necessarily uninvited, I chose to look around Kathmandu for a bike to rent and take out to dinner for the next couple of weeks. I was rather overwhelmed by the multitude of choices for motorbike rentals which gave me quite a hard time deciding which one to pick and I went with the obvious decision: the biggest one available. Which was no bigger than 160cc but big enough for my personal goals.

Presenting the Honda Hero CBZ, currently my best friend

It meant I wouldn’t have to worry about bus stations and timetables, which suited me just fine and, having also received a very inflexible bungee cord to tie my bag with, I triumphantly jumped on and… stopped to look around. I was in the middle of Thamel, with motorcycles, bikes, rickshaws and people going about their business in all directions imaginable and my destination would simply be – with a stroke of luck – out of Kathmandu. So I sheepishly turned around and asked for directions (‘go straight and then turn left and then go until you’re out of the city’) and, having a vague idea about the general direction I had to go to, started driving for the first time in Nepal. The first ‘straight’ proved to be a series of small, tortuous alleys, the ‘turn left’ was a big junction where about three different very big roads went left, and the ‘go until’ was the rest of a city inhabited by about a million people.

It only took me about an hour to get to the outskirts of Kathmandu and only half as much to find a gas station that actually sold some petrol and, when I proudly declared I would like a full tank, the gas station people burst out laughing and told me it’s impossible and I could only get 500 rupees worth of fuel (that’s around 4 litres).

But it was enough to get me started and I pompously (and somewhat panicky) rolled up and down the first mountain and stumbled upon the first bit of Nepali road-engineering technology: half of the so-called Prithvy Highway did, indeed have some tarmac but the other half was just dust, rocks and gravel, strategically placed so that the people on the side (if there were any) would get an incessant vigorous laugh if their eyes were to meet a bouncy person and a springy bag on top of a bike that sprayed some brake fluid on the already sweaty, grimy driver. That would be me. Fortunately, there were no people around, so the only ones that got the best out of my appalling situation were the various truck drivers that curiously peeked out of their windows to get a better view of this intriguing apparition.

Twenty kilometres later, the road morphed into a beautifully winding way along a river and my reservations withdrew to mild anxiety attacks every time a truck, bus or car honked and came too close. I like to think of it as escaping death, let’s say, about 8 times, as vehicles from the opposite direction decided I represented no obstacle for their overtaking anything in their way while I was trying to steer my bike on the same road. So they basically drove me off the motorway and I behaved just like a frightened chicken each time. But it worked and my appointment with the heavenly world has been postponed. 

The Downside

After all the uphill trekking and the scarce smoking, it was time to come back down. I was looking forward to some nice, less expensive meals and some cool, even hot nights; also, my clothes would need a good washing or even a nice ritual burning. This is why the next morning I packed really fast and then shuffled around the guesthouse and managed to get going at around 11.

I was already nursing a cold and a pretty strong headache, the miserable remains of a concealed, rather late altitude sickness, which didn’t really get to me in time for the actual climb of higher grounds and resolved itself to irritate me the moment it realised it must have been there before. It also refused to go away and, as I would come to find out, it stayed with me all the way to Kathmandu and after.

Going down proved a lot easier than going up and I had ambitious plans to go pretty far down the valley and reach the main town in two days, mainly because my money had dispersed really quickly and I would have preferred to look for the proverbial ATM in Syabru Besi, the one everybody talked about but nobody had actually seen. And, although I had some 5 to 6 hours of trekking, I took my time and stopped for tea, and then for yak curd and sea buckthorn juice, two of the many culinary wonders of Langtang valley, and, on the whole, I took it rather slowly, tripping over rocks as I gazed upwards watching yaks, horses, birds or the odd squirrel gracefully displaying only its backside. I reached my boiling point and refused to go any further than Woodland Guesthouse, a nice place that, I figured, would be halfway down the mountain, but I would later give in to the fact that it was closer to the top half than the lower half of the valley. As I prepared for yet another cold evening with my stuffy nose refusing to cooperate and making it hard for me to do the normal human thing and actually breathe, I was surprised to see that the weather had changed according to the lower altitude: no longer did I need to put all my measly possessions on myself, I could do with only half of the content of the backpack and it didn’t really matter which half, as everything had already acquired a certain odour that you get when you only pack two t-shirts and one blouse for a weeklong trek. I had already decided in Kathmandu that I would travel light, really light, and it was the best choice, as I saw from the envious looks of other trekkers that carried all their worldly possessions minus their grandmothers up and down the valley.

Still, I was impressed to find out that my aforementioned impossibly clogged nose was still able to pick up the incredibly strong bouquet of other hard-core trekkers and, whenever one would raise their hand to wave or point to something, a little part of me died… and then jump-started again because even the dead could be brought back to life with that particular garland of odour hanging around like persistent moths around a light bulb.

The Woodland woman was really nice and friendly and had a lot of fun without anyone’s assistance. She laughed and grinned all the time and, of course, seized every opportunity to shout something to someone. This last bit was usually done by the cordless phone propped almost in the middle of the trekking path, the only place for good reception:

The following day I flew down the mountain, although my kind of flight was more on the leisurely side, stopping to take photos every ten steps. And, if we’re on the ‘steps’ subject, just look at what the people around here did with the trekking path:

This is how most of the path looks like all the way to the top. That’s right, the locals put all the effort into building a gigantic stairway to the top because they reason that, if they have the stairway, they’ll all end up looking (and, regrettably, acting) like Rocky. Fortunately, the porters look nothing like Rocky, although their training might involve a lot more strenuous work…

When I finally arrived to Syabru Besi in the late hours of the afternoon, I was completely drenched and worn out, so the really lovely bucketful of hot water for a shower was the best present I could have received. Also, to my everlasting surprise the legend of the ATM turned out to be true!

The Langtang Trek

Walking. Hiking. Trekking. That’s what most people come to Nepal for. And that’s what I did for a vehicle-free, crowd-deficient week in the Langtang valley. The plan, as presented in Kathmandu, was as follows: one need to hire a guide and/or porter and/or guide come porter and let oneself be steered up the valley under the scrupulous eye of a very capable Nepali person who would explain in great English the beauties, customs and curiosities of the area. It would only cost anywhere between $500 and $1000. And, even if, say, the guide might have the same grasp of English as an Armenian puppy (which is not entirely unprecedented), one should never travel alone! One is at high risk of getting lost, missing or disappearing altogether, as some very convincing posters have shown. To be fair, this country has its substantial quirks, so it’s entirely possible (as I still suspect) that the missing people just wanted to stay missing for a bit longer than anybody would have expected them to.

They almost persuaded me to change my mind altogether and not go at all but, while attending a Couchsurfing meeting (every Monday at 6 PM at the Nepali Tapas Restaurant in Thamel!), I met a Spanish couple that was planning to go unaided through the auspicious Langtang valley. They carefully instructed me on how to get the trekking permit and, just like that, we scheduled a date for the following day to start our mountainous adventure, which inevitably started with – you guessed it – a bus ride. We arrived at our destination early enough to go through the sights, that is the main road and the houses and lodges surrounding it and, after a nice chat and a long-awaited dinner, we went to bed with that feeling you get once you know you’re going to start something spectacular in the following hours.

And start we did! From our guesthouse we passed our first bridge

this is not it but try to imagine one exactly the same placed in the middle of town

and stopped at the local Nepali German bakery for coffee and muffins.

It was supposed to be a three-to-four-day trek uphill to our future headquarters, Kyanjin Gompa, stopping every day in some little dwelling with lodges and hotels after about five hours of trekking. But, as these tourist abodes appeared along the way every hour or so, we took our time to stop for coffee and snacks. Once on a roll, I stubbornly went faster than my smoke-filled lungs would have enjoyed and left the Spaniards one lodge before, only to stop at a place with more trekkers than I would have imagined possible (the place looked fairly small so I had trouble visualizing all those people in not a lot of rooms but they eventually fit and my fright of having to share my room with somebody evaporated. I might as well have shared a room, as the damp plywood separating the tiny confines stopped the snores from tickling my ears as much as fish stop water – at all!).

With lungs protesting some more, I arrived the second evening in Langtang Village, the only place that is actually home to some of the 200 people living in the whole valley. As it was mentioned before, all the other places on the way have been lovingly erected keeping the trekkers’ comfort (but mostly their money) in mind. But I got a nice, cold cardboard box which passed for a room as a nocturnal shelter just as it started raining.

Enthusiasm dampened, I enjoyed the evening with the family and reluctantly left the warm kitchen with the warm iron cast stove strategically placed in the middle for my meagre four plywood walls for the night. I thought the good weather had eluded my trekking venture, that the end of the season had been marked by rainy days and icy nights, that the mountains thought about it and decided to be spiteful towards me, but the next morning only brought about good weather and weak coffee

and the three hours of trekking that would take me from 3400 m to 3800 m were a rather large compensation of the previous night’s pessimistic conjecture: donkeys, porters, stupas and snow-capped mountains all came together in one big flood of Tibetan routine life and I took it in as much as possible while also gulping for the air that visibly grew thinner.

Upon arriving in Kyanjin Gompa – the outmost tourist settlement of Langtang valley –, and after finding a suitable guesthouse built, unexpectedly, out of brick and wood, I shocked everybody (including myself) and declared that I would climb Kyanjin Ri, the mountain that protectively watched over the little village. After all, that’s how it’s done, right? One always walks a little bit higher than their sleeping place to avoid the terrible headaches of altitude sickness, and, after all, it’s good practice. A beautiful afternoon awaited my panting and wheezing and my cussing myself for not taking with me either water or cigarettes, the two vital ingredients of my mountaineering life, which (I was about to find out) are a vital ingredient of mountaineering life and an almost deadly ingredient of said mountaineering life respectively. About the time my lungs had finally managed to get their message through, I was at 4450 m on Kyanjin Ri trying to stand straight confronted with vicious gusts of air.

The following day would be rest day. I decided that sleeping in would be the main attraction but life was in the way. Daily life. You see, Tibetans have this special way of communicating, understandable in the circumstances of great winds and even greater distances: they don’t really say anything; they shout it. They shout it LOUD AND CLEAR so that they’re sure their message has been properly received. And if all the conversations aren’t enough, the alluring morning sounds of gathering spit from the forgotten depths of throats and propelling them forcefully anywhere they reach… all this is truly enough to wake up even a hibernating bear. So ‘rest day’ became ‘reading day’, which in turn morphed into ‘glacier trek day’, which turned into ‘heavy menacing clouds gathering overhead’ day, which metamorphosed into ‘Tibetan bread and yak cheese lunch’ day, which reverted back to ‘reading day’ and finally ended in ‘having dinner and listening to Tibetans shouting’ day.

Next day’s plan was quite straightforward: wake up early (and, with any luck, avoid the Tibetan morning practice) and trek to Csargo Ri, a 4984 m high mountain, that would probably short-circuit my lungs but considerably inflate my ego. The only slight inconvenience was that it had snowed during the night. I was having second thoughts and compassion for my lungs. Also, as I only smoked very little, I started to contemplate another rest day with weak coffee and some cigarettes. But my ego got the better of me and I reluctantly started towards the mountain… only to find that I can’t find the way. Again my self-preservation instinct told me to stay away from such challenges but, alas, a Swiss couple came to the rescue and showed me the way. I was going up, sluggishly at first but then quite lethargic bordering on at all. And, when I came to a standstill, partly because I was pondering my option to shamefully turn around, but mostly because I could not see the path any more, the Swiss stopped being neutral and got involved:

The stars had chosen my path (with a little help from the Swiss couple, of course), so I went on. But somehow, it didn’t get any better, only if by ‘better’ you mean navigating through knee-deep snow and large boulders and, finally, crawling out of them with wet shoes and a mood that could curdle milk. But I was there and I had to somehow commit this historic event to memory so here’s a sample:

Impressed? Didn’t think so. Well, the photos might have turned out better if it weren’t for the fact that while falling and crawling through the aforementioned snow, my camera – strapped loosely around my neck like any self-respecting tourist would have it – shared my fate and got equally wet. But here are some pictures from before:

First Time Nepal

Well, Kathmandu has just become my adoptive city and, as much as I can see, it is a fascinating place and a real experience, especially if you are fond of misleading touts and insistent sellers. And the very popular line of questioning 'you first time Nepal?', 'you like Nepali people?', 'you married...?'

The cold rainy evening that welcomed me once I stepped out of the plane was as inviting as a stomped toe in a place where silence is strongly reinforced. The room full of local people sticking their faces to the window in order to get a better view of the incoming crowds (also known as gullible tourists) was as reassuring as a bathtub full of sharks but, as I was positively sure, none were waiting for me.

I finally shared a supposedly free taxi to Thamel, the tourist hotspot in the city so it was no surprise in me also sharing a room with a quiet Dutch youth at the Paradise Hotel, where paradise would have packed up and run away as fast as a hunted deer.

The rain was persistent throughout the next day but that didn’t stop me from wandering through Thamel, the place where the tourists mingle mindlessly among tiny taxi cars and rickshaws while negotiating through some 1200 tour companies that bait their customers with shiny maps and internet photos of various treks in Nepal. This notwithstanding the numerous overpriced hotels and restaurants. But when a small battalion of policemen held hands in front of an alley with too many restaurants and bars, and the crowds thickened so that it would have taken a sensible natural disaster to make them disperse, I got completely confused; it turned out that the police had blocked the street and my enlightenment consisted in a really blurry mobile phone photo from an overly excited Nepali woman: an Indian film studio had taken control of the street to film a scene for their upcoming blockbuster. The film studio might more likely ring a bell as Bollywood. So when the director gracefully commanded ‘3, 2, 1, actiooon!’ and the main character appeared in all his glory a mere 50m away from the crowds, dozens of voices united in a clumsy but eardrum popping ‘hurray’ which was eagerly took up for the second and third take until finally the famous (yet, in light of these facts, not terribly bright) actor got everything right for the 10-minute shot.

Night-time Kathmandu is altogether another place than day-time Kathmandu. The sellers and dwellers retreat behind heavy, padlocked gates and out come the entertainers and their recipients: drunken, loud Kathmandu is what the place is called at night. Live music screams from most restaurants, as do the smoky voices of happy-but-not-really-sure-why-must-be-all-those-beers tourists. Guitars compete for the worst Pink Floyd or AC/DC cover but their audiences (Nepali and/or otherwise) appreciate every single note and even join the screeching speakers all around Thamel.

As luck would have it, my first Nepali bus ride only came on the third day in Nepal but I managed to find a reasonably long drive in order to fully appreciate this well-guarded and highly treasured experience. The bus was supposed to take us to the starting point of the Langtang trek some 120 km away and so it did, on winding roads up countless hills, never really driving downwards, but always cannoning passengers from left to right at every slight change of course. I still preserve the opinion that the bus ride was representative and my only argument is that it took about 8 hours and the music (be it Indian or Nepali – didn’t solve the mystery just yet) played the same tunes 3 times over. I can proudly declare that I am by now a fairly good connoisseur of some Nepali (or, maybe Indian) trendy music that’s been deeply engraved in my brain and can be accessed anytime one might fancy some tunes… Although the roads did constitute quite a challenge for the bus driver, it wasn’t all that long a drive: the countless checkpoints along the way, where tourists need show their trekking permits and where the odd Nepali officer has to neatly write down all the data while fashionably sticking his tongue out did, indeed, take a long time. Also, the lunch and brunch break were minor hindrances for the estimated travel time.

Lastly, I needed the reminder but will keep it in mind as long as I’m around here: there shall never be another day with fairly clean fingernails and a normal-sized tongue. The former is because of eating – usually done with the help of all right-handed fingers – while the latter concerns drinking – usually done to steaming-hot tea or coffee, meaning that my taste buds are in need of a long hospitalisation period, as they are no more than carbonized red blotches that dwell somewhere in the small confines of my mouth.

Did You Know That...?

Well, as my travels through Myanmar have sadly (and abruptly) come to an end, here’s some fun, weird and simply jaw-dropping facts I’ve come to witness first hand.

For one thing, everybody wears a skirt. And I mean everybody! Hell, I probably looked like a deranged person for not having a longyi, which would have been the norm for both sexes. Even the gold leaf pounding guy had one while pounding away at thinning the gold leaf:

Motorcycle drivers across the country, government officials and beggars, kids, monks and nuns and, of course, women of all ages, all wear their traditional skirts. Look at these guys curiously ogling the ferryboat:

And how about this guy, carelessly rowing through the floating gardens of Inle?

Let’s just say it’s a really, well… airy country.

And the only other place where I’ve seen so many Children of Bodom t-shirts was a medium sized European hard rock festival. They just love that black, dangerous feel they get from those shirts, and the death metal t-shirt – longyi combination is simply a fashion statement.

The trip to the swimming pool was also illuminating. The murky bluish waters of the pool are as inviting as a crypt and the smell of fresh disinfectant might just turn you into a happily intoxicated zombie but once you plunge into its depths, you’ll find yourself at a loss on the proper direction of swimming. It would make sense to swim the length of the swimming pool but only if you weren’t in Myanmar. Here it’s common sense to swim the width of the swimming pool, about a third of its length and there are carefully marked lanes for that. But I repeat: you’d have to be in Myanmar to experience that.

The length is in front but do you see which way the kids look?

Lastly, there are the temples. Again. Because the temples are a big part of the country and so much orbits around them. Specifically, everything revolves around the Buddha statues. And, oddly enough, there are not many Buddhas that look alike. The images differ not only in appearance (surely because they have been fashioned according to their respective era) but also in expression, and so the serene, unattached yet benevolent Buddha can turn either into a puppet or into a clown. Just watch this:

Something-smells-funny Buddha

Robot Buddha

Surprised Buddha

Female Buddha

Tired old Buddha

Golden chunky Buddha, who gained over 2 tons of golden weight
from the gold leaf applied each day only by men

Sideways glancing Buddha. And driver.

 And my personal favorite:

Snot-nosed child Buddha

And if that’s not enough, just look at what other temple guardians they have:

The very last Burmese image that will stick to my mind dates from the airport in Mandalay, where, before boarding on the plane to Bangkok, I did a little exploring hoping to find a place to have a smoke. And following the ‘VIP Lounge’ sign, I stumbled upon this:

I couldn’t say if that’s the VIP Lounge but it’s definitely a smoking lounge tucked away at the back of the duty free shops, where Burmese life goes on as it has for centuries. And this is why I loved this country!

Why, Katha?

I left Hsipaw on a lonely bus towards Mandalay. I wasn’t feeling all that bad in the morning but, as soon as Mandalay’s hot and parching air hit me, I started feeling a little queasy. I would later learn that the fishy soup refused to be digested and was still slurring around in my stomach.

Mandalay is a big city. I haven’t seen it yet but even its map with its tidy network of streets looks intimidating. And, although I asked where in Mandalay the bus would stop, my question was eluded with ‘to main bus station 2000 kyat’. And, true enough, as I got off the bus, a gang of motorcycle taxi drivers charged at me. I fled and asked at a ticket counter where I could find a bus to take me to Katha. I was explained that I would have to go to one of the three main bus stations in the city and that I would be given a ride by a motorcycle taxi. The lady pointed to one and he rapidly led the way.

‘Wait’, I said. ‘How much?’

‘Bus station very far away, 11 km… 5000 kyat’, said the driver with the lopsided smile and hat respectively.

I only laughed and sat down to consult my 3-year old information from the guidebook while he quickly came to a 2000 kyat standard price. The guidebook said something about shared taxis that drive between the major bus stations and, although really crowded, are a better deal than anything else. I considered my options. I remembered that, worst case scenario, there was a train to Katha around 4 PM. So I looked for the shared taxis. Everywhere I went, private taxi drivers, whether on motorcycles or cars, tried to shove their services down my throat as I constantly said ‘shared taxi’. Their response: yes, taxi!

‘No, no! Shared taxi’, I retorted.

But every time they seemed to not understand what I said. After a while I suspected foul play and concluded that they didn’t want me to get a shared taxi. So I asked around some more. Finally, someone told me to wait for about 15 minutes and he’ll show me. I obediently sat down and waited but those 15 minutes! Sheesh! I forgot that minutes may differ in length and number in Asia, so it was no surprise that after a good half hour nothing showed up. I told the guy I was willing to go with a motorcycle taxi, he laughed and showed me a driver who could take me to the train station. That’s right, in the meantime, I decided I was going to take the safest bet and ride the train. The motorcycle taxi only cost me 2000 kyats.

I finally got to the train station all sweaty and lethargic and got a ticket for the 2:10 PM train. The afternoon one was already full. I would understand why some 13 hours later when I arrived in Naba, the place where I had to get off for another bus ride to Katha. The bus ride into town only took about an hour, which meant that by 4 PM I was sitting on a bench on the riverfront in Katha waiting for one of the assortment of available guesthouses to open so I can take a nap. I soon changed my mind and decided I would sleep on the bench, and so I did… for about 5 minutes until a guesthouse unlocked its doors.

Temptation was too strong: I asked for a room, got a 2x2 and instantly went to sleep. I woke up prepared to take it as it comes and, looking at the watch, I realized I still had 10 minutes to catch the boat further north. I went into Supertourist mode, packed fanatically, brushed my teeth and went out. But, as luck would have it, my passport was still at the guesthouse people awaiting a photocopy for their collection. Although I tried to explain that I really-really-really wanted to catch the boat, they told me to wait, made some phone calls and, smiling, went about their business. And, sure enough, as soon as I saw the boat leave the little port, the guy bearing my passport showed up on his motorbike beaming at me with a photocopy in hand.

So I ask you this: why, George Orwell? Why did you pick this godforsaken place as the stage of your book? Why is it that I can’t find even one of the buildings you described in your book? Why, George Orwell, why?

Supertourist

I am proud to announce that I have been promoted to the ‘Supertourist’ status! And, if you were to ask what that is, I’d try to explain through examples of the Supertourist ways, which are above and beyond the normal tourist behaviour (there is no ‘ordinary Supertourist’, as Supertourists are, by definition out of the ordinary).

For instance, if given a train, Supertourist would gladly dangle over its sides while slowly being transported over Myanmar’s longest viaduct, the Gokteik Viaduct. Fortunately (or, maybe not), the train almost crawls over the viaduct because it appears that it creaks and contorts and is approaching its golden years even without the added stress put upon the structure by passing trains. But I’m glad to say no Supertourists found their end at the bottom of the Gokteik Gorges.

For Supertourist there’s nothing that’s not worth exploring. Even if Supertourist has only two short minutes at a train station, he will jump off and have a long look around: the new place might have something worth visiting so that any predetermined plan is completely useless. Hence, one more reason to travel light.

And how would Supertourist choose a guesthouse in any location? Would he use a guide book (like the ill-omened Lonely Planet) or follow the advice of other travellers? It would be a lot easier to have a quick stroll from the train station and look around for any prospective hot spot. Or, if the little flock of workers for a certain Yee Shin Guesthouse in Hsipaw would swarm around and thrust business cards in his face, Supertourist might just consider going there (especially since the 150 m ride is free). Even Supertourist might fall for your normal guesthouse owner/worker scheme: they say they have $5 rooms but first they show him the $6 rooms and if somehow Supertourist forgets to ask about the price, he’ll only find out once he checks out (incidentally, this is probably the first guesthouse in Myanmar where money is expected at the end rather than before checking in).

But Supertourist won’t mind. He’ll just make the best out of the remaining hours of daylight, rent a motorbike and drive around, exploring as much as possible. He would find the Shan Prince’s Palace, where a relative of the prince would sit him down and explain in great detail all the trouble the Shan Prince and his family have been through (and it’s quite annoying when you discover that Shan princes aren’t that rare, as there used to be 33 Shan states that required their own personal prince). Most probably, Supertourist will eventually faze out and nod whenever it is required but the majority of royal life details will be lost on him. He will then continue his adventure, finding the good sunset spot and hastily making his way there, only to find that the sun had already set and there’s not a lot to see as night falls rapidly over the valley. Still, there would still be some time to wonder through the little alleys on top of the hill, perched high on his motorbike, trying to copy the local ways by not getting off the motorbike without a serious obstacle in the way: temple gates or temple entries are not to be considered a serious obstacle. And, if questioned, he will invoke the ‘ignorant westerner’ argument, causing pitying or superior looks from locals.

Supertourist will take advantage of a new day from the early hours of the morning and, as soon as possible, he’ll ride around on the rented motorbike carrying a hand-drawn map of the surroundings and trying to find one of two waterfalls in the area, specifically, the one that’s not dried up. And, as success fails to show itself, as the non-English speaking locals will point him in the wrong direction, and as the roads become dirt tracks going steeply up a hill or another, Supertourist will stubbornly press on and will finally sneak a quick look at the secluded waterfall. The bike will be parked as close as possible, pictures will be taken and showers will be enjoyed.

But this will not be enough for Supertourist: he will want to know where the water is coming from, thus he’ll try to ride the bike up the hill, on a dangerously abrupt cattle path and through the crops on top, right up to the little farm suspended on the cliff above the waterfall. Having fulfilled his wish, he will have to descend on the same road with the bike, which will be the cause of some sweating and stress, soon to be forgotten by the approach of the Highway to Mandalay, from where new adventures start.

His aplomb will slightly fade when the bike’s chain will fall off the front sprocket and, being on the side of the highway with a tool-kit as useful as a fork for eating soup, he’ll have to flag down a nice Burmese mechanic who will not only reattach the chain but also tighten it as well. Spirit up again, Supertourist will start looking for a way towards the hot springs so lovingly portrayed at the guesthouse and, after a few failed attempts he’ll finally find a possible, if not probable way to get there. The overflowing river will never be able to dent Supertourist’s spirit: he’ll be up to the challenge and drive through the water as smoothly as a ballerina on a stage and reach a new and interesting sight: a stone quarry, where a dozen men are conveniently taking a break from crushing rocks with bamboo-shafted hammers and curiously eyeing the newcomer. Once he’ll ask about the hot springs, they’ll point to the river and indicate walking through it not far. But if Supertourist doesn’t fully trust walking barefooted through water on slippery rocks, the workers will soon explain that there is another way and will eventually guide Supertourist to the place. If the hot springs are still eluding Supertourist, he’ll accept the new-found spot, walk back through the river, watch how some huge slabs of stone almost come crushing down on his motorbike, and then drive to safety. He’ll soon arrive in the city, where he’ll try to find new hidden treasures.

Supertourist is not infallible though and needs sustenance. So, Supertourist must go out to find a restaurant for his special needs, for instance, a place that allegedly has vegetarian food. Upon ordering, he makes sure that the message is clear but once the food arrives and Supertourist has a bite, he’ll be struck by the distressing fishy taste of the broth where some noodles and veggies float and, being hungry after a full day, will ignore the fish soup and have noodles. As a consequence, Supertourist will be reminded of his fishy encounter the following day…

Supertourist’s day will end late, only to begin early the next morning, when the early Shan market must be visited before the 5.30 AM bus takes him away. Getting up at 4 AM is no problem for Supertourist: he’ll be lively and fresh, sprint around the market, have a nutritious rice breakfast and be ready to go by the time the bus arrives. Only after everything has been seen and done can Supertourist unwind and catch some sleep on the questionably comfortable bus seat. A new adventure awaits just outside the bus.