Story of My Life

Bhaktapur is one of the most inspiring places Nepal has to offer, especially if you’re into an artistic mood. The city’s many squares offer a variety of crafts, craftsmen, and workshops, from woodcarvers to jewellers, potters, and thanka painters. So, of course, staying a week here gives anyone a chance to work on their creativity.

Which is what happened to me: after Bhaktapur enriched my resourcefulness in just one day here, I came back only to find that I have too many options to choose from to enhance my artistic skills and too little time. So I finally settled on something I did before at home: pottery. Something that basically involved getting mud all over myself while sweating over a potter’s kick-wheel and trying to throw something resembling a vessel at the same time. Usually, the result was no more than me finding it extremely difficult to remove all the hardened clay off various parts of my body, and a small roundish object that would have to be called – for lack of a better word – a small pot. At the time, my teacher always joked around trying to make me feel better, saying I’m really getting good at making various kinds of ashtrays: nothing much ever got higher than a respectable cigarette-discarding receptacle.

But now, in Bhaktapur, I would have the chance to have a go at pottery again and prove myself worthy of the term amateur potter. So, I went to – unquestionably – Potters’ Square

where a true-blue potter said he would teach me the secret of this ancient art. I would only have to watch closely and practice, practice, practice.

For starters, he said, I should try something easy and, once I got the hang of it, have a go at other, more complicated designs. And guess what he chose as the starting point! That’s right: ashtrays!

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Similarly, when life gives you clay, make ashtrays.

The Game

This travelling thing is like playing an unfamiliar game with aliens: whatever you do, most rules of the game elude you. Everyone else playing the Game knows exactly what to do and how to do it and you just stand there stupid, trying not to look too confused (and usually not succeeding). And, when you finally think you get the Game, there’s always something new thrown at you, and you lamely realise that you only understood an infinitesimal part of the procedures.

For starters, you can’t know the rules because they’re usually drafted in a different language. This might constitute the first (and possibly the smallest) of inconveniences: there’s always the English language, which is, far and wide, somewhat (mis)spoken. Or else, you can always commit some essential words to memory (food, drink, bugger off, etc.). And, of course, you have the universal sign language, which has been known to have crafted some remarkable guffaws along the centuries. But when somebody sits down across from you at any given restaurant watching you eat your dinner while blabbing away in Nepali, widely gesturing and smiling, you tend to get the feeling that you’ve missed something… Best advice: smile, chew carefully so as not to bite your tongue, and wait until said somebody loses interest and leaves. It does happen eventually.

But the stares. The gapes, glares, gawks and gazes: those are the ones that probably have a whole tome of rules all by themselves. You’d think you’re in some exotic country. Well, think again: you’re the exotic one. The Game apparently states that there is nothing shameful about staring (unless you do it), so everyone will freely glare at you in the most awkward circumstances. Simply walking on the street attracts a couple of particularly long glances but those are easily forgotten. Eating is different, but we’ve been there already. Well, eating with your hands, as per local custom, will employ some medium-length looks, even if you’d think they’d find it standard Game play. And when you eat with your hands in a place that reinforces the use of forks and spoons, you'll be sure to be labeled as underground-level low class. But when you light up, now that’s a thing most Game players will probably interminably narrate to their grandchildren! Or if you have a beer: that’s also worth taking a note or two, or simply shouting the amazing fact to the friend that just so happens to be three doors down the road (or on another road, for that matter). There’s no end to the rules or, for that matter, to the exceptions of staring in public places. Still, even your exoticness will fade away when faced with other, more meaningful life events: we’re talking about weddings and accidents here. Those are stare-magnets that could change the Earth’s magnetic poles. People hang around wedding ceremonies just to catch a glimpse of the couple’s car, nicely adorned with garlands and the lucky couple’s initials spelled in flowers (A ♥ P), while at the same time, they gather around accident victims just to get a chance to verbalise their opinions and exchange thoughts on whatever accident they hadn’t really witnessed.

Other rules the Game concern daily life and its quirks: it’s obvious that, in a country where fuel is imported and is highly regulated, there should be lines for fuel. What’s not really obvious is that there are different queues for motorbikes and cars, and how and how much fuel you’ll end up with is even less obvious. One petrol pump had a maximum limit of NPR500, which is the equivalent of 3.7 litres of petrol (but which, having a bike and all, would last for about 100km). Another one, having about 50 bikes in a knot-type line sold an unknown amount of petrol but you had to stand in another line – a standing line, meaning that you had to stop the bike, get off and queue up in front of a cashier’s office – to pay for the petrol you might not even get (because you never know when it’ll end). And, having reached the standing line, you’d find out that there are actually two different lines, one for men and one for women. All this seems completely nebulous if, of course, you don’t know the rules of the Game.

The Game: any number of people will ask you where you are from and, right now, which FIFA World Cup team you support (whatever your answer, you mainly have to support Brazil).

The Game: honking in traffic. It’s sort of a must and whenever you don’t honk, you get stared at, and be sure it will be a different, penetrating type of staring that will make you want to have honked endlessly throughout your entire bike trip. You feel like you are the silent striker, who hunts down victims and enjoys harassing them by mysteriously appearing behind and avoid running them over at the last minute. On the other hand, if you do honk, the action will not be greeted with the same indifference, better yet familiarity as the locals get: you’re likely to be completely ignored by pedestrians and mildly tolerated by bikers and bus drivers, and, at the same time, stared at for kilometres to come. There’s a special honking code that you’ll never decipher, and it’s most probable you’ve used the wrong type of honking for any given situation. If you do try to reproduce the honking of, say, the bike in front, you’ll be ceaselessly disappointed because, while other traffic participants will acknowledge the first bike’s incoming signal, they’ll disregard yours. Every time your honking will have an effect on others, you’ll celebrate a small victory that hasn’t got a proper reason.

And while we’re on the subject… walking on the street: it’s customarily done by using the same side vehicles running in your direction do, which is, by itself very unnatural: cars coming from behind will be able to manoeuvre anyway they feel and you’ll have your back turned on them. This is a simple rule. You just do it. But when locals suddenly feel like bending the rules (and they’re doing that a lot), they’ll nonchalantly choose your side of the road for walking in the opposite direction and, furthermore, they’ll insist on squeezing between you and the surrounding buildings so as not to get too close to the traffic. May I remind you that, in this hypothetical situation you’re walking in the same direction as the cars; without doubt, you cannot see what’s happening behind you; pedestrians coming your way, who can very well see what the cars behind you are doing will try to edge out of their way and leave you, the unseeing one, closer to the potential harm. Now that’s rules for you!

As I fail to remember any other rules of the Game – my mind might very well be too jam-packed with unnecessary or secondary rules of the same Game –, I will have to update this post regularly, as I’m sure there are a lot more interesting and fun facts about Nepali life. ‘Till then…

Bikes staying in line at the petrol station

Free Tibet!

In case I haven’t already stressed it enough, I like to travel by bike. Motor. Bike. And that’s what I’ve done for about 4 weeks in Nepal.

As one of my last motorbike feats, it dawned on me that I can actually drive to the border with Tibet. Why not see what it’s all about, I asked myself and off I went into a wet cloud. Suffice is to say that monsoon season actually started and the whole 120km or so from Kathmandu to the border town of Kodari have been nothing less than the biggest pain in my personal driving-a-bike-through-Nepal experience.

As soon as I got on the bike it started drizzling but that couldn’t make me turn around. Neither could the peculiar Kathmandu traffic, which looks a lot like the pattern you get once you throw chopped vegetables into a frying pan: pattern-less. Traffic laws are completely and thoroughly inexistent: wherever you want to go, you go, regardless of anyone else’s desires. Hollywood-type car or bike chases? Never gonna happen in Nepal. Not with the way they’re driving! The way I see it, you just have to let yourself be surprised by any traffic movement, or simply close your eyes and drive. You’ll likely end up exactly where you want to go.

But Kathmandu traffic stopped shocking me a while ago and I found I have a surreal pleasure in trying to find my way around. The city is not as big as I thought, but the masses of people and vehicles are quite colossal.

Anyway, I made it out and the rain miraculously stopped. 25km later it seemed that it would be the biblical deluge all over again. So I pulled over, sincerely having second thoughts about pressing on. An hour later I was back reluctantly riding my little Pulsar up and down Nepal’s mountains. It was the worst day of driving! Not just because of the rain, but the roads didn’t make it any easier. And while passing decent-sized boulders (read: bigger than your head) that had tumbled down the mountains heralding the impending landslide, I suddenly felt I’d have been a lot safer if I had stood in the middle of Kathmandu’s traffic for three hours straight.

Tatopani was my stop and I didn’t sit around chatting with any hotel owners; I dropped my backpack and jumped on the bike with the sole intention of covering the last 3km to the Kodari border in less than half an hour. It was more like 20 minutes, what with all the mud on the road, if a motocross type of track with boulders wedged together in between tracks of mud left by excavation machineries falls anywhere under the broad category of ‘road’. It turned out that the excavation in the area was pursued by the Chinese side, which had also very thoughtfully put up some informative signs, ending with this one:

The actual border between Nepal and Tibet consists of a so-called ‘Friendship Bridge’, which is friendly only up to its middle section, where a 20cm wide bright-red tiled line marks the end of Nepal and the beginning of China. That’s right, China. The name Tibet is nowhere to be seen. I intended to get right in front of the Chinese officials and purposefully yell ‘Free Tibet!’ but I couldn’t get near enough. Nobody stands on the bridge, except for the people crossing it. And tourists, who, as might be expected, are not allowed to take pictures. They are allowed, however to stand on the bridge for as long as they want and smoke cigarettes and look around.

All the day’s frustrations ended in me triumphantly throwing my cigarette butt over the red line and, technically, into China. So, take that, China!

Left side – Nepal; right side – China

Workstations

Well, since I stopped having inspiration for writing, all my creativity went to some other, more involving activity. Involving in the sense that I still use my hands, but differently: right now both my hands are bruised, battered and scratched, and everything to do with them involves Band-Aids and a lot of care because…

Well, because Nepali people don’t have dice. And because I wanted to play some dice games, I really needed dice. The only dice I’ve ever seen for sale in Nepal also comprised a curious child’s game with small colourful plastic coins and that sad-looking, pink (!), solitary dice. And I needed six!

So, I resolved to make my own dice. Which is not nearly as easy as I thought. First of all, I needed to find some wood, specifically – if gods marginally care about my personal well-being – some wood conveniently cut into small cubes that can be easily carved. My wish was granted in Bhaktapur, one of the prettiest places I’ve seen so far in Nepal, where some genial woodcarvers constructed (rather destructed) some cube-like shapes for me, this after ogling me as if I were completely mad. ‘Dice’ is a pretty unknown word in Nepal, so I couldn’t really explain what I wanted to get. But pieces of wood that have the same size however you look at them did push a button somewhere in their brains. Unfortunately, the artist’s feel stood in the way of me having six identical cubes and I ended up having seven small pine-wood pieces of unidentified shapes which I subsequently had to sand down to cubes. Or cube-ish things.

This only had me rough-sanding the would-be cubes to a common shape for, oh, let’s say almost a week, all the while annoying anyone within earshot with the wonderful noises of my constant activity. Eventually, I got as far as this:

From here on it got only more difficult. I’ll spare you the details and only emphasise the commonalities of the different workspaces, and you’ll note that most have contain the same things: the carving knife – Opinel’s finest; my faithful lighter, which didn’t go out yet (although there’s one thing to say about Nepali lighters: never buy them, as they’ll last one day at most); cigarettes (Surya Lights keep getting harder and harder to find); and beer, which, even if it’s not obvious, was constantly involved in the making process. Trust me, for this type of work, alcohol is needed!

This just so you can admire my Angry Birds bedsheet

As my mother would say, these dice are unique, not just by way of shaping and polishing them, but also because of the fact that none has the exact same shape like the other… Nepali-unique, I’d say.

Don’t even ask about the other on-going project!

Rhinos, Elephants, and Tigers

I was squinting hard. At first I didn’t even know if I was looking in the right direction and sneaked a peek at the guides nearby. Yes, that slightly darker spot in the water was a tiger. The binoculars I was handed were close to my age, if not older and I had to keep closing one eye so that the image didn’t jump around like a mad kangaroo. But it was a tiger!

It was my second day in the jungle and I already had the feeling that I knew the place. Of course, I didn’t, and I could have gotten lost twenty times over and never even realise it. Pardip, my guide, had walked me around quite a lot the previous day and had showed me a lot of the park, but there hadn’t been any tigers around. This was the day and everybody knew it: in the morning we had hitched a ride in the jeep of the two Nepalese tourists and the owner of the lodge I had been staying at, who’d come for half a day jeep safari. Little did they know that it’s a lot harder to spot wildlife while riding a two-ton metal mammoth that roars like a household appliance out of control and runs around in its private, self-produced cloud of smog. The upside was bypassing the excruciating hour of walking from the lodge to the part of the National Park where you could actually see some wild animals and it had been Pardip’s cunning craft to convince the Boss to take us along. The downside was that the ‘jeep’ in ‘jeep safari’ was meant more like a vague guideline of what would really happen, as a considerable part of the safari was walking through trees, vines and creepers, trying not to get tangled in the thorny bushes, and dodging the numerous spider webs that had been systematically constructed at head’s height. So, we walked most of the way to the Supermarket and stopped there in our enthusiastic search for the tigers. And one came soon enough, so that all the guides and tourists panicked at once and started whispering so loud that the tiger might have thought we were having a party in its honour.

Finally, Pardip produced some good binoculars – skilfully subtracted from another guide – and rammed them in my unresisting hands so I could make out the shape of the huge animal stretched out in the water some 200m away. I tried photographing it but all I got was a neatly arranged blob or a slightly differently array of coloured pixels in the middle of the photo. Still, the tiger was there and stayed there for some time and then suddenly disappeared into the bushes with two or three huge, lazy strides.

Pardip took me to a different part of the park, a sunburnt riverbed where birds twittered, deer ran undisturbed, and insects flied around sounding like nail clippers, and where we saw from the distance the great shapes of elephants. My guide advanced cautiously and didn’t seem to want to get too close to the elephants. The day before he had presented me with a whole ceremonial procedure on what to do if rhinos, elephants or tigers attacked and the only thing I could think of was how silly it all sounded: ‘If an elephant comes at you, drop your bag and run. Don’t try to climb up trees. If a rhino comes towards you, drop your bag and run, preferably in a crisscross manner. If you come face-to-face with a tiger, stop. Don’t lose eye contact and don’t make any sudden movements and, whatever you do, don’t run.’ Right now I was trying to figure out which one was it: to run or not? Also, I was desperately looking around for a safe, soft place to drop my bag and camera, and, if need might arise, where to run. At least there were no trees in sight so I’d probably not be able to make the mistake of climbing a tree even if I wanted to. But, as we silently got closer to the elephants, I saw Pardip relax. He patiently waited for me to take some photos and then pointed out the collars around the elephants’ necks: they were not really wild elephants, just elephants sent out for grazing. I still maintain that they were wild and just happened to stroll somewhere where they handed out collars to undomesticated elephants just because of the way the situation was presented to me, and because I had gotten so frantic about the running away part that they might as well have been wild beasts on the hunt.

We got to a place by the river where the waters were gurgling and sloshing heavily and where you didn’t have to bruise your knees if you wanted to swim. But the waters were strong enough to take me all the way to India so I only swam a little upstream and ended up 10 metres further down the river. It was quite refreshing though and going back to the Supermarket was not the same insufferably boiling experience it had been before.

A detour was called for on the way back, when Pardip noticed a medium-sized boulder in the river, which turned out to be a rather large rhino enjoying some private time almost completely immersed in the water. To tell the truth, it never would have dawned on me that the plain rock was really a wild, ferocious beast and I would have passed it without a second thought. The rhino might have done exactly the same thing if it would have seen me, but that’s almost never the case, as rhinos can’t see further than the end of their noses. Or horn, for that matter. The clicking camera did, eventually ignite the match of thought inside the rhino’s head and he tried to spot something out of the ordinary, but we got really close without much trouble.

By the time we got back to the Supermarket I was getting hungry so I sat down with my packed lunch and, as so many times before, wished for some salt… I only got as far as a couple of bites when Pardip came running to me and told me to come. Now! Fast! I left everything (including my shoes) and started running. Pardip grabbed my camera so, once I got to the spot he indicated (some 200m away), I realised I would have another chance to take some really bad photographs of another tiger slopping lazily in the river. Before long the other tourists came and started elbowing and nudging each other to get a better view; my good spot on the small platform had been worth the new series of thorough gasps and heavy perspiring. Twenty minutes later one guide slyly dispersed the tourists with a compassionate ‘let’s go back and leave the tiger in the wild’, only to double back seconds later and guide his own tourist closer to the tiger. But Pardip was even more astute and, after a brief tête-à-tête with the other guide, the four of us went closer. Pardip and I turned around soon after, as we only had one pair of flip-flops, that is to say, he gave me his flip-flops and I flipped and flopped unsteadily on the muddy trail while he didn’t show any signs of uneasiness walking barefoot. But with this mighty endeavour I got to see the backside of a tiger quite well and actually got a photo in which the shape of its tail is almost distinguishable. I say ‘backside’ because the tiger probably got bored with being the centre of attention and stylishly turned its back on us and vanished into the bushes.

I wasn’t looking forward to the way back to the lodge but Pardip once again came through and arranged a ride back in a truck full of Nepali people where the only discomfort was trying to take photos of yet another rhino over the dark heads of Nepalese teenagers holding up their smartphones to better snap shots with.

Bardia National Park

He awoke from his rather short sleep and looked up. The fan was still working, which meant about another hour of electricity before the buzzing of the generators started invading Thakurdwara. It was 5:30 and he had to prepare for yet another day in the jungle. Tigers, he thought, they all wanted to see the tigers. And all had been fortunate enough to see them every day for the past month. He’d taken tourists into the jungle for 31 days straight and all came back satisfied.

Pardip was young but he was good at his job. He knew it. He’d been tramping around Bardia National Park for as long as he could remember and he could find his way anywhere with his eyes closed. Becoming a guide was only the rational thing to do. His mother had been so proud when he first told her he passed the exam; and he’d learned English too; and Hindi. If only he could have time to visit her more often…

He got up and nudged Krishna, who was sleeping next to him. They had shared the bed since the fire devoured his little bungalow. It had been two weeks before and, when he came back from the jungle, the lodge was filled with army people and villagers, watching helplessly how the flames consumed most of his belongings: the books, the binoculars and all the lodge’s documents were now ashes and dust. The Boss hadn’t been happy. The old copper wires and the heat had been too much for the mud-thatched little hut. But his guitar was still in one piece and most of his clothes. Ah, the clothes… he’d have to wash them as soon as possible but he never really had the time. Krishna had offered to wash them for him but Krishna was also busy in the kitchen.

He’d have to get up and see to the breakfast for the tourist. The cook might have forgotten about it and it was almost time to wake the tourist up. Then they’d head for the jungle.

…

The jungle: the sounds of countless birds, the familiar smell of leaves and elephant dung combined, the lush green trees, and the deer. He hoped to see his lucky deer that morning. It meant that they’d also see the tigers. But the deer were not in their usual spot. He didn’t worry much. He knew the rhino would probably be at its usual waterhole and that’d be a good start for the day. And, sure enough, he was there. It had only been an hour and the tourist was sweaty and slightly panting. And so was his new assistant. The Boss made him take the new guy and he was already complaining. He had to explain everything to him twice and he still couldn’t tell the birds apart by their chirrups, but his English was improving, which meant that soon enough Pardip wouldn’t have to translate everything to him.

He tried to get closer to the rhino but the rhino was quicker and disappeared into the forest. So they headed for the Supermarket: the best wildlife spotting place in the whole National Park, where any tourist, young or old, could get to without getting a heat stroke on the way. Spotted deer ran in front of them and monkeys jumped spitefully from tree to tree. But not his lucky deer. At the Supermarket others were already waiting but no tigers had crossed the river yet. They could wait for an hour or so and then move on.

It was easier than the day before: this tourist didn’t complain like the Israeli couple from the days before. They had been quite adamant about his language. He still wasn’t polite enough. He’d tried to be more tactful and delicate, and they hadn’t appreciated it. But they had sent him that great video with the tiger crossing the river, so all his efforts had paid off.

The tourist agreed to go all the way to the python’s lair and that meant walking through the thorny bushes and the arid riverbeds where those horribly loud treepies seemed to ridicule each human movement. Of course, the tourist had trouble with crossing the river: always getting the shoes off and back on, right under the sizzling sun. But Pardip was patient and he’d learned long ago that tourists wouldn’t be able to cross the river faster, even if he gave them his bamboo stick, even with all the rocks carefully placed so that every step would be easy. The sun was burning hotter now and all clothes were sticking to the skin like glue. But the big river was soon staring them in the face, its waters an invitingly grey sight. The water wasn’t big, just enough to cover a laid down body, but the cooling effect was all Pardip wished for. He’d surely keep a watch out for any wild animals but this part of the river was too exposed for any big animals. They were safe.

Pardip crossed the river in no time but the tourist took a long time negotiating the slippery rocks underfoot. On the other side, he walked barefooted to the trees by the riverbank and carefully crouched in front of the small lair. Yes, the python was inside, like always, and the tourist was gasping with surprise at the sight of a couple of coils buried in the dirt. Pardip had never had the courage to touch it; he’d always been afraid of snakes and he cheerfully admitted that, but he’d always hoped to find a strong, spirited tourist who could get the python out. Still, when beckoned to touch it, Pardip’s skin would prickle with disgust and anguish.

It’s always about the photos, he thought when the tourist flashed the camera deep into the burrow. All tourists snap shots to prove they’ve been places. And some get such nice photographs… The Indian photographer he’d guided through the park just some weeks before didn’t want to send him the pictures. They had been really good, Pardip was sure, but he also knew that to see them was to buy them.

He took the tourist back the same way he came and was as patient as before with all the tourist’s stops at the river crossings. He’d tried to help but the tourist was exactly like any other: stubborn, obstinate, self-absorbed, everything that was deemed abnormal in Pardip’s culture. He stopped for lunch under the protective shade of the big fig trees. He’d got a nice lunch today: vegetable rice and potato curry, a good nutritious meal. The cook had taken a liking to him and always had something put aside for him, especially if any tourists ordered meat and he had enough left over. He also suspected Krishna’s influence on the cook but he’d always made sure he’d show all of them the proper respect and regularly bought them whiskey and cigarettes. But only when the Boss wasn’t around; the Boss was a chain smoker but he didn’t approve of the boys’ smoking. They always had to hide for a quick puff from a cigarette that passed from hand to hand and was finished in seconds.

When lunch was done, Pardip showed the tourist back to the Supermarket and hoped against hope that a tiger would appear. They spent there some hours, the tourist reading and, eventually, falling asleep, and him talking away the minutes until they eventually made their way back to the lodge. But his day was far from over.

He went straight to the Boss and gave a complete update: the rhino, the deer, the python… no tigers. But the tourist seemed happy. Sure, tourists always seem happy, and never seemed to worry about tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow: it could be his day off. But right after the short shower, Krishna came in and told him about the Nepali people who’d come that day and wanted a jeep Safari the next one. There would be no day off again.

And then there was the tourist’s dinner and the evening’s preparations. The Boss always made him do it, even when he told guests he was a sort of manager; he’d still have to bring salt and pepper to the tables and fix all unpredictable problems. He was still the handy man. But today was easy: there was just this one tourist and the Nepalese people, whom were taken care of by the Boss. The Boss always discussed with the rich Nepali, and these were young doctors from Kathmandu, so he wasn’t needed.

His friends had invited him out for beers and, after everything was dealt with at the lodge, he went to the bar. Of course he’d have his cell phone close by, in case anything was needed of him. The night was quiet and dark, fireflies hovering around everywhere, competing with the myriad of stars in the sky. But then, the tourist came. He’d thought that the tourist would go straight to sleep, like most of them do after a whole day of walking in the jungle. But this tourist had something else in mind and, after some beers and some shared cigarettes, the tourist asked him if he’d be available the next day; it seemed that the tourist had changed his mind and wasn’t leaving Bardia yet. It suited Pardip just fine: he’d go with the tourist and the Boss would guide the Nepalese doctors. It meant a little more business, even now, when fewer tourists were showing up so far from the classic Kathmandu – Pokhara route. He’d just have to make some phone calls and explain matters to the Boss.

It turned out to be a good day, thought Pardip. He would share another beer and go get some sleep soon. Of course, he would have to get up early again and prepare everything for the next day: breakfast for the tourist, chores for the staff… But maybe he would see his lucky deer tomorrow.