No Man's Land

I got to Kakarbitta, which would surely be my last stop in the kingdom of Nepal, as it’s a border city, enabling travellers to get to the north-eastern part of India. I thought that Ilam would be my last Nepalese stop right about the time I thought I would catch a direct bus from one tea country to the other, from Ilam to Darjeeling respectively. But, as always, plans are usually changed faster than socks and I ended up in Kakarbitta.

The buzz and heat only reminded me that the border is just a virtual one, that the first person I’d meet would not be that strikingly different from the ones on the other side of the border. And, sure enough, I still couldn’t tell the difference between Indians and Nepali even at gunpoint.

The Indian-looking Nepali at the hotel was very kind to explain that the cheapest way to get across was to walk (preferably with eyes and ears closed so as not to get distracted by the myriad of offers of rides to the other side of the border, to Siliguri or Darjeeling, or to any other happy place, made happy by my own existence and the existence of the person offering). So, within 10 minutes after walking up that morning, I started walking to India.

The border trend seems to be bridges; and, of course, there’s a bridge crossing to get to the Indian border: a bridge long enough to make the crossing irritatingly hot and sweaty even in the trickling rain, so that people would be either really exhilarated or immensely exasperated by the time they reach India. I was definitely on the reasonably irritated side of things by the time they pointed me to the Indian Immigration Office, welcoming me with shouts and preposterous offers for the most uninspired transportation means to major Indian cities, an eye-watering deal that could well mean the most memorable welcoming present to India for any credulous traveller (it would also mean that a considerable amount of one’s budget would go towards the maintenance of the shabby jeeps which would provide the transport to any Indian city).

So, after having some really friendly Indian policemen welcoming me on the other side of the bridge, I hopped around the alley leading to the Immigration Office because it was under construction and, eventually, got face to face with a nice officer who shoved some forms under my nose and proceeded to ask me about my favourite football team. After filling out the immigration forms, the officer turned to his job and started analysing my handwriting and checking the highly important information. And just when I thought I’d get the stamp of approval to go crazy anywhere in India, the officer asked if I had ‘checked out’ of Nepal. I was flabbergasted; there hadn’t been an Immigration Office on the Nepali side of the bridge and I didn’t know you had to officially say that you were leaving Nepal.

‘You need to go back, ma’am, and get the stamp from Nepal Immigration Office in your passport. I would take you myself but I have to stay here… so maybe if you wait for half an hour, I can take you.’

Lovely offer, really, but I chose to do it myself and left my backpack in India, leisurely walking back to Nepal. I’ll tell you this: the bridge didn’t get any shorter in the meantime and the stroll was not all that much fun, as the motorised traffic between the countries with its unceasing honking – a sure sign of joy or sorrow for leaving or coming into a country – was as pleasant as having a tooth extraction. At the Nepali Immigration Office nobody was at work, which meant that I had to spend more time in Nepal waiting for someone to put a goodbye stamp in my passport. They eventually did that and soon enough I was back on the bridge reminding myself that the careless Nepali ways have just been replaced by the complicated Indian methods of doing things. And I knew I was back!

On the upside, I did get a neatly written name and phone number (‘If you need any help…’) from the Indian immigration officer and made my first true, honest friend in India.

What Happened Afterwards

As the bike was handed back to its rightful owner – in perfect condition, mind you (although there has been a short pit stop along one hilly road, where the bike underwent a small session of acquiring a footrest that had miraculously gone missing) – I had to resort to old ways of travelling: by bus. And it would be the first night bus I’d be riding in. I had reasoned that a night bus would offer the fuggy comfort of a bed in which you can snuggle boundlessly because Nepalese sleeping hours stretch from somewhere around 9PM to almost 7AM.

But, as is often the case these days, I was wrong. The endless hours waiting for the night bus to come culminated in a rainy instant when my luggage was mercilessly shoved in a trunk that was already too full and wouldn’t possibly contain it, and me being gently jostled into a grubby compact seat where my knees and the seat in front instantly merged into one bruise-inflicting body. At least I had the presence of mind to coax the ticket seller into giving me a window seat for the times when my head would fall off the back rest and wobble softly onto the cold, hard metal frame of the window (as opposed to nestling lightly on the shoulders of the person next to me – like I’ve seen it done so many times. And the good-natured Nepali would never dream of pushing away a total stranger who’s serenely snoring like an enraged bumblebee on their shoulder).

And off we went into the night. I could tell this was a deluxe bus by the fact that we were offered water bottles (I lost mine somewhere under the seats) and, after a short musical intro, they turned the TV on and we were treated to the finest Nepali (or Hindi) action movie. The rocking and swaying was soothing at first but it promptly stopped as the bus also came to a deathly halt. Because the movie captured the attention of most passengers, people didn’t seem to mind much but as the hours dripped by, this protracted pee-break turned into a nerve-breaking over-nighter. But after only two hours, the bus started slowly ambling away and its continuous humdrum soon put me to sleep.

I awoke right before the dinner break, sometime around 2AM and, dreamily following the bevy, I started munching at the dal bhat placed in front of my face.

Dal bhat is an all-in-one all-you-can-eat traditional meal that usually consists of a small mountain of rice, dal (lentil) soup, vegetable curry, tomato chutney or some pickled vegetables, some unidentified boiled greens, one papad (a thin crisp lentil-flour pancake), a slice of cucumber and a slice of radish. And whenever any of the items listed above disappears from the plate, there will be someone replacing the missing item until you are either full or literally on the verge of bursting. I’ve only ever asked for seconds and even that with some reluctance, but there’s no saying as to how many servings there can be. The sure thing is that even a physically well-developed grown man can’t possibly have more than two servings of the thing.

After nibbling at it for a while (and not even thinking about seconds), I asked for the bill and was thankful that I was still sitting down when they told me the price: the equivalent of two and a half dollars was joyfully asked of me, which is what I call highway robbery (and, in fact, we were on a highway)! Even with this hearty amount of food, it would still be almost as much as I would pay for a room at night, but nevertheless, I handed the money in the hope that I was still dreaming and this never actually happened. I intended to have a nice smoke after this potentially ruinous meal but the staff didn’t have change and I had to wait around, my dream of a rewarding cigarette destroyed and my bus on its way onward without me. It took some time for the restaurant staff to:

• stop the bus and get it turned around
• find my change in the recesses of some dingy waistcloth
• reverently escort me to the bus and, thus, away.

All in all, it only took 15 hours to get to Janakpur, where at 10 in the morning, fully bridled and equipped with a backpack that inexplicably becomes heavier and grittier I was sweating my way to town.

I’ll spare you the details of how it is indeed possible to sweat as much as a fountain without moving a single muscle; how it is possible to not be able to tell which drops covering your body are water from the refreshing shower you’ve just had seconds ago, and which are the treacherous drops of sweat already turning into a flowing torrent; how it’s possible to instantly have sticky, wet clothes that have been clean and dry moments before; how it’s possible that even the air you breathe has the consistency of boiled butter… I’ll spare you all that.

And just tell you about the latest biblical flood that erupted in Janakpur late in the afternoon. I had been walking through steady light rain for a while and stopped for a nice beer refill when the rain doubled its forces and turned into the wrath of gods, pouring water like there would be no tomorrow. And people felt that tomorrow would be out of the questions for them, as most Nepali can’t swim and the weather conditions implied that swimming would be required even for a short hop to the toilet. I watched as the whole restaurant filled with water and people started stacking important-looking boxes to the walls. A stray dog wandered in seeking refuge somewhere where it thought it would find a dry spot to quietly curl up. But the water had already claimed the entire floor so the only logical thing for a dog to do was to try and shake the water off its fur, thus splattering all the customers.

Owner and staff started putting the fridge on top of a table and handed out bricks for the customers to put their feet on. A small boy started shovelling water out of the bar with his flip-flop; bottles were minding their own business, floating peacefully among the tables, slaloming around a forgotten bike helmet; my new-found friend, a Nepali with whom I was sharing my beers (there were more than one now, as there was nowhere to go and nothing better to do) asked for a plastic bag and ceremoniously took off his posh leather boots and socks, stored them safely inside the plastic bag – which was thoroughly checked for any holes – rolled up his pants and proceeded to explain how, if the rain doesn’t subside, he will surely perish, either from his inability to swim or from the snakes that would surely welcome this forlorn weather and prepare for the hunt…

As we watched the apocalyptic deluge, the kids outside abandoned all worries and started dancing and squealing in the waist-high waters while the motorcycle drivers morosely pushed their water-filled engines around. Night was falling and the rainfall was not subsiding. Eventually, my Nepali friend and I decided to face death and defy the mighty forces. It was easy for me, as the hotel I was staying at was but a few dozen metres away. But my friend had to face a lots perils on his way home, clutching protectively at his boots in the plastic bag. I still don’t know if he made it home…

Bonus: really low-quality phone photos

If you look closely, you can see that
the owner's feet are under water

This is just the beginning...

If you squint really hard, you can see a motorcycle floating somewhere in there

Is the World Ending?

Much to my surprise, the world is not really ending. It’s just changing, morphing into something that I’d never have imagined possible some years before. No, I’ve checked: most of the stars are still up there in the sky, although it’s hard to see them with this thick blanket of clouds that is not only above my head, but it’s occasionally surrounding my feet as well; it’s either that I’m really high up in the tea-producing hills of Ilam, where life goes on unabridged by weather phenomena such as, oh let’s say rainy season; or these clouds really ignore common gravitational theories and submerge everything in a milky soup that makes everything look as though nobody sounded the fire department alarm in time and now the odourless smoke from an invisible fire gnaws at the human senses.

No, the world is not really ending. Understandably, you’d think it’s ending when all around you seems to disappear in the misty unknown and strange, singular occurrences may get you seriously considering the fate of the world.

Especially if you’d know that I tend to choose my lodgings according to the availability of a television set that will broadcast the FIFA World Cup (this fact sometimes trumping over the ease of use of a wireless internet connection!). Or that I rigorously wake up at 1.30AM to watch the football games live, and surprise even myself with getting emotionally involved and cheering for a particular team. And that I am inclined to make football the gravitational centre of all my conversations with Nepali people, who are as captivated by the subject as a cat is by a fluffy, tinkling ball.

No, the world is not really ending; but my sane, football-free mind is on holiday, hopefully returning right after the final game.

How the Other Half Lives

Because yes, it lives. And it lives well. Nepal’s rich and not famous (unknown, really) have quite the comfy life in the Kathmandu Valley, where their problems range from what social meetings to attend to choosing the most suitable restaurant for the evening’s culinary desires.

Kathmandu Valley boasts a wide variety of business people from all branches of economic activity, who mostly have international professional affairs, ensuring the well-being of a class that has yet to find all schemes – shady or rainbow-tinted – to churn the last drops of national money and shove it deep inside the safety of their pockets.

Politics happens mostly in restaurants and bars, more often than not over a bottle of the finest import whiskey or other ardent spirit that will seal the deal much better than your average glue. And anyone in need of convincing will be handsomely rewarded with a thick stack of greys: although Nepali banknotes are joyfully coloured, they pass through countless of sticky hands until they reach their destination, and so their overall colour often turns to a muddy brownish grey usually having the consistency of cleaning rags found in restaurants all over the world. And after the local authorities – minor annoyances in the way of prosperity – have been financially oiled and dutifully greased and thus, convinced  the wealthy Nepalis will proceed to deal with a number of equally rich Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and in times of hardship, even with Europeans.

You may ask: what is it that they in fact do? And the simplest, most illuminating answer is business. That’s the most satisfactory answer I got and it should be sufficient to extinguish any other bothersome questions.

The Nepali rich have a definite idea of having a good night out and that is having an expensive dinner and some expensive drinks in a posh, expensive establishment. The operating word here is, as you might have guessed, expensive. And if you can add some World Cup football on top of that, then it’ll be a really good time. Naturally, if you can bet ridiculous amounts of money on one team or the other and lose more than a whole Nepali family makes in a week, you've just painted the picture of a perfect time.

Another great activity for the Nepali rich is bragging: what about is not usually a concern, but if there is a chance of arrogant gasconading, it will be fully exploited. The best line-shooting I’ve heard was swimming like a dolphin across the World Cup ocean and it consisted of enumerating the ownership of various gold and platinum hotel member cards, and holding that any of the aforementioned prized cards would supposedly get the owner a room (a royal suite no less) at practically any hotel in Brazil, oblivious to the fact that piranhas worldwide have surfaced only to snatch any type of available lodgings – be it royal suite or camping lawn – months ago. The bragging does not, in fact, stop here, as there is an endless supply of noteworthy self-praise. What should be engraved on the marble mausoleums of expired rich Nepalese: the sheer number of bankrupt businesses one can have and talk about with the pride of a toddler who escaped its mother’s protective embrace and is now productively sitting in a puddle of mud having lunch with the frogs. It is simply astounding. But at least you can admire the positivity of the Nepalese rich, who don’t consider bankruptcy a failure on the slope towards impoverishment, but only a slightly annoying setback in the game they never imagine they could possibly lose.

And while seeking to extend their fortunes and absorb material wealth like a dog absorbs water in a tempest; while having the latest smartphones, tablets and computers, and the flashiest gold rings, bracelets and anchor-chain-sized necklaces; while ‘retiring’ before the age of 50; while doing all that these prosperous Nepalese hold themselves the saviours of the poor, the ones who donate and organize charities and other noble causes, concurrently doing what people of their stature and position do best, considering their education and manners: barking orders at low-class waiters, shouting for a napkin when the table’s full of them, or simply disregarding anyone who’s not as well-kempt and affluent to be worthy of their precious consideration.

But do you know who else lives well? Mosquitoes. And do you know what the rich Nepalese people’s biggest living irony is? It’s that mosquitoes viciously attack everyone and only stop to ask about economic prowess when they are full (and they never are).

Post written with wrath and fury (and artistic licence, of course) because the rich Nepalese asked me to go to Brazil with them.

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