Having navigated Kathmandu airport, we are met by our guide and host for the next month, Karma. Even though he comes strongly recommended by our great friends Heather & Toby, I’m a bit apprehensive meeting a stranger who I know we’re going to be spending most of our waking hours with for the next month. But we’re greeted by a broad smile and welcome gifts of white silk scarves – a local custom.
We bundle into a taxi and head off to Karma’s house, where we will be staying while in Kathmandu. Although the city is only at 1,400m altitude, the cooler air tells us we’re higher than where we’ve come from. But my immediate impression is of just how polluted the air in the city is – choking diesel fumes mean I’m instinctively taking shallow breaths; my lungs simply reject the idea of inhaling any deeper. Many people are wearing face masks and I can understand why. However, Karma’s house is off to the north side of the city and as we turn off the main bus & lorry routes the air thankfully begins to clear.
Karma’s home is fairly typical of the area: a 4-storey, flat roofed house, of which he lets the ground and 1st floors out. The family live mainly on the second floor and on the top floor there are his meditation room and 2 spare rooms for guests – that’s us! His wife Karmu is very welcoming and while we’re there she conjures up the most delicious Nepalese food including Momos (bite sized pasties filled with minced chicken or vegetables, but steamed like dim sum) and the Nepalese staple, dal baht (lentils and rice, served with delicious curried potato & cauliflower, intensely flavoured greens and on special occasions, chicken). All the children enjoy the food, so that’s one battle we don’t need to fight.
Karma & Karmu’s eldest daughter Sonahm (aged 19) is home when we arrive, with whom Millie is soon absolutely besotted. Thankfully, Sonahm has the patience of a saint and plays Millie’s games endlessly and willingly. There’s also Attie (12) and their only son Norbu (9), so friends for Jemima & Gabriel to play with. Karma’s sister Pema is also staying, plus various other children, neighbours and relatives keep coming and going, so it’s a house full!
It’s lovely to stay in someone’s home and see local Nepali life, whether it’s watching the cooking or the ladies spinning wool.
Flowers are on sales everywhere for the Diwali celebrations
It’s a great time to be in Kathmandu as it’s Diwali while we’re here. Although Karma is a Bhuddist lama, the children still join in with the fun of the Diwali celebrations, including painting a flower on the ground outside the house with powder paints, with a pathway with footprints leading into the house to invite the money god inside. It’s all then decorated with candles and looks absolutely stunning. The children also go round in small groups, singing and dancing outside neighbours houses for a few rupees – their equivalent of trick-or-treating! From the flat roof on the top of the house there’s a great view across the local neighbourhood and into the city – as the days go by, the intensity of sparkling lights at night grows and grows – like Christmas at home – and the city is ablaze with yellow marigolds and beautiful small purple flowers.
A row of bicycle rickshaws
A rickshaw driver taking a well-earned rest!
It quickly becomes obvious that we’ve moved from a country of auto-rickshaws (tuk-tuks) to a city of bicycle rickshaws, certainly in the touristy areas of the city. The locals’ preferred mode of transport is definitely the motorbike – they are are everywhere in the city (approx 60% Hero Honda; 30% Pulsar; 5% throaty Royal Enfields). This includes Karma and Fi & I quickly get invited to ride pillion for various excursions into town. I’ve always been a complete coward when it comes to motorbikes and have never ridden pillion in my life, but we’re soon into the swing of it, weaving in and out of the heaving traffic, taking short cuts down alleyways, all without helmets, of course. My biggest concern is that I’m going to lose a knee cap to an oncoming vehicle or narrow passage – Karma laughs his head off as I involuntarily squeeze my knees in and he makes jokes about getting a helmet for my knees!
We’d heard that most tourists here (within 10 minutes we’d seen more European / American tourists that our two months in Ethiopia and India combined) tend to just use Kathmandu as a stopping off point and get out of the city as quickly as possible but we’ve got 5 days here and discover there’s lots to see. We visit various temples, including climbing up to see Monkey Temple, the steps lined with handicraft sellers, enormously long lines of prayer flags strung across the valley and enormous bells. We stop in to see the Bhuddist monks chanting next to the heat of about 1,000 oil candles. Other highlights include Patan, which is almost a city within a city, with its beautiful ancient brick buildings with extraordinarily ornate wood carvings. And Fi & I, thankfully without the children, venture in to Durbar square, again with its ancient Bhuddist and Hindu temples. We go by bus, which is an experience in itself – it isn’t much more than a minibus and we are crammed in like sardines; it seems impossible for anyone else to fit in but our conductor has other ideas and somehow manages to squeeze another 6 in! We miss our stop and have to walk to Durbar Square through a local Nepali market that is absolutely heaving, selling teas, spices, fruit & veg, clothing, in addition to all the ropes of marigolds and other flowers for Diwali. It’s a riot of bustling colour, but we are very glad we don’t have to keep tabs on 3 children!
A typical scene – these hats are de rigour, certainly for the older generations of men in Kathmandu
An atmospheric early morning walk around a Buddhist temple – prayer flags, chanting, candles…. and grain on sale to feed the pigeons!
Typical wiring in Kathmandu – how are you supposed to find the right wire to fix?!
Karma takes us to the most unlikeliest restaurant for lunch, tucked away behind some roadworks and surrounded by some typical Kathmandu overhead wiring that looks like an absolute death trap. Apparently it’s famous for its meat and is very popular with the locals. The children have a sort of pancake of fried beans topped with a fried egg. We had a sort of flat bread sandwich, plus Karma ordered a couple of bowls of meaty nibbles I didn’t recognise. Having convinced me to try them, Karma then reveals with a chuckle that one was goat’s brain; the other buffalo tripe. Not wanting to appear a complete wimp, I go back for more but I can’t say I’ll be back demanding to order it again! (Oh, of course it goes without saying that the others decline to try!)
Though the week, Karma keeps disappearing off to visit a friend who’s in hospital after being involved in a bad bus accident. Apparently the overloaded bus went over the side of the road. Thankfully it seems he’s recovering pretty well.
Playing cards at Karma’s community festival celebrations – my knees really struggle to sit of the floor for any length of time!
Karma is involved in lots of community work both in his village Syafru in the mountains and here in Kathmandu. We are invited to festival celebrations of all those from Syafru who’ve moved to the city. There are a few hundred people there – the older women are outside drinking tea and chatting; the men and the younger generation are all in doors, sat around in groups on the floor playing cards for money (this goes on for hours!). There are various games going on including a version of rummy with 20 cards each that I can’t quite manage to work out the rules of. After a while I join a group of a dozen or so playing 3-card brag – this takes me back to illicit card games at breaks and lunchtimes in our sixth-form common room! The price of entry is just 10 rupees per hand (about 7p) but with so many players, some of the pots end up in the thousands of rupees. I play about 20 hands but sadly don’t get dealt anything whatsoever worth betting on – the best I get is a pair of fives in my last hand, which I decide to fold. At least I don’t lose much money!
We visit the tourist area of Thamel, a warren of streets with everything the trekking / climbing tourist would ever need, western restaurants and handicraft shops. All the clothing is branded North Face or other big outdoor brands – all counterfeit at a fraction of western prices (there are a few shops selling the real thing for western prices). We top up with some warm hats & gloves and the counterfeit version of down gilets for our trip into the mountains.
The children, especially Millie, are sad to leave their new found friends and go trekking, but that’s what we came here for so we set off for our tour of the Tamang Heritage Trail…
Karma and me sporting local dress from his village – heavy duty Yak wool. I get to where the ubiquitous khukuri knife!
Five Go Round The World 