Non tourist Photos of Kathmandu

 

Sharpening my Swiss Army penknife, its powered by a bicycle chain

Cows are never far away in Kathmandu

Many of the houses in Kathmandu are in a poor state of repair, and will fall down soon.

When it rains, the roads become mud baths, even in the centre of Kathmandu.

Collecting litter to make a meagre living, and often involves children.

Not everyone has a home

STOP PRESS:Old male hippy attacks old female hippy

June 20th

I arrived in Kathmandu, about 1/3 of the way through my journey,  and suffered a serious case of reverse cultural shock. For the previous month I’d only met one group of 3 westerners  (they were English), and everyone else I’d spoken to or seen, were either Burmese,  Indian or Nepalese. I went to the Hotel area in Kathmandu which consisted of tacky souvenir shops, mountaineering equipment shops in case you had forgotten your Everest climbing gear, tour shops so you could climb Everest , and of upto 5 star hotels to stay in. None of this had I seen as I travelled across Nepal. It was brimming with westerners, broadly of two groups. Firstly there was the young hippies  (gap years), they typically wore some local clothing, a pigtail (the men that is), and a tattoo or two. This group I’m quite happy with, after all I was almost one myself 40 years ago when I travelled the hippy trail down into India. Most of then will return back to their homes and become the bankers, property developers, teachers etc of tommorow and a little wiser for their travels.

The other group were the old hippies. These were people who were hippies in the 70’s and the dominant slogan at the time was “make love not war”, and part of us all wanted to believe in it. With hindsight “make money and keep the wars” would of been more appropriate,  because this is what the original hippy generation did. Of course some of them had  held onto their original high ideals  (love and drugs) but I not sure if it really has helped the world to be a better place (famine etc).

And so it was I was wondering around Nepal tourist town when I came across an old female hippy about my age, you know the sort, scruffy white hair and dirty clothes (her not me). She was berating a taxi driver for keeping his taxi idling, telling him how he was polluting the world. I rounded on her, and asked her how she got to Kathmandu  (plane of course). I then told her that the taxi could idle for a 1000 years to match her pollution from her plane flight (I love making up facts,should of been a politician ). I said a few more things about the footprint of the west, decided I was ahead and left it at that. The ageing female hippy was speechless with her mouth open, the taxi driver said to me “Well said” in a very English way and shook my hand, and I walked away feeling the moral victor.

A bit of remorse of course set in,should I of attacked someone who was only saying what I would in a slightly different situation. I think what happened says more about me and how my travels are effecting me, and what’s the point of travel if it does not make you think about the world. Up to this point I’d  mainly travelled amongst poor people and I know their carbon footprint is less than a 10 th of the west, so I think I was right, what do you think?

Photos of the non tourist Kathmandu to follow when internet stronger

NEPAL,the friendly capital of the world

June 17th.

Blogging out of order, I’ll try to catch up soon.

I crossed into Nepal 4 days ago and here’s a photographic summary so far.

The border town where I stayed.

A people carrier Nepal style, and they all look happyOk what’s he fishing for? You’ve guessed, drift wood

I always have to remember what colour my bike is!

First you see, then you don’t. Time and again it’s the women in Asia that do the hard manual work

And then I turned north into the Himalayas,  off the beat on track of course. These mountains are brutal and far worse than anything I’ve  met in the Alps. First they soften you up with repeated climbs up to 2000 ft and back down again, and then the real climb starts.I had already had many Nepalese tel me that (old man on a bike) you can’t go over the Himalayas on a bike, and as I ground my way round hairpin after hairpin I began to believe them. I did my good deed as I became the hero of a mountain village by providing a pump to inflate a motorbike tyre, this I felt was my ying, my yang would find me. It began to get dark as I progressed up the hairpins and my energy levels hovered just above zero. So camping it was to be. Now finding somewhere to camp on a mountain side is hard because nowheres flat. I spotted a piece of grass on a corner with a man stood next to it. I asked him if I could camp, and he said no but pointed to a house. I pushed my bike up to the house and was instantly agreed I could, and as I was his guest I must have a meal with him. First thing to arrive was moonshine, served out of an engine oil can, and I’ve definitely have no hairs left on my chest. An excellent meal followed, all from his garden, and i slept so well that night in my tent. I woke at about 7.00 a.m and breakfast was ready for me, the generouserty of the people I’ve met on this trip continues to astound me

Breakfast with Bbale, my host for the night

I left Bbale with another hour of climbing and a decent that made it all worthwhile,  leaving about 60 hilly miles to Kathmandu. 

I met up with “3 gradient sisters” who pushed me up a steep bit (I was still cycling), but what I didn’t relise at the time is they decorated my bike with flowers

 

5 star hotels, eat your heart out

One of the delights of how I’m  traveling is I never know where I’m sleeping each night until it happens.  This would infuriate many of you, but for me it’s all part of the fun. Let me give a typical day of how it happens. Not there is ever is a typical day, but that’s  what I’m  on about.

I’m  in Nepal and cycling towards Kathmandu and at about 4.ok p.m. onwards I’m looking for somewhere to sleep. Nothing presents itself and by 6.00 p.m I’m thinking that this will be my first night in the tent.It’s starting to get dark and I come across a barrage (bridge ) guarded  by police men.I ask them if they know of a hotel (using sign language ) and they point me down a lane, the main inhabitants of which are goats, chickens and pigs. I cycle down about 1/4 mile and find nothing that even looks like a house, let alone a hotel. I ask someone and they get on their motorbike and take me back down the lane and point me to an even smaller lane. Down I go and come to a collection of what I imagine to be farm buildings. I make contact with people, and after a bit of discussion it’s agreed they have a room. I’m led up a ladder to a small, but delightfully rustic room. By this time I’ve acquired a 11 year old boy, who a sort of guide come impromptu butler. He takes me on a tour of everyone in the village, the one whom interested me particularly was the one who was a good swimmer, and made his living by diving into the barrage and retrieving  drift wood, often complete trees.

After the tour I told him I wanted to get washed. He took me to the wash room that consisted of the normal hole in the floor, plus a very old conventional hand pump. Now the trouble with a old pump is that while you’r pumping you can’t wash, and while you’r washing you can’t pump. My 11 year old butler understood this perfectly, and with a lot of coy undressing from myself we had a bucket shower, with him doing the pumping. In England of course I would be arrested (67 old has shower with 11 year old) , but in the context, I can only describe it as beautiful in the traditional meaning of the word.

Nice and clean I joined the family for an evening meal, their 10 month old daughter had decided wrinkly old white man was the funniest thing she have ever seen, so the rest of the evening was spent playing with her.

I finally went to bed and reflectected that 5 star hotels have so much to learn on how to give their customers a memorable nights stay. And all this for under £5.00.

Once I get to Kathmandu  I will hopefully update my blogs.

Photos will follow when internet stronger.

My 6 star hotel and the 6 star owner with his wife and butler

The journey to the Indian border,prehaps?

24th to 27th of May

I felt I have already earnt the first 100 miles (and some) going north, so I took the easy option and took a boat. Myanmar is covered in giant rivers that snake their way 100s of miles inland, and so at 4.00 a.m. I left Monywa on a boat heading north  on the Chindwin River.I felt very English and very Victorian. The boat was full of Burmese people with goods of every description from motorbikes,to sacks of food, spare parts etc,  with the people sitting on them, under them and besides them. But not the Englishman, whom I imagined to be on his way to inspect the company plantation in 1892. I had paid the same as everyone else, but I was given 3 seats to myself, which allowed me to sleep on the 14 hr journey. Every so often someone would  get off, not a jetty in sight, the boat would ram the bank and the passenger would jumped into water and the boat would reverse and away we went. I knew my turn would come with a bike in both hands. After about 16 hrs we reached the town of Kalewa, my destination some 30 mile from where I had  reached a few days earlier. Then the fun started. It was the first town of any size after 100 miles and as the boat started it ramming procedure lots of smaller boats drew alongside, and mainly women, jumped from one boat to the other carry food, and trying to be the first. Simultaneously people were trying to board the boat before any one got off, this was Burma. I of course had to get myself off together with my bike which was on the roof. Then out of fresh air a group of young lads spotted white Victorian gentleman and knew they were on to a good thing. Their first offer was 100o k (60p), but I’m no pushover, and after hard negotiation I got the price down to  5000 k (£3), and worth every penny. They formed a chain and never once got the bike wet. I found a very colonial looking guesthouse costing almost nothing and waited for the local policeman to arrive.

My bike being unloaded from the roofThe view from the guesthouse window in Kalewa, a town with a real frontier feel to it.

The next day I followed the river further upstream, on a road that was mainly unsurfaced, to the town of Mawlaik. Found a lovely guest house facing the river. Within 1/2 hour the local English teacher presented himself and declared he would be my history guide to the town. The town was full of large houses built by the British in the 19th century to house senior officers and administrators. Being on the river, the the town was strategically important, first to the British, and then to the Japanese. The English teacher was in his 70s so remembers the war ,and the stories were horrific. I also became an English teacher for 1/2 hr and helped to build the local Monastery.

The English teacher and his class

An English colonial house,  note the two chimneys in a country where its never much below 30. A Burmese farmers house and a pig that now lives in an colonial house.

The women do all the hard work when it comes to building a Monastery

 

I left Mawlaik to head for the Indian border about 100 miles away. But first I had to go up a jungle mountain road. This was a very quite road and very, very steep. There was no question riding parts of it, so there was a lot of walking. The steepness of the road meant that I had to lay almost horizontal with the  road and use just my toes to push forward. If by luck, on one of these steep sections a motor bike would come along, they would abandon  their bike and the two of us would push until it flattened it out. I called these good fellows “my Gradient Brothers”. Now I was beginning to be worn down by all this pushing, when suddenly all was forgiven.  There was an elephant in front of me. He wasn’t wild but was a working one pulling timber out of the jungle. He was controlled by a young lad entirely using his voice, and his family had probably being using elephants for many generations.

The jungle road

That’s all now, next time I’ll  tell what happened when I got to the border.

Photos from previous blog

Tea with the monks

This was the road before it rained. And remember next time you report a pothole to the council,  it’s only a real pothole if you can fit a fit a whole family of water buffalo in it.

My mud brother and his family.