by Frank Kusy
April 3rd
Back in the New Diamond Lodge in Kathmandu, I was woken up by a dawn chorus of howling hounds below my window. I hired out a bicycle, and travelled down to the Indian Embassy, intending to extend my visa for when I returned to India. Of all the embassies in Kathmandu, the Indian one is the most difficult to locate. And when I had found it, it was closed. The security guard at the gate told me that today was a public holiday. He couldn’t remember which one.
A mop-headed little urchin raced up to me back in Durbar Square. He wanted to repair my shoes. Looking closer at him, I remembered that he was the same infant who had repaired my shoes the week before. I jogged his memory, and told him he could not have done a good job if the shoes needed repairing again seven days later. But he was sharp. He took one look at the mud traces on my soles and told me I had been trekking. I laughed and congratulated him on his deduction. He got his glue and sewing thread out and put the ragged trainers back together. An hour later, however, they had fallen apart once more. I tracked down the shoe boy and complained. He just shrugged and told me I needed a new pair of shoes.
The dogs outside my lodge appeared to have worn themselves out last night, for this evening all was quiet, and I finally got some much-needed sleep. Kathmandu, the second time around, was growing on me.
April 4th
The Oasis revealed a touch of class this morning, while I was eating breakfast, and began playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on its sound system. One of my favourite classical pieces, it put me in just the right frame of mind to venture out by bicycle to the royal city of Patan.
Patan’s attractive Durbar Square has just one western-style restaurant at present. It is called Cafe de Patan, and is owned by a beaming, broad-faced young man called Gun Muni Shakya (Gun) who runs his kitchen in between learning Japanese and break-dancing to Michael Jackson records. ‘Gun’ is a Nepali Buddhist, just nineteen years of age, whose father gave him this restaurant four years ago. In the course of our conversation, he told me of his eagerness to reach the age of 25, for then he would be married to a ‘good Buddhist girl’ and would not have to pay any further visits to the popular blue-movie cinema in town. He was rather puzzled when I explained to him the Western custom of fidelity after marriage. In his part of the world, because of severe restrictions on pre-marital sex, it was apparently common to take at least one mistress after marriage, which works out fine just so long as (in Gun’s own words) ‘wife does not find out of hanky-panky.’
The Durbar Square in Patan seemed somehow more ‘authentic’ than the one in Kathmandu. It was alive with people and chatter, markets and bazaars, atmosphere and colour. Within what was really quite a small square lay an incredible number of monuments, statues, pagodas and shrines. I sat back to observe them at leisure, and was particularly struck by the ornate dignity of the Garuda statue facing onto the magnificent three-storey Krishna Mandir. Then my attention wandered to the activity of the local livestock, much of which was roaming free in the busy square. Next to me, a sleeping man had acquired a curious companion – a large cow dozing on his feet. On the steps of the temples, meanwhile, scores of wild dogs could be seen fighting, playing or engaging in advanced sexual foreplay. Then a giant black goat appeared, strolling glassy-eyed down the road. It was promptly poked up the backside with a stick by some local adolescents, and ran amok. By the time it had quietened down again, a swathe of chaos had been cut through the marketplace – fruit, vegetables and indolent beggars having been sent flying into the air by the indignant goat.
I next took the bike to the Mahabouddha Temple or ‘temple of a thousand Buddhas’. It was the place where my friend Gun had told me ‘our god lives.’ It was serene and quiet in the temple courtyard. Just as I got up to depart, however, the old guard sleeping under the shrine suddenly woke up and began ringing a loud bell. He then brought out a large fly-whisk and started waving it in the face of the red-faced Buddha in the shrine. A small child who had turned up to beg for a school-pen told me that ‘now there are now flies on Buddha!
Having cycled back to Kathmandu, I dropped in on the cosy Mona Lisa Restaurant off Durbar Square for a lemon tea. This establishment had a charming sentiment on its menu:
We Serve to You and to your Guests with best possible Hot & Cold Drinks. We Honour our God when we Honour our Guest.
We serve Boiled and Filtered Water. Any complaints, Ask for That.
This evening, I teamed up with a dry-humoured Australian called Paul, and visited the renowned Yin-Yang Restaurant of Freak Street. The interior of this eating-house is a cross between a luxury penthouse suite and a film set for Cleopatra. The lights are low, soft music plays in the background, people recline and eat on soft silk cushions. The atmosphere is beguilingly relaxed and informal. Paul reckoned it was the nearest thing to ‘divine decadence’ he had come across in the East.
April 5th
I returned to the Indian Embassy again this morning, and arrived early, to be sure of being at the front of the expected large crowds for visa extensions. But the gates were closed as I cycled up. The guard told me that the embassy was closed again. Didn’t I know it was Good Friday? I instantly gave up on the idea of getting my Indian visa extended, and decided to return to England a week early instead.
By contrast, the rest of the day went well. I took the bike out again, this time eight kilometres out of Kathmandu to Bodnath. This massive stupa, some 500 years old, is said to contain the relics of Kashyapa Buddha, one of the Gautama’s predecessors. It is a large white-stone monument, covered with long streamers of coloured flags, and is painted with the yellow ‘all-seeing eyes’ of the Buddha.
The 40-minute ride to Bodnath took me through some charming little villages. Then, just before reaching the stupa, I dropped in on a small Buddhist prayer meeting taking place in a roadside shop frontage. People were just coming in off the street to squat down and support the ceremony. Within the small room, two facing rows of devotees methodically chanted off prayers from the high stack of small prayer-sheets before them. Their devotions were directed to the long table, at the back of the room, on which hundreds of tiny bells and candles stood, together with three decorated Buddha figures. Each prayer was punctuated by the blowing of loud matterhorns and the beating of strange drums resembling inverted frying pans.
Within the stupa courtyard, set back from the street, I talked to a Californian Buddhist whose Tibetan name was Tutod Dorge (‘strength everlasting’). He was seated in the shade of the stupa’s base, along with all the beggars and pilgrims taking alms here. Dorge was a rugged individualist, with weather-worn features and a pair of the brightest blue eyes imaginable. They twinkled, while he laughed. He laughed the whole time. He told me that all suffering was illusion, and that if people committed bad deeds against him, he just laughed at their ignorance until they apologised.
I sat down with Dorge and the beggars, and began to look at Nepalese life from the ‘inside’ for once. It was all very illuminating. Surrounded by gurus, holy men, cripples and destitute, I began to understand how they felt, and to share their simple curiosity and amusement at the passing ranks of uneasy American tourists being plagued by insistent peddlars. At one point I stretched out my hand to say something, and one of these tourists – thinking me a beggar – put a coin in it!
I was also struck, talking to these unfortunates, by their wisdom, humour and undaunted courage. The crippled pilgrim lying beside me, Siddhartha, had dragged himself all the way up here from Delhi on withered legs no thicker than bamboo canes, in his pure and simple determination pay respects to the Lord Buddha. His closest companion – a nervous, dissolute beggar called Ram – presented a complete contrast. He spent the few alms he begged on the strong local Chang, and weaved his way back to us progressively more inebriated as the afternoon wore on.
Amused by Ram’s continual complaints that everyone got alms but him, Dorge suggested he change his tack when begging. ‘Stop chanting “Om-Mane-Padme-Om,”’ he suggested, �
��and try saying “Oh-money-give-me-some” instead!’ This joke really tickled all the beggars lining the walls of the stupa’s base. They were quite beside themselves with laughter. The only person not amused was Ram. He had instantly tried the new chant, but it didn’t work.
Dorge took me along later to a small cha-house nearby, and sent the grim, sour-faced housewife within into raptures by giving her a string of precious prayer beads personally blessed by the Dalai Lama. She was so overcome by this gift (the Dalai Lama is considered a living god by many Nepali people) that tears flowed freely down her face and she began to treat us like royalty. Dorge commented that were one to travel up into Tibet armed with a stack of photos of the Dalai Lama, one could live like a king.
He then began to recount his life story. He told me that it was whilst fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, as part of the American forces, that he had suddenly ‘seen the light’ and decided to stop killing people. He had told this to his commanding officer, and had been sent straight away to a psychiatrist. It was decided that he was psychologically unfit to kill people anymore, and he was awarded a military pension on this basis. Since then (sixteen years ago), he had been travelling around with a developing interest in Tibetan Buddhism, which he liked for its sense of peace and happiness. He was presently on his way to a personal interview with the Dalai Lama, and would return to marry a Tibetan girl he knew, with whom he planned to set up a business in America, selling Tibetan carpets.
By the time we had finished our meal of vegetable kothey (small doughy dumplings like momos), I was however becoming concerned about Tutod Dorge. It wasn’t so much his self-appointed mission as a spiritual teacher to mankind that worried me, but his apparently clear memory of past incarnations as eminent Tibetan lamas. Together with his belief in his probable descent from Jesus Christ himself.
I left presently, and returned to Kathmandu. Here, to my surprise, I met up again with Tim and Jill from Ooty, and took them to the Yin and Yang Restaurnat. After pointing out a gem on the menu – CARNAL CUSTARD – they entertained me with a list of Indian train signs they’d seen recently. Their favourite by far came from Londa Junction station, and it read: TRAINS RUNNING LATE MAY MAKE UP OR LOSE SOME TIME. They also told me of a strange contraceptive commercial they’d seen on Bombay TV. Its slogan read: USE ‘NIRODH’ FOR NEAR-NATURAL SATISFACTION AND SPACING CHILDREN.
April 6th
Today I left Kathmandu again, for the ancient Buddhist stupa of Swayambu, which is some two thousand years old. Getting there involved towing my bicycle over a long and narrow rope bridge spanning the Vishnumarti River. Not only did the bridge have no hand supports, but there were several planks missing or collapsing underfoot, as well as a continual troop of heavily loaded villagers coming the other way. How I missed plummeting down into the boggy sewer of the river bed, I’ll never know.
At Swayambu, I left the bicycle and climbed the steep 250-foot stairway up to the temple. There was an uncomfortable crush of tourists at the top when I arrived, so I went for a walk round the back of the complex until the crowd thinned out a bit. I came to a small courtyard housing a local Buddhist shrine, where all the local community were gathered together sharing a friendly ‘holy day’ celebration. I stayed here two hours, listening to impromptu performances of music played on drums, finger-cymbals, harmonicas and an ancient wheezing squeezebox. The local menfolk clapped along to the music, and took turns to ‘guest’ as singers with the small, lively band. Once more, anonymously melting into the background and allowing the rhythmic, hypnotic music to steal slowly over me, I was able to shed my tourist face and become just part of the local community. Somebody came up to tie a bright red string around my neck. All the guests at this cheerful little gathering, I noticed, had identifying orange cards tucked in their jackets or shawls. I don’t think they were sure of my identity. The only other creatures present wearing the little red prayer-strings round their necks were a few local dogs and a couple of unlucky monkeys.
Back at Swayambu Temple, the crowds had at last gone and I was able to walk around in comfort. The resident animal community up here soon held my interest. A whole hierarchical society of wild dogs (around the stupa base) and wild monkeys (on the higher levels of the monument) had developed on this site. I took the opportunity to make a lengthy study of one of these canine ‘families’, living mainly on the leftovers being thrown out by the nearby thali restaurant. The mother bitch stood at rest, three large pups noisily sucking away on her swollen teats. Even when she moved off to forage in a filthy refuse bin, the tenacious triplets retained their hold, swinging off her paps like three determined little bulldogs.
In the meantime, the large orange mongrel who was ‘Dad’ sat guard and spent a lot of time sleeping. He only seemed to stir himself for two things: either to get the best of the pickings (generally banana leaves, with dal bhat remains clinging to them) thrown out by the food-house, or to interpose himself authoritatively between any other dogs who had disturbed his sleep by quarrelling. He was evidently the king of this patch.
At the base of the stupa steps, there was a ‘fairground’ for the local people in progress. It was a very small affair. There were just four stalls located on this clearing, the most popular of which was the hula-hoop stand. The ‘big prize’ here was a pack of twenty un-tipped cigarettes (price about 10 pence), so one could imagine how little money these poor people had to gamble with.
The major attraction, however, was the ‘ferris wheel’. This was a light steel structure, groaning dangerously under the weight of twenty-four people, which was held together with just a few thin nuts and bolts. It was revolved slowly by two strong men and all the passengers, despite the imminent collapse of the fragile structure, looked absolutely thrilled. A young fairground roustabout (another Michael Jackson lookalike) came up to ask me if I wanted some heroin. When I said no, he suggested I might like a ride on the ferris wheel. I asked him what was more dangerous: the heroin or the ferris wheel?
Juddering my bike to a halt back down at the rope bridge again, I began to feel ill. The heat of the day was now at full intensity, and the awful reek of refuse, excrement and offal in the slimy riverbed below the bridge was quite nauseating. Crossing over with my bicycle was even more of an ordeal than on the way out. Then, just off the bridge, I looked up to see a tree whose branches were weighed down with a grisly burden indeed: a flock of giant vultures. I followed their steely gaze and saw, just to my right, a massive bullock being systematically slaughtered, skinned, gutted and chopped into small pieces. The butchers were surrounded by a crowd of clapping, appreciative infants. A refuse yard lay ahead; it was heaped high with skulls, bones and blood-streaked horns of various ex-bullocks. This ghastly pile of carrion was seething with flies and being picked at by red-eyed, scabrous wild dogs. And as I reeled down the street, overcome by the stifling odour of decay, filth and death, all I could see were wild pigs fornicating in the gutters, women and children urinating in public, and piles of refuse and flyblown excrement littering the dry-dust streets. I cycled out of this area as fast as possible.
I met up with Tim and Jill this evening, at the Palace Cinema in Naxal. Getting here was something of a problem, since at this time of day all the rickshaw drivers in town were set to shut up shop. Rather than say ‘no’ when I requested a ride to the Royal Palace (where the cinema was), they simply denied they knew were the Royal Palace was. Even when I insisted they should know, since it was principal feature of Kathmandu!
We had chosen to see the popular Hindi film Sultan, which Tim had been told would be easy for us to follow, since it had a lot of English dialogue. Unfortunately, it had no English dialogue at all, except for when the cast were in a bad temper and had to resort to foreign imprecations. The leading lady got really upset with the hero on one occasion. You could tell she was upset, because all she could think to call him (in English) was: ‘You...you...middle-class bore!’ The high spot of this film, however, needed no translation. It was a big musical numb
er in which the whole cast ran about singing and spraying what appeared to be liquid blood all over each other with bicycle pumps. The number ended with everybody wallowing about in a mud-bath, singing at the tops of their voices, with nobody still recognisable as a human being. Other musical numbers had the obese hero trampling about on luxury sofas, wearing women’s clothing, and the heroine running through the woods, trailing her laundry behind her.
April 7th
I arrived early at the bus-stand at Ratna Park, intent on visiting the third of Nepal’s royal cities, Bhaktapur. From here, I would be making a one-day trek up to the heights of Nagarkot, which (on a clear day) is another fine viewing point for the Himalayas, and particularly for Mount Everest.
The bus to Bhaktapur was like travelling below deck on a slave ship. The tiny minibus was only designed to seat twenty people, with room for another seven standing. How fifty-six passengers managed to cram into it defied the laws of physics. I sat outside the vehicle and watched everybody scrum frantically into it, and drank a cool Limca while they all simmered away inside for the next twenty minutes. The close heat within the stationary bus was formidable. When it finally made to leave, I leapt up and jammed myself in the back. Twenty minutes later, I crawled off at Bhaktapur bent double and with my left arm twisted behind my head.
Bhaktapur, being the least accessible royal city of Nepal, is also the most unspoilt. Its quiet and stately Durbar Square was a good deal cleaner and less populated than that of Patan or Kathmandu. Walking down a small side-street, I came to its magnificent five-storied Nyatopola Temple, which was situated in a small, lively market square all of its own. Taking lunch at a small pagoda-style restaurant here (which had a priceless toilet sign: PLEASE PUT UNDISPOSABLE DIRTY STUFFS IN THE BIN), I observed the two huge processional ‘juggernauts’ used to carry the temple gods round town at festivals, and gradually talked myself round to commencing the trek up to Nagarkot.
