Crossing the “Friendship Bridge” from Tibet into Nepal I could tell immediately that I was in a different country. The people looked more Indian than Asian, the infrastructure was in disrepair, the food had more of an Indian influence, the streets were filthier, businesses closed down on Saturday (rather than Sunday), and even the time was a bit different. When it’s 12pm in Michigan it’s 9:45pm in Nepal.
From the border the only affordable way to reach Kathmandu was to take a local bus. I thought that a journey of 60 miles would be a piece of cake but instead it turned out to be the most grueling bus ride of my trip so far. Besides being very uncomfortable (knees squished against the seat in front of me), people were crammed in the aisle, loud music was blaring from the speakers, both people and goats were riding on top of the bus, and it seemed that every 30 minutes we were stopped by Nepali soldiers who would board the bus, searching our bags. The bus took 6 hours to travel 60 miles… that’s 10 miles an hour!
After the long, excruciating ride on the bus we arrived to the bus station in Kathmandu. A few fellow foreigners and I decided to share a taxi to save on cost. It was quite hilarious to see all 4 of us (with our large backpacks) along with the driver try and fit into a car the size of a subcompact. On the way to Paknajol, where the quieter hotels were located, we drove through Thamel, the main tourist area of Kathmandu. The very narrow streets were crowded with people, taxis, motorcycles, rickshaws, and were lined with shop after shop selling trekking gear, restaurants which surprisingly served up excellent “western” food, internet cafes, and money changers (in Nepal you can easily change US Dollar to Nepalese Rupee but trying to change Rupee back into Dollar was impossible).
I arrived to my candlelit hotel and soon realized that Kathmandu has some serious power outages. The electricity is off most of the day and night on purpose, with “2 to 4 hours” of power twice a day (typically a few hours during the day and a few at night or early morning). To make it more complicated, each day the power comes on at different time but to make it a little easier they publish a “schedule of power” so at least I was able to plan ahead to charge my computer, camera batteries, and to even take a hot shower.
Kathmandu for me was an exhausting place (and just walking around I could feel my blood pressure skyrocket to unhealthy levels). Besides being a very dirty city with water that borders on being lethal, it was overcrowded with people, honking cars, motorcycles, and even cows. It took some getting used to seeing cows wandering the streets with people and cars but after awhile it seemed so normal. Being a country of primarily Hindus the cow is sacred and killing one carries the same penalty as killing a person.
Durbar Square in Kathmandu
The day I was to fly out of Kathmandu the entire city went on strike. Nothing was open and there was no transportation. Luckily the strike did not affect the international flights but getting to the airport was another story. Also it was at this time that my ATM card stopped working. After spending a very expensive 20 minutes talking to a representative I found out that in Nepal, someone had stolen my card number and now had access to my account. Oh the joys of traveling…
No comments:
Post a Comment