Leaving Nepal
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2010
1
13
27
Trip End
Jan 11, 2011
Where I stayed
Kathmandu Garden Guesthouse
Kathmandu, Nepal
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
We left Nepal on the 17th of November. Before heading out to the airport we had to say goodbye to the owners of our hole-in-the-wall dairy. The man had first caught our attention by calling out to Nathan "Banana gooood, apple gooood, pear gooood!" The next night he called out "Yak cheese gooood!" We had been buying our water and toilet paper from him ever since.
On this occasion he invited us in for morning tea to say bye. He and his wife were giving the tiny shop a good clean out so we sat inside inside on a little bench for about ten minutes while they worked. The woman showed us the scars on her stomach from a recent operation to remove a tumor. She had been in hospital for a month and her husband had had to close the shop over the period because the day-to-day care of patients in Nepal is left up to their families. She told me to call her Didi, meaning big sister, and she called me Bahini, little sister, which are commonly used as a terms of endearment between women in Nepal. Then our tea arrived, delivered in four tall glasses from a shop nearby. We had seen tea like this being carried to locals all through Kathmandu but had never been able to find the shops they came from. It was the most delicious tea we'd had the entire time; thick, sweet, spicy and a little salty, presumably because yak butter had been added. The shop owner also gave us some slices of yaks cheese to eat and it really was 'gooood'! What a wonderful way to end our month in Nepal.
Kathmandu airport is like no other in the world. It's a big boring building that hasn't had a makeover for at least thirty years and offers no views of the city or the runway. It's also extremely confusing. We went through three different security checks and were patted down each time. We wandered from one departure lounge to another, never really quite sure if we were heading in the right direction, until we finally found ourselves in a room right next to the runway which seemed to be full of other Thai Airways passengers. Then we sat and waited. And waited. And ten minutes after we were supposed to take off our airplane finally arrived and we watched the passengers from the previous flight disembark. We were given no explanation as to the delay, how long it might be before we would take off and we had no access to food or water (taking liquid through security is, of course, not allowed). Worse, we were supposed to be leaving Bangkok on a bus heading for Koh Tao a couple hours after our original arrival time, which had admittedly always been a somewhat over-ambitious plan. By this time I had a headache which only worsened as it became increasingly obvious that we would not be on the bus. Needless to say the mood was not great!
Things we won't miss about Nepal:
- The man who lived opposite our hotel room in Bhaktapur who must be the loudest and most persistent hoiker in Nepal (and that's saying something, trust me!)
- The three-stringed violin sellers. Generally street hawkers leave you alone if you politely let them know you're not interested, but not these guys for some reason. And they really had it in for Nathan. One guy followed him for a good 200 meters, all the time dropping the price even though we were never interested in the first place.
- Child extortionists, although we're bound to come across one or two of these in Southeast Asia too.
Things we'll miss about Nepal:
- Masala tea, momo and dal baht.
- The beautiful women and their amazing saris. (Funnily enough, while women generally dress very discreetly this changes once they pass a certain age. Having spent a lifetime and no doubt several pregnancies developing a nicely cushioned tummy they proudly display it beneath a crop-top-like garment that only just manages to enclose their saggy breasts. I'm not sure whether we'll actually miss this but I wanted to fit it in somewhere!)
- For me, the fact that street hawkers assume the man controls the money and primarily targeted their efforts at Nathan.
- All the wonderful children and their cheeky smiles.
- Being greeted with a namaste and friendly smile at every turn.
In all honesty, we really will miss this country and we've had a great month traveling through it. It was challenging at times but not nearly as much as I thought it would be. An absolute highlight was of course trekking amongst those spectacular mountains. We met some really great people, rarely felt that a situation might be dodgy and were generally treated well everywhere we went.
Comments
Enjoyed your blog very much, since I'm off to Nepal in 40 days (already counting) wondering if you could recommand a place to stay in Kathmandu, Pokhara?