As I sit down to write my final post from Nepal I find a tear forming in the corner of my eye… Hang on. I was going to give a shamelessly sentimental ‘things-I-will-miss-about-Nepal-and-my-new-family’ type spiel, but I have managed to keep this blog utterly inane and frivolous so far; I see no reason to stop now. Instead, here’s a picture of me blowing up an orphan:

101 Uses For An Orphan. No.73: Fireworks holder. That’s an awful caption. Sorry everyone. Try this one: Despite my extensive safety briefing, some idiots insisted on playing silly-buggers. Much better. (How scared does Govinda look, by the way? He he. He’s only acting. He’s fine and we expect him to be discharged any day now).

 Yep, homeward bound on a bus tonight. (Yes, a night bus. It goes against all the sensible advice, I know, but fits my schedule. Besides – I figure the trade-off for the driver’s reduced visibility is that I won’t be able to observe the bad driving. I will hand him a 6-pack of Red Bull as I board the bus and hope for the best). I’ve extended my visa as far as I can and it expires tomorrow. I still have a week of travel by bus and train through India and a sight or two to see (e.g. the Taj Mahal), so there will be a couple more posts, but I probably won’t get them on until I am home. A couple of big ‘thank you’s are due, too, so please watch this space.

 Speaking of which – the blog has received over 4100 visitors since I have been away, which is most gratifying. Even accounting for accidental and repeat visits (what? You’re joking!), that has to be better than writing two thousand postcards! Also, despite the impression given by my vacuous musings and tongue-in-cheek tone, it has not always been fun and games here, but seeing that friends and family have been keeping an occasional eye out for me has been a great help. Thanks, too, for the emails and comments. Even the smart-arsed ones from Ron Burgandy. Much appreciated.

  Trying to sum up an experience like this with a few trite comments would be pointless, and I am not foolish enough to try. (A t-shirt which reads ‘I’ve eaten goat testicles, how about you?’ would come close but still leave much unsaid). Suffice to say it has been one hell of a trip, and coming to Nepal feels like one of the wisest – if not the most sensible – things I have ever done. That being said,  I feel I am coming home a bit like Biggles* after one of his forays: the tank is near empty and there are a couple of holes in the wings, but I am fine and looking forward to hitting the mess (i.e. Mum’s cooking). I have a thousand photographs and a hundred completely pointless anecdotes that didn’t get posted, so I look forward to shamelessly inviting myself around to your respective abodes and boring you senseless with a slide-show and demonstration of traditional folk-dancing. If you are lucky I will bring alcohol.

 See you soon! (Fingers crossed).

Vaughan

* Always liked Biggles, sorry. Often wished he met a few more girls during his adventures, but there you go.

Silly buggers. Stoked I found ‘double happys’ though.

To Whom It May Concern,

Firstly, may I begin by complimenting you on the excellent range of programs you make available to the people of Nepal on a daily basis. I am a visitor to your country and am not fluent in Nepali, but I find this to be no barrier to my enjoyment of the material you present. The many slap-stick comedy shows, for example, make such ingenious and prevalent use of sound effects (my favourites being the ‘boing’ of surprise and the ‘quack-quack’ of disappointed revelation), that I am never left wondering when it would be appropriate to laugh, or on whose face the egg is, often literally, left. The equally subtle facial expressions used by your fine ensemble of comedic actors is also much appreciated. The vast number of emotions that may be conveyed by a dramatic widening of the eyes, accompanied by an extreme close-up, is not to be underestimated.
Similarly, your dramatic shows are to be applauded for their employment of clever devices which are of universal appeal, such as characteristic mannerisms, like the habitual wiping of a nose or clicking of fingers, so that the viewer is left in no doubt as to who the villain is. Likewise, the hero of the piece is sure to be accompanied by a slow-motion entrance and sudden surge in background music. All very helpful.

But, I digress.

The purpose of this missive is to draw your attention to a rather glaring and irksome feature of your nightly news program. I refer to the graphic display deployed behind the studio presenters, which seems to permanently and prominently display an illustration of the continent of Africa, viz.

I have nothing against Africa, on the whole, but I confess I find it very odd that a national television studio would choose to permanently show another part of the world.
In short, Sir, why not Nepal?
It seems to me a matter of national pride and identity and I have struggled for some time to imagine a reason for the apparent oversight. Initially I thought the studio simply showed a different part of the world each night. Highly educative for the audience, no doubt, and to be commended as a policy. Imagine my surprise when, after 5 months, I discovered the depiction of Africa to be a permanent feature.
Perhaps, I mused, it is due to a technical issue? Though modern technology, due to its sheer complexity, is susceptible to all manner of problems, it is difficult to imagine a glitch persisting for so long, or going unnoticed by all except me, a mere tourist.
Sheer oversight? I do not wish to impugn the collective intelligence of your employees by pointing out that Nepal is located, approximately, at latitude 28° North and Longitude 85° East and lies between the nations of India and China. On your current graphic, this would place Nepal somewhere approximately five metres to the left, and two above, the presenter’s left ear.

No, I am left with the conclusion that this state of affairs is due to budget constraints. Fortunately, I am not insensitive to such financial limitations and have gone to some length to offer a solution. My associate, Mr Arnish Lamichhane, and I have taken the liberty of assembling an alternative display system. Please refer below.

This system is very cost-effective, adaptable and low maintenance. We have only shown the basic, monochrome version but a full range of colours can be incorporated at very little extra cost.
The versatility of this apparatus is demonstrated with the aid of Messrs Deepak and Bharat Lamichhane (below). A scrolling line of ‘breaking news’ or other updates can be easily introduced.

This display system has the added advantage of also being eminently suited to serve as a back-drop to a weather presentation. Here, the lovely Misses Melina and Anju Lamichhane demonstrate the versatility of our solution in just such a manner.

I hope you find our suggestions of some help. My team and I would be more than willing to assist with the implementation of this technology, should the need arise. We can be contacted care of the Nandumaya Self-sustaining Orphan Home, Phutung, Kathmandu.

Respectfully yours,

A. Dick

Ok – so I’ve gone and snuffed another goat. (I’m sorry Trace. I had to do it. It was self defence). I’m not sure whether a knack for lopping the heads off goats with a single blow is much of a marketable skill in New Zealand, but it certainly stands me in good stead here in Nepal. I’ve even been penciled in to perform the honours next year. This one was a shaggy mountain goat and initially looked like he had the neck of a WWF wrestler on him, and I got a bit worried. Luckily he turned out to be more hair than vertebra and he was soon looking at the rest of his body and wondering what happened.

The Butcher of Phutung strikes again. Is any goat safe?

It’s a good thing I like blood pudding. This gets fried up with the kidneys, liver and other tasty bits for a breakfast treat.

Dashain is a time of fun and games and to give and receive blessings. Everywhere one goes there are family groups to be seen, dressed up and bearing food and gifts, out visiting. Family is something that the kids here are a bit short on so it has been a reasonably quiet time for us. We have had a couple of visits from relatives of Ramesh and friends of the orphanage and have otherwise kept ourselves amused with games and the giant swings that get erected by locals every year.

These huge swings have popped up everywhere, this one in the nearby secondary school.

Keshab was keen but a bit scared, so he gets helped out by big brother Rabin.

One of the local kids shows how it should be done. Of course, I gave it a go as well. I would show you photos of my death-defying feats, but sadly the 8 year old I gave my camera to wasn’t up to chronicling my awesome stunt-swinging.

Ramesh’s bike gets a blessing. Vehicles across Nepal get blessed during the festival to ensure a year of safe driving (Ha! How about some road rules instead?) Buses, trucks, bikes, cars and tractors are daubed in sacrificial blood and garlanded with flowers and food.

The highlight of dashain is a ceremony on day 10 when people traditionally receive a tikka from their parents, some travelling a long distance to do so. The tikka consists of red paste mixed with rice and gets plastered on the forehead, where it dries and sets. It is worn with great pride and some of the kids manage to keep theirs intact for the whole day. Of course, the first hint of eyebrow-waggling from me and chunks were falling into my cornflakes. (By which I mean rice). The shoots of the seeds planted on day 1 are tucked behind the ears and food and money also given as tokens of bounty and good fortune. It is a lovely ceremony and quite a poignant moment to see these kids all getting tikka’d from Mum and Dad.

The tikka paste, shoots, food and money ready for the ceremony.

Ramesh and Sarala bless each other first, then proceed to the kids, from oldest to youngest.

Rabin and Roshan getting blessed by Mum and Dad.

What’s that? I have something on my face? Hang on… It’ll be the spinach from lunch… Did that get it? No? A bit higher? I might need a mirror?

Another dashain tradition is the playing of games. Suddenly, dice and card games sprung up on every street corner and the kids were producing coins and crumpled one and two rupee notes and chancing their arms. Some of the card games we had at home lasted for hours. The rupees changed hands regularly, though Rabin seemed to make a tidy profit from running the dice games. I soon gave away all the small change I had to the younger kids who had no money (by graciously losing) and came up with a plan so they wouldn’t feel left out.

All sweets and lollies are collectively referred to here as ‘chocolates’, whether they are chocolate or not. So I bought a few bags of sweets and handed them out one evening to be used as currency for the gambling games, so that all the kids could have a go. I put Rabin and Roshan in charge of the dice games, gave a deck of cards to Subash and the Chocolate Casino was born.

Rabin fleecing Ramesh.

The dice game of ‘Flags and Crowns’ is very popular.

The chocolate casino in full swing.

This place is crooked! Management gets snapped skimming some of the profits.

A chocolate fortune!

Every casino needs good security. I put Keshab on the door and told him to keep the riff-raff out.

It was an agonising decision for the kids: do I eat my stash now, or risk all for the chance of making a killing? They only started out with about 10 lollies, so most scoffed a few then hit the tables. I kept a few sweets in reserve for the more injudicious gamblers and the night ended with a giant lollie scramble as Roshan and Rabin redistributed their amassed wealth. (A gesture quite in keeping with the ideals of Nepal’s newly elected communist government, I thought). It was great fun; fortunes were won and lost and valuable lessons learned. I am never gambling again.

Yes, I am still going on about the Africa graphic. It’s driving me nuts. WHY AFRICA?

You see? That’s it. I’m drafting a letter to the network.

Well, it’s dashain time here in Nepal. (For those of you interested, I’ve saved you a google and included a link to some info about this festival down there on the right). One of the major traditions is that every household sacrifices a goat during dashain, and you may recall that a couple of months ago, being the generous fellow that I am, and half-cut on whiskey and raksee, I promised to provide this year’s goat. A noble gesture – like most of my drunken whims, I might add – intended to spare the Lamichhanes from having to give up one of the three goats they own. Unfortunately, I know as much about goat-buying as I do about brain surgery, so I was wondering how I was going to keep this particular promise. Knowing me, I was likely to return from the market with some magic beans. Or a dog painted like a goat. Fortunately, Ramesh and Nedra came to my rescue and accompanied me to the goat market.

The temporary goat market on Exhibition Road.

Exhibition Road is located near the old bus park in central Kathmandu and becomes the ad-hoc goat market every year at dashain. The road is about half a km long and was lined with thousands of goats of every hue and thronged with shoppers. The goat sellers ranged from farmers with one or two animals to traders tending large herds. Traffic continued to pass through and cops were in attendance to try to keep livestock, merchants and buyers off the road, or at least away from the middle of the road. It was general chaos; the footpaths were strewn with grass and dung and the whole street stank of goats. (As I write that I realise it may not ring a bell with many of you. If not, take my word for it – goats smell bad. Not as bad as chickens, mind you, but pretty bad. ‘Noisome’ would be a good word for it. Chickens are just fowl [sorry]).

Ramesh and Nedra both proceeded to cast an expert eye over the animals and began to poke, prod and heft a few, exchanging questions and comments with merchants and fellow-shoppers. Not wanting to be left out, I prodded a few flanks and even hefted a couple of animals, nodding or frowning to myself and exchanging knowing looks with Ramesh. I drew the line at cupping a he-goat’s testicles, however. (I never quite understood the rationale for that one. Who cares if the goat has a hernia? It’s being sacrificed and eaten, not trying out for the national tae kwon do team). We spoke to a few different sellers, gauging what would be a fair price and after a protracted negotiation we settled on one particular goat and I made the purchase for 5,600 Rs. Sorted. Well, not quite. We still had to get him home. In the end it was decided that Ramesh + 60kg Nedra + 30kg goat on a 125cc motorcycle made more sense than Ramesh + 90kg Vaughan + 30kg goat, and I gallantly chose to accompany Nedra’s wife, Gonga, home on the micro-bus.

Ramesh gives a prospective purchase the squeeze test.

The lucky goat.

If you think the goat looks uncomfortable, I can assure you my trip home in a mini-van with 30 other people wasn’t much better. Someone was sitting on my feet.

Gonga is a very traditional Nepali woman and does not speak any English. She is a very good cook (I feel I have now partaken of enough Nepali food to be able to make a claim like that) and she performs the majority of the work in the kitchen at Nandumaya. Gonga and I don’t converse much but she seems to regard me with an air of bemused tolerance. She also seems to enjoy slipping chiles into my meals whenever she can. Normally I can spot them and dig them out, but occasionally one slips through and as I turn red, clutch my throat and start groping for water I am sure to hear Gonga chuckling away to herself.

She is, as I said, a very traditional woman and after our half-hour micro journey I barely managed to wrestle the bag she was carrying away from her for the 2 km walk home. Considering the loads I have seen her carry with a head strap, this was a purely token gesture anyway, but nothing could prevent her from deferentially walking directly behind me the whole way home. I found it quite unnerving to be silently shadowed by a diminutive Asian woman. I toyed with the idea of being a smart-arse and heading off across a field, to see if she would follow me, but cultural sensitivity prevailed.

The goat I invited to be guest of honour at our dashain feast. I named him Stew.

Concomitant with my offer to supply the goat was an offer to perform the role of executioner. At the time it was made, this sincere offer was accepted with a degree of humour, but as Stew’s appointed hour drew closer and it was apparent that I was still keen to perform the sacrifice, I got the distinct impression that people were getting a little uncomfortable. Now, I wanted to kill the goat simply because it was something new, and as the person responsible for supplying Stew I felt some measure of responsibility for helping him meet his fate. I am happy enough to eat meat, I should be willing to kill the animal, right? Put your money where your big, carnivorous mouth is, and all that. Besides, I had never sacrificed an animal to appease a god before. But the last thing I would want to do is offend anybody’s religious sensibilities – if it was culturally unnacceptable for me, a non-hindu, to perform the rite then I would never do it. The problem was that Nepali people are generally so damned polite and eager to please that I was worried they would let me do it anyway. I genuinely couldn’t tell whether there was some religious reason that I shouldn’t do it, or whether people were just worried I would stuff it up, or felt as though I had to do it.

Sarala administers tikka to the household, for blessings and luck.

All tikka-ed up for the sacrifice. Wearing a tikka out is a bit like taking a packed lunch to school – it shows somebody cares about you – and is a very nice way to start the day.

Eventually it became clear that they were worried I would not make a clean kill. It is very important that the goat is killed with one blow from a big knife, preferably severing the head. If not, then another goat has to be killed the next day with a single blow, and so on. If a clean kill was not made the goddess would be angry and it would not augur well for the festival. Now, I am personally about as superstitious as a pot-plant and I would happily smash mirrors or provoke the wrath of any god you’d care to name, but I definitely didn’t want to commit a cultural faux pas or stuff up anybody’s dashain festival, just on a whim of mine. That would be both culturally insensitive and plain, old-fashioned rude. But as far as I could see it just wasn’t that hard. Big knife + big chop = headless goat = happy goddess, right? What’s so hard about that?? I began to wonder if I was overlooking something. They wouldn’t give the bloody goat a head-start, would they? Running Man styles? I wouldn’t be blindfolded and spun around before being let loose with the knife, in a gory version of blind-man’s bluff, would I?  But no: it was merely the importance of doing it right. It wasn’t hard, it was important. It didn’t help my confidence that people kept asking me whether I had done this before and constantly emphasising that it had to be done with one blow. I almost chickened out on the last morning, when Sarala told me, yet again, that the goddess would be angry if the goat was not killed in one chop and she felt it would be better for me to leave it to someone else. A horror story from several years ago was relayed to me wherein the poor bastard doing the chopping had to hack four times to get the job done (I should say poor goat, rather). The pressure was getting to me and I almost abdicated the responsibility to a neighbour who had a few kills under his belt. But no, bugger it. I back myself to do the job. I told Ramesh as much, and repeated that as long as it was ok with the goddess Durga and the family, I wanted to contribute, take the responsibility and perform the kill. He said ok, and I got handed the blade.

Now, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous – I was definitely feeling the pressure. The goat was blessed with a bit of water and a few invocations to Kali and then held between two men. I got given the nod and told to “look for an opening”. Righto. I stepped forward, spared a thought for Durga and putting my faith firmly in physics, swung away. Of course, I was so keen to get it right that I swung hard enough to decapitate an elephant; the blade came down, the head came off, the small crowd cheered.

Stew with the kids. I wouldn’t get too attached, guys…

Ramesh sharpens the blade.

Me with my blood tikka and a spooky severed head. That’s a look of relief, by the way. (On me, not the goat. He just looks surprised).

What people had neglected to mention was what was to happen after the kill. When I saw the head bouncing on the ground I thought the job was done, but suddenly, amid the cheers and cries of “lovely!” there was a bustle of activity. A bowl was placed beneath the carcass in an attempt to catch the gushing blood and I was directed to pick up a jug of water. I did so then looked stupidly at Ramesh. “What is this for?”  ”You give to goat”. Sure enough, the guy who had been holding the goat now offered me the severed head. “For goat to drink”. I bit down on my reply of  ”I don’t think he’s thirsty”, and poured the water into the goat’s mouth. To my horrified fascination – and this bit will freak you out – the decapitated head actually began to drink the water, complete with lips and tongue moving and swallowing. Now that’s an image that will stay with me for a while. Bloody hell, what’s next? I half expected to be offered a still-beating heart and expected to take a bite. But no. The job was done and I was congratulated with a goat’s-blood tikka and assurances the goddess was satisfied and I had helped secure an auspicious festival for us all. “Happy dashain!”

The finished product. I’ve spared you the shots of shaving, gutting and dressing Stew. (I also have a rather explicit video of the actual chop, if anybody wants to see it). It goes without saying that nothing is wasted – I always knew that my Big Ben pies contained bits of oesophagus and the like, but it’s a different story when you chop it up yourself and put it in the pot.

Denis gets stuck in. It’s amazing how easy it is to get caught up in the excitement of eating so much meat, which only happens here at dashain. Even for me, who has eaten more meat than all these kids put together, it felt like a treat. We had three meals of meat that day, more than in the month I spent at Pokhara.

Postscript

In case anybody was wondering, of the kids only the two eldest boys, and none of the women, were present during the kill. Even Ramesh hid around a corner until the blow was struck. (Thanks for the vote of confidence). They really take this angry god stuff seriously. Rabin (12) later told me he had complete faith in me, and relayed my exploits to the other kids. I got called ‘goat-killer’ by them, with a sly pride, for the rest of the day.

Postpostscript.

I will be opening a home-kill business when I get back. Enquiries to 0800 GOAT KILLER.

 Happiness is a warm bun.

 I’m now back in Lakeside, Pokhara, and am leaving tomorrow on a bus for Kathmandu. My last morning at the Annapurna Orphan Home was fairly typical, with crying kids being chased with clothing and being reluctantly dragged to school. I have learned to distinguish about 15 different kids by the sound of their crying. I don’t think these children necessarily cry more than any others, but when you’re one of 21 you need to cry a bit LOUDER than everyone else to make sure you get noticed. Safal – for instance – is a contender for the Nepal All-Comer Crying Championships. I don’t know how he fits all that air into those tiny two-year old lungs, but you can hear him from a mile away. And he cries every morning. Mind you, so do the other little-ies – and some of the biggies – but Safal seems to take exception merely to the sun having come up without him being consulted. He takes a minute or two to get warmed up, but when he hits his straps and gives it the full noise he is an impressive sight. Head back, eyes closed, mouth open – completely absorbed in the virtuosity of his own performance. Awesome. I heard him cranking up on my last morning, bright and early. Poor Sita and Hari – the two on-site mothers – have enough to cope with, so I went downstairs to smother Safal. Er… I mean soothe Safal.

He was standing on the front step in full song, praising all of Creation with his own dawn chorus and  swaying hypnotically to some internal rhythm. I was loathe to interrupt such a maestro, but for the sake of the sanity of all I picked him up and brought him back to my room, to watch me shave my head and eat a biscuit. (That wasn’t quite the circus performance I’ve made it sound. Safal was eating the biscuit).

Which reminds me – the children have given me a charming nickname, which is (phonetically) the ‘taloo aloo’. This translates as (roughly, you understand. You non-Nepali speakers will obviously miss the subtle linguistic nuances which lend an air of majesty and deference to the rhyming title. The name fairly resonates with power and respect, I tell you, and I am honoured that it has been bestowed upon me )… the bald potato. It’s not, perhaps, in the same league as Sir Hillary’s moniker of ‘Mountain Father’, but it’s close.

Safal takes a break from crying to watch me.

 Where was I? Ah, Safal… Another of the many things I have learned about toddlers is that when they are crying, full-bore, they become remarkably pliant. If you touch them in any way, their little legs collapse like rubber and they go all floppy. This obviously necessitates your picking them up – which is the name of the game. Likewise, if you attempt to lower an inconsolable little one their legs will refuse to work and they will lie like a puddle on the ground. If you leave them alone they will remain in their ground-state, beit standing or lying, til they finally cry themselves out or fall asleep. The upshot of all this is that if you need a 10kg paperweight or a 100 decibel draught-extruder then I can heartily recommend a bawling toddler.

Safal, thank goodness, was fairly easy to distract with a biscuit and a chance to watch the bald potato do his thing.

 I have actually really enjoyed working with the little kids. In particular, I get a real kick out of taking part in their day-to-day learning, especially language. I even got to teach them some Nepali words, or correct them. Waddling along to pre-school one day with Sushila we were passed by a man with a goat. “Khukhur!” (dog), says Sushila, excitedly. “Khukhur hoina, sweetie”, I replied. “Tyo bakra ho”.(No, that is not a dog. That is a goat). I know, I know – it’s all a bit ‘See Spot. See Spot run’, isn’t it? But that is honestly the level of my Nepali and it’s great that I can practice with the little kids. Whereas most adults have to listen to a small child excitedly naming everyday objects with an air of strained patience, I can respond with genuine enthusiasm. “What’s that you say? That’s a tree? Really?! Good Lord!”

Sushila and Sujana about to leave for pre-school.

Morning prayers are part of the daily routine. I’m not sure which deity in the Hindu pantheon Anjali is appealing to, but it doesn’t look like it’s one of the good ones.

Sakar prepares to pounce.

The kids don’t get a lot of fresh fruit, so every second day I traipse to town and buy apples and bananas. The usual scrum occurs upon my return. These kids would fight over brussel sprouts, I swear.

Sonam and Sesel continue the age-old debate of eat-it-now vs save-it-for-later.

The nearby Seti river, which runs through Pokhara.

Sarada had pointed out the shanty-like houses to me and told me that there, by the river, was where the really poor people lived. I went there for a visit one day and encountered a couple of groups of young men by the river. The first trio had a fishing pole. They were keen to show me their catch and lifted the lid on a basket to reveal four nice pan-sized fish. “Ramro”, I said. Very nice. The second group, also three, had been clambering around the rocks in their underwear. When they had returned to the bank and dressed they also came over to me and showed me their haul. This time it was small fish – a bit bigger than white bait – that they had caught in traps set amongst the rocks. This group offered me a ciggy and then sat down to dry out in the sun. One of them pulled out a deck of cards from his bag and gestured to me, “You play?”

“Sure. What’s the game?”

“Marriage.”

“Hajur?”  (Pardon?)

“Marriage.”

I hoped like hell he was talking about the game and not the stakes. The only woman in sight was a weathered old lady of about 70 (probably 40) cutting grass nearby. I fancied I could hear the faint twang of banjos. Well, this could go horribly wrong. I sat down with them and watched the dealer shuffle, trying to count his fingers. If he dealt me a poker hand I was ready to run for it. Just as he was dealing, Sita, who had also been cutting grass, arrived and asked me to come back with her. Deliverance. I made my apologies and left the card players, still in the dark about what sort of game ‘marriage’ was. Perhaps Sita had rescued me from some hill-billy nuptials.

During power cuts the evening meals are eaten outside.

My treat of goat curry and rice, with a cup of curd and banana for dessert. We’ve eaten meat twice in the four weeks I have been here, both times on special occasions (festivals or special guests).

Safal can’t wait to get stuck into his goat meat.

If only I was this popular with all the ladies. Sujana is wearing Joseph’s technicoloured dream coat.

My mice and I have reached an understanding. They do whatever they want and I pretend that I don’t hear them squeaking and chewing on the sacks of rice at night. At least they seem to be staying away from my bed. (They probably just wait ’til I’m asleep. One morning I shall wake up, like Gulliver, with a moustache drawn in vivid or my hand in a bowl of warm water. Not that Gulliver suffered that sort of indignity, of course. The Lilliputians would never have stooped to that. Be funnier if they had’ve, though, aye? What the hell am I babbling about?).

Anyway, I returned to my room one night to find a stray cat standing in my doorway. We looked at each other, I suggested, “Get out?” and it disappeared under a bed. Five minutes later I was still cursing and rummaging with a stick, trying to shift it. Bloody hell, I thought. I already have a mouse problem. The last thing I need is a stray c—

Hang on a minute. Hold the ‘phone. Maybe a cat as another room-mate…

But no. Wisdom prevailed and I eventually got the thing out the door. Who knows what sort of menagerie I’d end up with if I started down that road.

Playing chess with Safal, whose studied nonchalance in munching a biscuit belies some cunning tactics. His attempt to eat my queen nearly succeeded in throwing me off my game completely. He subsequently forfeited the match by wetting himself on my bed. (I was threatening mate in two).

Here’s something that struck me as odd: the graphic behind these Nepali presenters reading the nightly news conspicuously depicts a giant map of Africa. Africa? Why Africa? Why not Nepal? Is it just a case of poor positioning? Continental Asia isn’t even on the map. It wasn’t a story about Africa, either. Or Africa Appreciation Week. This kept me awake for days.

Annapurna Home, Pokhara 18/9/08

Well, monsoon is almost over and seems to be ending as it began, with fine mornings and hot sunny days giving way to thunderstorms and rain in the evening or during the night. Another week or two and the rain and clouds should be gone for good. Already I am being treated to fine views of the Annapurna ranges in the mornings.

Clear skies in the morning reveal the nearby Annapurna peaks.

I get to run towards this view in the morning. Which beats getting rained on in the evening.

It’s an impressive sight to see the afternoon thunder clouds rolling in from the mountains to invade a perfectly blue sky. The electrical storms are massive and sometimes last all night.

                              Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder.

(Who quotes Byron in a blog? What a wanker.)

As pleasant as it is to fall asleep to the distant rumbling, a couple of times I have found myself suddenly awake – scared s—less and groping for a teddy bear – as thunder bursts like a bomb overhead.

While we’re on the topic of thunder storms – yesterday’s Himalayan Times contained a brief paragraph which stated that a man died the previous night from being struck by lightening. Nothing too unusual about that, you might think. But what piqued my interest was that the piece went on to say that he was in his house at the time. What the hell?! Surely this requires a modicum of explanation, but the paper only added that no-one else in the family had been injured, which just adds to the mystery. I want to know what he was doing when he died, if for no other reason than wanting to avoid making the same mistake. Was he asleep with his leg out the window? Was he standing on a chair in the lounge with rabbit’s ears trying to get some reception? Was he doing something strange with a lot of tin-foil?? If we can be randomly snuffed by bolts of lightening from inside our own homes I think we should be told.

Sristi lounges during an important call to her broker. Unfortunately she’s talking into an alarm clock.

That’s better. She’s now listening to Johnny Cash on my phone. (I can get her to sleep by singing ‘Folsom Prison’. I’d like to think it’s my dulcet tones that do the trick, but it’s probably just the warm milk).

Mixed news, too, on the rodent room-mates. The good news is that I can confirm that it is only mice who are living in the storeroom with me. The bad news is that I confirmed it by finding one in my bed. Last night, as I was tucked up in my sleeping bag liner, listening to the gentle drip of the rain making a puddle on my floor – a puddle that I employ most mornings by blithely stepping into and starting the day with a swear-word – I experienced that strange certainty you get when you realise something is eating your mattress. (You know the feeling, I’m sure. It’s a bit like realising that somebody is hogging the duvet, only more disconcerting). I quietly took hold of my little reading light and waited until the nibbling started again. Then I snapped on the light and did the whole “Aha!” thing. Sure enough, about a foot away from my face, a mouse with a mouthful of mattress gave me a startled look and took off under the bed.

Ah, well. There is plenty of mattress to go around and I guess I’m just glad it wasn’t a huge rat. And I don’t have a duvet to fight over, anyway. (I was going to add something like, “I’ve shared beds with worse things…”, but I fear it would be misconstrued. “Of all the animals I’ve slept with…”, nope. That’s no better. I think I’ll just leave it there).

A previous volunteer here at the Annapurna home had left about two hundred modelling balloons, some of which had been injudiciously handed out to keep the children amused. Of course, you need a pair of lungs like an opera singer to inflate the things unassisted (note to self: ask Kate Spence if she can blow up a modelling balloon), so they found their use chiefly as sling-shots. They make very good sling-shots, by the way, and the children – being the destructive geniuses they are – made clever use of things like lolly wrappers and sticks to improve their weapons. (The balloons also make great water-bombs. You can fill the entire thing with water, over a metre long, creating the water-bomb equivalent of a bunker-buster). Dried corn, it was decided, makes the best ammunition for the sling-shots and produces terrific welts at close range.

Sristi – a Nepali fly-girl. She has nothing to do with this post, she’s just such a cutie I can’t resist sticking her picture in. We get on so well that if there was a Mrs Vaughanbo, Sristi would be coming home with me.

Meanwhile, from the safety of the rooftop, I had noticed what looked like a balloon pump lying on top of a nearby building (not as improbable as it sounds – I suspect it came with the balloons and got thrown there by a child. Or a frustrated volunteer, come to think. Its location should have perhaps set some alarm bells jangling, but I had the idea stuck in my head by now). So I determined to retrieve said pump and put the balloons to their rightful purpose in order to keep the children entertained and reduce the casualty list and the risk to the neighbourhood dogs.

(At this point wiser heads than mine will be reading this and gently shaking themselves in a presentiment of the tragedy to come. All I can say in my defence is that I had the best of intentions. Let history be my judge).

First off, I climbed up and got the pump. It wasn’t specifically a balloon pump but I tried it out and it did the trick. I then retreated to the seclusion of my room and  inflated a few experimental balloons and tried to remember how to make some animals. My entire repertoire consisted of a doggie, a swan and a sword, which I didn’t think would suffice, so I extemporised a hat and even managed to pull off a four-balloon bicycle. Right then. Satisfied that my skills were as sharp as ever (which is about as sharp as a balloon, coincidentally), I was ready for an audience. I could hear the children raising merry hell in the kitchen as Hari and Sita – the two helper mothers who live here – were attempting to organise a meal. I stuffed my pockets with balloons and placed the pump under my arm, cocked my balloon-hat on a jaunty angle and walked to the kitchen, doggie, sword and swan in hand.

“Righto. Who wants a balloon animal?”

Examples of my mutant balloon animals. Prizes if you can guess which is which.

The pièce de résistance, a bicycle. In case it wasn’t obvious.

Looking with hindsight at the equation of two hundred balloons, twenty one children and one pump it doesn’t take a genius to realise I was asking for trouble. Nevertheless, I weathered the initial storm and managed to drag everyone outside where I began inflating, tying and twisting for all I was worth.

Balloon mayhem ensued for the next hour. The loud reports of exploding balloons echoed around the neighbourhood and the locals must have thought the Maoist insurrection had reignited in Pokhara.

After the carnage, amidst the crying children and shredded rubber, I surveyed the wreckage of my brilliant idea. A number of doggies had to be put down. Several swans were horribly maimed and vicious sword fights had erupted over purloined hats. There had even been an attempted escape on the balloon bicycle (I didn’t get very far).

Of course, all I had really achieved was to increase the availability of weapons-grade rubber, and it was now that the violence started in earnest.

Bushan, wearing his balloon hat with style.

The sophistication of the sling-shots evolved rapidly and some of the high-power versions were using four balloons (that’s two dead doggies and a brace of swans), and my repeated warnings about not aiming at each other were having little effect. One too many crying kiddies rubbing a welted back and it was time for a crack-down. I opened another front in the War on Terror and the balloon went up (so to speak) on Operation Enduring Freedom (Nepal).

Secret footage of a terrorist training camp, deep in the Ureweras.

A baby-faced assassin taking aim. At me.

Martial law was declared and civil liberties were trampled left, right and centre amid a number of unlawful search-and-seizures. The result was the recovery of a number of weapons and a large amount of ammunition, with minimal losses to our own forces. The operation was a complete success and we expect to effect a full troop withdrawal any day now. Any day.

Confiscated weapons and ammo.

Although it was not an Iran-Contra sized blunder, the irony of being the supplier of the weapons I was now confiscating was not lost on me. If anyone had been injured and questions asked about who the idiot was who had given balloons to the children, I would have relied on the vaunted Ollie North defence: “I have no recollection of that event.”

It is currently the ‘Tij’ festival (pronounced ‘teez’), which is a celebration of womanhood and is an opportunity for Nepali women to dress up, sing, dance and generally celebrate all things woman. As part of the festivities we attended a fair and concert in a local park.

Bath time. Sakar is doing the hard yards…

… revelling in the opportunity to be legitimately pants-less…

… and relaxes after a job well done.

Asha (12) and Sushila (2).

Each child had 10 rupees to make themselves sick with, so first port of call was the candy-floss man.

Asha, dressed to impress during the Tij festival.

A marquee was erected on a local park for speeches and a concert of song and dance.

This elderly matriarch presided over the event and released a bunch of balloons to start the celebration. I wasn’t quite quick enough with the camera, so I have cunningly employed my photo-shop skills to give you an idea of what took place. (I only confess from some sense of journalistic integrity – I wouldn’t want you thinking balloons here actually look as spastic as this).

One of the featured acts – a group of blind singers.

Other attractions included an exhibition game of volleyball…

… tests of skill…

… games of chance…

… and feats of strength. (Ok, so not really feats of strength. I just like the phrase, ‘feats of strength’. It’s even better when you say it aloud. Go on, try it: “Feats of strength!”. Great, eh?)

This hapless punter took out the cans with his final throw and is being congratulated by his mates, blissfully unaware he has effectively signed his own death warrant. Note the young man in the foreground with the handgun. I’ve caught him receiving his orders to ‘retire’ the successful ‘mark’. The house always wins.

As at all fairs, balloons and novelty items were popular.

Sunita and Rabi are looking snazzy in their new gear.

Good fun.

Annapurna orphanage

  I’m now at the Annapurna Self-sustaining Orphan Home, so it’s back to cold showers, eating rice and vegetables twice a day and sharing a squat toilet with 25 others. Of course I have absolutely nothing to complain about – it is, after all, how these kids live every day and many Nepalis live without even running water or electricity. I’m just whining like a spoilt First World brat because I have to adapt again after my cushy spell in Lakeside. Give me a week and I’ll have forgotten what a hot shower tastes like.

               Shrijana and Shanta. 

            Safal, eating… something.

  The home here is run along similar lines to Nandumaya, with every attempt being made to achieve self-sufficiency in milk, eggs, vegetables, etc. There is also a sewing shop in an adjacent building which was set up six months ago and is staffed by local women who were previously homeless. The women now have a trade and profits from the shop will go to support the home.

Sarada (middle) with her sewing ladies.

  Annapurna home is run by a lady named Sarada, with the help of three other women, two of whom have children of their own and live here at the home. Sarada lives nearby with her own family and spends her days here, staying overnight if one of the other two women are away. Like Nandumaya, there are 21 children in residence; the difference here is that these children are significantly younger. There are six children under 5 years old, with the youngest being barely 12 months. The others range from 5 to 12.

Asha, aged 12, with Hari, one of the ladies who work at the home.

 The youngest, Sristi, who arrived at the home when she was just 6 days old, has taken something of a shine to me and presents herself to be picked up whenever she espies me. I think it’s because she likes the view and I offer a fairly stable platform – unlike, say, a hyperactive sibling or a multitasking mother busy cooking or picking up after other tots. I’m also quite good at rocking gently and making silly noises (pretty much how I spend most evenings). Sristi seems to regard me as her personal safari elephant and directs me around like a mahout. (Not literally by tugging my ears and hitting me with a stick. Well, not by hitting me with a stick anyway).

Sristi.

One gesture says it all. Sure, it looks like ‘cuddle me’. What she’s actually saying is, ‘Kneel, peasant, so that thou may carry me hither and thither, as is my wont’.

  Being a house full of toddlers, there is always somebody crying and nakedness abounds. 4 year old Sakar, in particular, has some objection to wearing pants and rids himself of them at any opportunity. I haven’t yet established the basis for his stance – be it on ethical, political or purely aesthetic grounds; he hasn’t deigned to confide in me his reasons, though he seems quite adamant. Our conversations on the matter have been limited to me pointing at his brazen nakedness and yelling, “Pants!” He points back at me and yells, “No pants!” and runs away. I know he has pants. I’ve seen him flinging them away with disdain. I just have to work out where he keeps them.

 All this will be old hat to those of you with kids. For me, it’s an introduction to toilet training, nappies, burping and getting a crying baby to sleep. I’ll be coming home with a much stronger baby-sitting resumé.

This picture of a titanic struggle between a giant cockroach and a spider taking place on the stairs up to my room is of no particular relevance, excepting it represented a dilemma for me as to who to root for. As much as I loathe the big cockroaches, I’m not sure I’m any fonder of spiders big enough to take them on. The spider eventually won by submission, with a figure-8 leg lock.

  The children’s daily routine is similar to that at Nandumaya and is dominated by homework and school, which takes place six days a week. The two main meals of rice and vegetables are taken at 8:30am and about 7pm. We are all tucked up asleep by 8pm and the youngsters make sure everybody is up by about 5 in the morning. I am living in the storeroom on the roof, with the potatoes and mice. (I tell myself they are mice. I believe they are mice. Please God, let them be mice). It is comfortable, despite the leaky ceiling, and offers me some guilty respite from the night-time tantrums and crying. 

Playing soccer near the home.

The school-age children all attend a private school just up the road. As at Phutung I will be presenting myself at the local government school to inflict my version of English as a second language on the hapless locals. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Chitwan

  Before starting at the Pokhara orphanage I took a weekend trip to the Chitwan National Park. The park consists of over 900 square kilometres of jungle, grassland and river and is located on the plains of the Terai region, in the south of Nepal. It boasts significant populations of wild elephants, tigers, rhinos, crocodiles, rare gangetic dolphins and over 500 species of bird. The park is a major tourist destination and there are a number of resorts and hotels in the area. The more expensive resorts are located deep within the park itself and own their own elephants for safari. These places charge over $200 US a night, though in the off season this drops dramatically, or the resorts close until after monsoon. I had booked a 3-day package deal with a hotel just outside the park that would include the usual safari and jungle activities and paid just over $100 US.

Pastry-boys. Bakery goods for sale at the Pokhara bus stand for tourists bleary-eyed from the early start.

  The bus trip took about 5 hours and was uneventful, at least by Nepal standards (inching over slip-damaged bridges and near-misses with trucks and livestock don’t count), and we were met at the Sauraha bus park by the usual horde of hotel staff and taxi drivers. I had pre-booked my hotel and activities to save a bit of time and hassle, but you could certainly pick up some bargain accommodation if you didn’t mind a bit of haggle and dealing with the roiling pack of touts.

 I located my hotel representative and was whisked away in a jeep, arriving at the Shiva’s Dream Hotel a few minutes later. I was met at the gate by a young man, full  of smiling politeness, and escorted up the path to my room. The 4-story building was a bit dilapidated and ominously quiet – more like Shiva’s Idle Musing, I thought – and I asked the porter how many guests were here. His smile widened and he replied, “Just you, sir”. Bugger. Travelling on one’s own can be a lonely affair at times, but being the only guest at a hotel is downright depressing. I was slightly cheered when he added, “Another guest is coming later”.

Looking down from the roof of Shiva’s Dream. I had been hoping for a few lounging handmaidens, but Shiva is apparently quite a chaste Dreamer.

Looking out over the Chitwan National Park.

 I sorted my room out and went up to the roof-top dining room for lunch. Then it started to rain. The rain I had experienced in Kathmandu was what I had expected during a monsoon. Despite being forewarned, Pokhara had surprised me with its downpours and how quickly the streets had flooded, but this jungle deluge was unbelievable. It was like someone had upturned a swimming pool over the hotel. The tin roof of the dining room made conversation nigh-on impossible. The young porter doubled as the waiter, and being the only guest I thought I should get on a first-name basis with him, so I asked him his name, both of us shouting to be heard over the thunderous rain.

“MY NAME IS BLUEBEARD”.

“PARDON?”

“MY NAME IS RHUBARB”

“ER… RUPERT?”

“YES! RUPAK!”

“AH. NICE TO MEET YOU, RUPAK!”

Rupak is 17 years old and works as the hotel porter, waiter and apprentice guide. He is also working very hard on his first moustache. Now, if only I could find the bar…

  A few minutes later the rain had eased (mercifully) and the hotel guide, Nabin, who had met me off the bus, came to discuss the itinerary. He brought with him a bottle of coke, placing it ceremoniously before me and announcing that this was my ‘welcome drink’. Well, I was on a budget. I guess the cocktail with the bits of fruit and the little umbrella was expecting too much. He sat down and wrote out a schedule for the next two days, explaining that the cost of all meals and activities was included in my package. He then carefully printed, in capital letters, “BAR BILL EXTRA!”. I told myself that he does this for all guests, but perhaps he recognised the type.

  The first activity was a walking tour of the village, taking in the government elephants and park ranger station and ending at the Rapti river for a view of the sunset. The second hotel guest had arrived by now, so at least I had some company.

The government-owned elephants used by rangers for patrolling the park.

The Rapti river.

Er… a beer.

  That evening, after dinner, we attended a cultural show by the indigenous inhabitants of the Chitwan region, the Tharu. The show, which took place in a local hall and was attended by tourists from all the local hotels, consisted of a number of traditional dances. These included ’stick dances’ displaying the traditional fighting styles, a peacock dance and a funeral dance, all accompanied by an ensemble of traditional instruments. I had just remarked to my companion on the notable absence of any female dancers, when the next number began with the entrance of a young man wearing a swirling skirt, his long hair in pig-tails. He danced enthusiastically and with skill, but I couldn’t help but notice a certain air of grim determination, as if his patience was wearing thin. (I imagined the back-stage arguments amongst the troupe as to whose turn it was to play the girl that night. “But I always play the girl! I’m sick of it!” “Then get a hair cut. You big girl.” “Right, Ranjit, that’s it! Hold me back! Hold me back!“). Indeed, the dance being over, the announcer referred to it as the ‘lady-boy’ dance. Apparently Tharu women aren’t allowed to dance. The show ended with the usual invitation to the audience to make complete pratts of themselves by participating, and fortunately there were enough guileless Japanese present to take up the challenge and spare the rest of us the awkward embarrassment of having a fist-fight with a costumed dancer who is trying to drag you on-stage.

A Chitwan taxi stand.

Preparing to embark on safari.

  The following day began with an elephant safari. (How cool is that?) Sitting in the wood-and-canvas box atop an elephant is not the most comfortable of rides – you wouldn’t want to commute to work, say – but it affords a terrific view and an elephant is the ultimate all-terrain vehicle. Once you get used to the rolling gait, it is also quite peaceful. We traversed streams, swamp, forest and grassland; all at a steady yet sedate pace. It became apparent that the wildlife are a lot more tolerant of elephants than noisy vehicles or people. We got very close to a number of deer and birds, which I’m sure would have bolted at the first sound of a roaring jeep or me stumbling through the bush on my own. We brushed aside the spider webs and small branches; if we encountered anything larger at an inconvenient height a quick command from the mahout sent a curling trunk around the obstacle and it was tossed aside. Try that with a quad-bike. The highlight of this sojourn was the spotting of two wild rhinos. They were having a rest in the shade of some bush, but we were able to get incredibly close and they didn’t seem perturbed by the elephant at all. Eventually they got up and wandered away and we continued our amble. We didn’t get to see any tigers, but given that the territorial area of a tiger is about 50 square kilometres, that wasn’t surprising.

View from the back of an all-terrain elephant.

Two rhino arses.

Doe. A deer. A female deer.

  At about 11am we went down to the river to take part in the elephant baths. I stripped down to my togs and was immediately presented with an elephant offering me a bended knee on which to clamber up. A quick and completely graceless scramble later and I was driving my own elephant. (Well, to be fair, the elephant was following its mahout and I don’t suppose it took any notice whatsoever of my pulling and prodding, but it felt like I was driving). We sauntered into the river and moments later I had my first faceful of water and elephant snot. What followed was a half-hour of trunk-drenchings and sudden dumpings as the mahout encouraged his mount to get me as wet as possible. The elephant seemed to get into the spirit of it and I’m pretty sure a lot of the spraying was un-prompted. On command, the elephant flopped onto her side and I was handed a piece of pumice. Time to scrub. Getting so close to a beast like this was simply incredible. They are massive animals and it was fascinating to inspect one at such close range. I’ve scrubbed behind an elephant’s ears and lain on its tum, listening to a huge and ponderous heart-beat. Awesome. For her part, the elephant obviously enjoyed this play-time as much as me. She lay content, face completely submerged, pink-tipped trunk occasionally appearing above the water, like a periscope, as if to inspect the work going on. After I had scrubbed both sides to her satisfaction, the elephant arose and I clambered up her trunk by gripping her ears (something I was a little hesitant to do at first. Grabbing something that big by the ears runs contrary to some deep sense of self-preservation). A couple of final sprayings and we climbed up the river bank, bath-time done.

Who needs a mahout? There’s nothin’ to it…

…until your ride decides to dump you.

Fed up with being soaked? There’s only one way to head-butt an elephant. The key lies in getting a really good grip on the ears…

  After lunch we embarked on a canoe ride and jungle walk. The sky hung thick with dark clouds and thunder rumbled ominously, but this just seemed to add to the atmosphere. I mean, the only way paddling a dug-out canoe up a crocodile infested jungle river could be any cooler is if thunder is tolling like a drum beat overhead. Our guide pointed out examples of the local species of crocodile, the marsh mugger  (charmingly named by the colonial British as they watched villagers get dragged to a watery death, probably while sipping pink gin. The British I mean, not the villagers. They were just doing their laundry). There was one basking not 50m from where we had been swimming with the elephants.

A basking marsh mugger, looking for an old lady or an asian at an ATM.

A rare Black-Fronted Frog Guzzler. (No, that’s naughty. I made that up, sorry. Fake ornithology is a little hobby of mine).

A Snowy River Wrangler, completey lost.

  We disembarked at the edge of an expanse of tall elephant grass and set off on foot with Nabin and Rupak as our guides. We were walking along a well-worn path and I was trying to recall something I had read about the extreme inadvisability of using the tracks of certain wild animals, but I couldn’t remember whether it had been rhinos or hippopotami that the author had been referring to, when Nabin paused and indicated a pile of dung. “Rhino shit”, he said, simply. We moved on. Shortly thereafter Nabin stopped and pointed to another giant turd. “Elephant shit”. He then gave the pile a few exploratory prods with his walking stick. “Wild elephant shit”, he expanded. Nabin went on to explain how one could tell the difference – a matter of salt in the diet, apparently – and then described the fascinating toilet habits of both elephants and rhinos. I had to hand it to him – the man knew his shit. A little while later I heard a single, distant snort, away to our right. Nabin paused and cocked his head. “Elephant”, he pronounced. “Domestic”. Now that was impressive. It sounded to me like a European tourist with a smoker’s cough (why do they all smoke?) and I remained skeptical until, minutes later, an elephant, straddled by a mahout and accompanied by its baby, strolled out of the grass ahead of us.

Elephant Mum and baby.

  We soon left the grassland and entered a forest. As we moved through a sparse patch of trees we heard another guttural cough from the bushes ahead. Nabin stopped dead in his tracks and then began walking slowly backwards. “Rhino”. He suddenly seemed a bit tense, and since Nepali people are normally about as tense as hippies at a hydroponics convention, we got tense along with him and moved back. He indicated for us to remain back while he went ahead to check it out. He did so and returned to explain that he had determined where the rhino was and which way it was heading, and we could follow him to see it. I wondered if he had worked all this out by examining any shit. We crept up with Nabin and lo! A wild rhino, crossing our path within spitting distance. Well, spitting distance if you had a decent tail-wind, and maybe a bit of a run up. Close enough, anyway, to remind me that I was not perched 2 metres up on the back of an elephant and make me glance around and note the position of the nearest scaleable tree. Incredible. We watched it shamble past and slowly disappear into the foliage, pausing occasionally to snuffle and twitch it’s scarred flanks. After it had moved out of earshot, we all grinned at each other and shook our heads in disbelief. Even Nabin seemed excited. “Did you see?” He asked, as if I had spent the last two minutes fumbling in my camera bag. Yep, I saw, and it was awesome.

A wild rhino crossing our path. Wild, I say.

  Our walk concluded at the elephant breeding centre, where we viewed a display about the park’s elephants – including some startlingly frank facts about their reproduction, complete with pictures – and then got to meet the newest members of the herd. Baby elephants are very cute, and I can’t quite work out why. Maybe it’s just because they look like miniature elephants, scuttling along beside their Mum in that cliched baby elephant walk. Or perhaps it’s because they seem prematurely old, with their wiry hair and excess folds of wrinkled skin that they haven’t grown into yet. Whatever it is, they are a lot of fun. There were 6 or 7 juvenile elephants present with their mothers. Once they had overcome their shyness they were inquisitive and playful and I was laughingly patting and fending off several slobbery trunks at once. Imagine a 200kg puppy with a really long, wet nose. Great fun.

Baby elephant enjoying a good scratch.

A nursing elephant at the Elephant Breeding Centre.

Dumbo Jnr snacking on ‘elephant momos’ - a mixture of rice, salt and molasses wrapped in grass. Mmmm. Like I say, everyone loves a momo party!

Rupak with a baby elephant.

An elephant using grass to keep flies away from her sleeping baby. Awwww…

  The next day we walked to the local Tharu village where Nabin described the culture and explained a bit of the history. I didn’t have the heart to pull out my camera, as I felt uncomfortably like a gawking tourist and this was these people’s home. Thankfully we didn’t invade anyone’s actual house. Afterwards I packed and, after paying my BAR BILL, took a wee horse drawn cart to the bus park for my ride back to Pokhara.

 As we sat in the sweltering heat of the bus, it became apparent that the engine wasn’t turning over. Next, the driver asked us to disembark and help him push-start the bus. The bus was sitting in a slight depression and we couldn’t get her rolling, despite several attempts. I then stood back and watched as the driver and a couple of helpers jacked up the rear of the bus, dug the rocks away from the rear wheels and tied a rope around the axle. They then wound the rope by turning the rear wheels, and it dawned on me what they were doing. They were going to pull-start a bus. I couldn’t miss out on this, so I joined the 5 guys holding the rope and we hauled away with all our might. No luck. We rewound the rope and tried again, shifting a couple of nearby jeeps that were blocking our path. Still no good. By now I had been promoted to the end of the rope and our informal teamwork was improving. On the sixth attempt the bus gave a belch of smoke and roared into life. There were mutual grins and back-slaps amongst the tuggers as the other passengers burst into applause. Good fun, but hot work in the humidity and jungle heat, and just one of the joys of transport within Nepal. We piled aboard and it was back to Pokhara. The trip to Chitwan had been a terrific experience and definitely a highlight that will stay with me for years to come.

Pokhara

Although Pokhara is only 206km from Kathmandu the bus trip takes 7 hours – the first two of which are spent negotiating traffic jams and getting out of Kathmandu. There are genuine ‘tourist’ buses that are air-conditioned and have all the trimmings, and there are the cheaper standard buses used by the locals and us budget travellers, at about a third the price, and which are perfectly fine. At least we had one seat each and didn’t have to share with any livestock. In Phutung I once arrived at the ‘micro-bus’ stop to find the driver of the minivan attempting to corral 5 goats and get them aboard. It reminded me of a joke about fitting elephants in a mini (apparently you cram them under the seats and try not to let them eat your shoes).

A monsoon-swollen river, between Kathmandu and Pokhara.

A young boy fishing out driftwood to sell.

I was seated next to a middle-aged man who was sporting his young son on his knee. We exchanged pleasantries and I taught the young fella my patented wink-double-cluck-and-grin technique, which is dearly loved by all children under 6. Children older than that just tend to think I’m retarded.

While we crawled through the traffic I produced my mobile ‘phone and played a few mp3s. I had loaded some well-known Nepali folk songs on for the kids at the orphanage – who would then promptly disappear with it for the night. It would be returned to me the next morning with a request for the battery to be charged and some more Rhianna songs added, please? – so the little boy and I had a singalong in Nepali about water and chewing paan leaves and water and how pretty the village girls are and water (water seems to figure quite prominently in Nepali folk songs), until the battery went, but by then we had hit the outskirts of Kathmandu and there was some scenery to distract him.

The first stop was for a toilet break and was announced by the driver as he pulled over, seemingly at random, and gestured at the roadside bushes. I had resigned myself to a long and uncomfortable trip, but we subsequently stopped twice at roadside restaurants, which were pleasant spots and provided a welcome chance to stretch the legs, eat and escape the swelter of the bus.

We arrived in Pokhara at about 3pm and were met at the bus stop by a fleet of taxis and men carrying cardboard signs bearing the names of various hotels and lodges. All the buses from Kathmandu arrive at about the same time, so this was a feeding frenzy for the local taxi operators and touts. I spotted the name of my hotel and made my way through the shouted offers and suggestions and made myself known. (As an aside, my favourite hotel name here in Lakeside is ‘The Lovely Mount’. I imagine it being popular with newly-weds. The one next door proudly declares itself to be: ‘A budget hotel since 1965!’)

The main street of Lakeside, Pokhara, and its unique traffic hazards.

The hotel chefs whipping up some delicacy in the back yard.

It was immediately obvious – and this perception has been strengthened since – that there is fierce competition for the tourist dollar in Pokhara at the moment. The industry here has not yet recovered from the down-turn caused by the civil unrest, and it is also the off-season for tourism. The restaurants, cafés and shops around Lakeside – the tourist district – are embarrassingly empty and shopkeepers sit forlornly outside their premises, greeting any passer-by with hopeful invitations. This is most apparent with the numerous barbers. In my unshaven state for the first few days I was walking around looking like a barber’s — dream, and they were falling over themselves to offer me their services. Every time I walked past one they would leap to their feet, “Namaste, Sir! Shave?” I would tease them by rubbing my hairy jaw and saying, “maybe in a day or two, mate”. Eventually I succumbed to the imploring stares and had another cut-throat shave. He also shaved my head, so I was pretty much looking like Kojak when I walked past the next barber down the road. On espying me this one jumped up and started in on his spiel, “Namaste Sir!” His eager gaze then took in my denuded skull and baby-bum face and without missing a beat he enquired, “Massage?”.

Lakeside is less crowded and far more relaxed than it’s counterpart in Kathmandu, Thamel. Even the drug dealers and beggars are less insistent. My local pusher – a permanently stoned teenager by the name of Dipak – has the short term memory of a gold fish and can never remember talking to me. Consequently, on each of the half-dozen times we have met he begins the conversation the same way: “Where you from?”

I tell him that I come from New Zealand and he promptly informs me that the capital of New Zealand is Wellington. (He’s right, I checked). He then goes on to challenge me to name a country, and he will name the capital. This is a game played by the street kids in Thamel too, as a sort of ice-breaker. Sooner or later will come a request for money, or an offer of drugs or something else. Poor Dipak is so drug-addled that he follows this routine even after I have greeted him by name, with a loud, “Dipak! How’s it going?!”

The first time I met him he asked me to name a country.

“Burkina Faso”

“Ouagadougou”, he replied. Bloody hell!

“The Togolese Republic” (It’s amazing how an Olympic opening ceremony can rekindle an interest in geography).

This one stumped him. He then assured me that he didn’t want any money.

“No? What do you want, Dipak?”

“Just some milk”. He meant milk powder.

“What for?”

“I go to my room and make milk and drink it”. Yeah right. Despite the innocent plausibility of his story, I knew full well that he actually uses the milk powder to cut cocaine with.

“I don’t think so, Dipak. I think you want the milk to cut cocaine”. This subtle interviewing technique, honed over years of dealing with criminal geniuses like Dipak, threw him completely and he abandoned his cunning artifice.

“You want cocaine?”

Sigh. “No thanks, Dipak”.

I saw him again today and he launched into the same routine. This time I had him stumped on the capital of Tonga.

“Come on, Dipak. Are you hungry?” I took him to a nearby bakery.

“You want to buy drugs?”

“Nope. You don’t remember me, do you? What do you want to eat? Do you want one of these?”

“Milk is better. You don’t want smoke?”

“Nope. You don’t remember all the other times I haven’t bought drugs from you, do you? Tell the lady what you’d like”.

He asked for milk again, but took what I gave him. I guess it’s a bit hard to cut cocaine with a chicken pastie.

Boats for hire, Lakeside.

View from the lake, towards the cloud-obscured Himalaya.

I’ve mentioned that the restaurants and bars are usually empty, which makes it very hard to decide where to eat. There is a restaurant down the road called ‘The Love Kush’ – I have no idea why – which has become my usual haunt, by default. They offer two for one drinks during happy hour (which runs for 3 hours), have a dilapidated pool table upstairs and a pleasant balcony which offers evening views of the lake front and the drug dealers who congregate there. They also show pirated DVDs of recent Hollywood movies. The other night I was treated to the latest instalment of The Mummy, which was only slightly marred by people talking and moving around in the Bangkok cinema where it was filmed. Actually, I think that may have improved it.

The food is fine – they do a great garlic steak (it has never occurred to me to just smother raw crushed garlic all over my steak before. A stroke of culinary genius, that. Luckily I am traveling alone, or I soon would be), and a lovely rice pudding. Of course, the scarcity of customers engenders a fierce loyalty from the staff, and that’s probably the real reason I go back. I mean, how often do you get hugged by a waiter when you leave a restaurant in New Zealand? As a customer loyalty initiative it could easily backfire, but Keshab is a nice young bloke, married, and we have good chats about the state of affairs in Nepal and, oddly enough, the price of fish.

Lakeside, from the other side of Fewa Tal.

One reason that I am a lousy tourist is that I just don’t have the heart to take advantage of the economic situation here and the bargaining power it affords. I don’t mind haggling a bit, and I certainly don’t like to be ripped off, but I figure most of these people get by on little enough without me trying to take advantage. Consequently, I don’t try to haggle with a waiter in an empty restaurant, as I have seen a fellow traveler doing. This guy decided that the menu was too expensive – after having his happy-hour drinks – and announced he was leaving. The waiter told him he could still stay for the free DVD, if he wanted, and his eyes lit up. Cheap bastard. It also means that the local Tibetan community – whose women sell their handmade handicrafts on the streets of Lakeside – have identified me as a soft-touch (I’m not, honest). They know me by name and hail me as I pass and ask to see the latest bit of jewellery I have bought, and whom I purchased it from. Then they insist I peruse their wares and tell me how long it is since they have seen Tibet, when they came to Nepal, and so on. I have several standing invitations to come to the Tibetan village up the road for tea. Generally I escape after inspecting a few bangles and making up another appointment.

Another reason that I am a lousy tourist is that I am camera shy. Not so much about being in front of one, but about sticking one in people’s faces, or walking around with a camera and a bum-bag and snapping anything that doesn’t run away. I’d much rather sit somewhere and unobtrusively watch the world go by. Maybe with a book. Which is fine and dandy for me, but for you folks at home it means that instead of the fascinatingly candid shots of villagers going about their business of tilling fields, nursing babies or weaving baskets you get the views from my hotel room, or the bugs I find in my shoes. Sorry. I guess a photojournalism career with National Geographic is out.

Bailing out the boats after a heavy monsoon downpour.

A boatful of students on the lake, visiting a temple and interrupting my little picnic. Note the life jackets, loading limit and compulsory teacher-student ratio.

The lake – Fewa Tal – is quite picturesque with waterfalls, temples and nesting egrets dotted around its shores and provides fish for the local restaurants. Small boats can be hired for a few hundred rupees. I took one out the other day and paddled my way to the other side of the lake for some exercise and a wee picnic. I’ve also been for a couple of pleasant runs up around the top end. One morning I was cruising along when I was overtaken by a couple of local lads who must’ve been all of 18 and made me look like I was walking. I caught up with them at the top of the hill (ha!) and asked them what they were training for – police? Army? British army, they explained, with emphasis. Ah – gurkha wannabees! There is a gurkha recruitment post outside Pokhara and a number of local places advertise training programmes run by ex-gurkhas. It is a very competitive selection process and only a few lads are successful each year, but the prestige and financial security of a career with the British army has enormous appeal for young Nepali men. I wished them good luck and then one of them said, “nice jogging”. Jogging! Jogging! I don’t jog, I run! Albeit sometimes quite slowly. I said I would see them in a month and we could have a crack at the hill together. Excuse me – I’d better get running.

 Nandumaya Self-sustaining Orphanage is located in the village of Phutung, about 10km outside central Kathmandu. There are currently 21 children in residence, and the home is run by Ramesh and Sarala Lamichhane, with the help of another couple, Nedra and Gonga. The home is located on rented land with two main buildings, an ablutions block and outhouses for chickens, goats and buffalo, and is surrounded by corn fields and gardens producing a variety of veges. The two hundred laying hens produce eggs that are sold in the village and the buffalo provides enough milk to keep us in chiya (milk tea), curd and butter. Rice is grown in several nearby fields.

The two main buildings and ablution block of the orphanage.

  The orphanage was set up six years ago and has evolved from very modest beginnings. Sarala describes living with no transport, running water, phone or electricity and having to carry water up from a holding tank half-way down the hill every day. The children, then numbering eight and aged between 1 and 6, were frequently ill and Ramesh has described unfortunate trips to the hospital - a 4-hour round trip by foot - at 2 or 3am carrying a couple of diarrhoea-stricken tots. Hearing this makes the current walk to the bus-stop, frequent power cuts and occasional lack of water seem minor inconveniences. 

 Nandumaya was started with the help of a group called the Royal Nepali Friendship Society (just thinking about it… I wonder if they have changed their name? The king got kicked out recently.  Perhaps not – he needs all the Friends he can get). The philosophy behind the home is that every attempt is made to achieve self-sufficiency; rice and veges are grown, goats, buffalo and chickens kept and eggs sold. Longer term plans include the establishment of a stall in the village to sell produce. This approach differs from a number of orphanages in the city – and there seems to be a plethora of them – where begging forms the main source of income. I have been approached several times by kids in town with a printed page outlining their plight and a request for money. Now I’m not so high-handed as to suggest that these urban orphans – who don’t receive any support from the state – shouldn’t be asking for help. There is no social welfare system and an orphan’s gotta do what an orphan’s gotta do. But it certainly seems a worthy aspiration for places like Nandumaya to seek self reliance, and an important value to instil in the children, too. The home also has a number of ‘friends’ who contribute what they can, by donating clothing or gifts of food. As little as these children have, they are, I think, fortunate in comparison to other abandoned or orphaned kids. Most important of all they are loved, treated with genuine affection and concern and are all considered part of one big family.    

 The children all attend one of two local private schools and a big emphasis is placed on education. Homework is done before and after school, which is attended six days a week, with a half-day on Fridays and Saturdays off. Most of the learning seems to be done by rote, with the kids chanting to themselves in a sing-song rhythm that reminds one of little monks  repeating a mantra. It’s quite a sight to see twenty children scattered around the room, seated on the floor and gently rocking as they chant to themselves – at the top of their lungs – the life cycle of the butterfly, or the eight times table, or the definition of a mammal. I don’t actually regard the resulting cacophony, with each child striving to hear themselves think – literally – as being very conducive to learning, but they do the same thing at school, so who am I to interfere? I limit myself to helping them individually – with their English work, or taking them out of earshot with a whiteboard and markers to do maths. 

 Every night before the evening meal the children perform their prayers. This involves them sitting in a large circle, adopting the lotus position and, with eyes tightly closed and hands pressed together, chanting a lengthy prayer. I have no idea what they are saying, but there are several verses and a couple of interactive moments wherein a child performs a brief solo with hand gestures, is answered by the group, and off they go again. To conclude, hands are changed to a meditative pose, like that seen in statues of Buddha, and a lengthy chant of the mantra ‘om’ is performed. It’s quite a spectacle and in addition to this, on my first evening at the home, I was treated to an impromptu concert of song and dance. After several charming  traditional folk songs I was surprised to hear the children suddenly burst into a football chant of, “Everywhere we go-OH / people want to know-OH… We are from NePAL! / Lovely lovely NePAL!”. Next was a protest song from the 60s – We Shall Overcome, followed by the Hokey Tokey. Brilliant.

 For my part, I offered to teach them a game, so we all sat in a circle and I taught them how to play Whizz. (Obviously I adapted the rules slightly – no alcohol, for a start. Instead of being forced to drink you just got eliminated). The kids loved it and caught on quickly and I laughed myself silly watching them play whizz for 20 minutes. (I’ve since seen them play whizz on several occasions when foreign visitors were present. I have a chuckle to myself when I see people watching something they obviously vaguely recognise, a puzzled look on their faces, until the penny drops and they start laughing). 

 Our day begins when the children – and therefore everybody else – arise at about 5:30am.  Chiya and crackers or biscuits are served between 6:30 and seven, and homework is done until the first main meal of daal bhaat – lentils and rice – at about 8:30. Then the children dress for school and depart for a 9:30 start. Those who attend the closer of the two schools come home at midday for a snack of beaten rice or similar, while those at the farther school take something with them. After school it’s another round of tea and a snack to tide everybody over until the second meal of daal bhaat at 8pm or so. 

 We have a meat dish less than once a week, consisting of goat or chicken curry to accompany the daal bhaat, with other variations including an egg omelette, fried potatoes, or a vegetable curry. The one constant, however, is the rice and lentils, twice a day. It is very nutritious, I imagine, and the children never seem to tire of it – not that they have much choice. Any offer of seconds are quickly taken up by arms being shot into the air, and plates are normally licked clean – a sight that I never seem to get used to. It’s hard to imagine many New Zealand kids being so easily satisfied, but I guess such things are relative. 

 The children wash face, hands and feet every morning but ’shower’ according to a roster that I haven’t quite worked out yet. There seems to be a complicated algorithm in play, involving weather, school timetables and whoever has the grubbiest neck. Bed-wetting upsets this intricate schedule and results in a glum kiddie standing outside the bathhouse resolutely dousing himself in cold water from a barrel.

 I take a shower every morning, securing the door as best I can before stripping off to tackle the cold tap. (Nepali villagers have perfected the art of bathing at public taps while remaining clothed. For me, used to the luxury of private bathrooms, bathing is one of those activities – like streaking or playing lawn darts – which only makes sense when done naked).

 The door of the washroom is precariously secured from inside by a single screw wedged through a loose bracket, and I am continually making a soapy grab for my nether-regions as the door is violently rattled by kids with a mouthful of toothpaste. 

 Each time I enter I conduct a quick survey for wildlife. The spiders aren’t big or, to my knowledge, dangerous, but I have to acknowledge a slight phobia about them crawling into my towel (and underwear); the lizards are small and retiring; the slugs are harmless and… well… sluggish… but the leeches really put the wind up me. I know they are not dangerous, but they strike a primitive chord on some atavistic and purely emotional level – inch-worming their way down the wet wall, blindly groping in a ceaseless quest for blood. Ugh.

A leech in the shower, searching for an unguarded willy.

 One of the entrepreneurial schemes undertaken by Ramesh and Sarala involved the renting of 2 rooms in a neighbouring building to raise 500 or so chickens, for sale. I visited the ‘chicken room’, as we came to call it, during my initial tour and helped cart water and feed up to the loft where the birds were housed. On a subsequent visit a couple of days later, Ramesh confided to me that some of the chickens were sick and had died. I was suffering from a heavy head-cold when he told me this – which had suddenly appeared on my second day here – and, standing feverish amidst a flock of infected chickens, I instantly foresaw the headlines: New Zealander First To Die In Bird-Flu Pandemic. Ramesh informed me he was going to get some ‘medicine’ and, sure enough, the next morning he produced a bottle labelled ‘Magic Vinegar’. I inspected the label and saw it contained ‘acitic acid and permitted colours’. Crikey, it was magic vinegar! Now, I’m no vet, but I was pretty sure those dying chickens were going to need something with a little more kick than just vinegar, magic or not. Of course, I should’ve had more faith in Ramesh – he later produced a packet of antibiotic powder for adding to the water.

Sarala in the chicken room. Not exactly battery-farming, but life as a chicken still sucks.

  While we’re discussing the local fauna… we were sitting in the library trying to get some reception on the tv one evening when I noticed a large shadow climbing down the wall in the corner of the room. Ramesh clapped his hands and hissed and the rodent – for I now saw that was what it was – turned and scurried back up. Ramesh turned to me and chuckled, “mouse”.

Bullshit – if that’s a mouse, I’m a bloody giraffe. That was a rat, and a big one. (As an aside: the Nepali words for mouse (musaa), and rat (muso), are both very similar to the word for meat: ‘masu’ – an example of poor linguistic planning if ever I’ve seen one. I imagine this causing a number of unfortunate incidents for foreigners in Nepali restaurants, with rat-momos proving a popular request). Rats running along the top of the walls in the kitchen are a common sight and they have caused strife by chewing through power cords and rice bags in the store room, and keeping us awake by fighting on the roof. I have yet to have a personal encounter with one, though. Which suits me fine – rats are even higher than leeches on my list of Things That Give Me The Willies.

 Part of my involvement with the orphanage here in Phutung involves teaching at a local school. The children here attend one of two nearby ‘private’ schools, so I initially began at one of those – Mahalaxmi English High School.

  I had seen a glossy calendar from the school on the study-room wall and immediately wondered how far away the school was – I certainly hadn’t seen anything in the village that  even remotely resembled the pristine white-washed building depicted in the calendar. My first visit to the school soon cleared up that little mystery.

Mahalaxmi English High School, as depicted in a calendar and brochure put out by the school…

 … and in reality. They obviously have a first class computer-aided design department. The brochure describes the school as providing,”well-ventilated” classrooms, ha ha.

 I was accompanied to the school by Ramesh, who came to introduce me to the principal. We arrived at the locked gate and while waiting to be admitted I eyed the barbed-wire fence and wondered if these measures were to keep undesirables out, or the pupils in. We ended up being shown to an office which – according to the desk plaques – housed both the school accountant and the ‘president’. Both men bore the same surname, which was also that of the principal, and while this is not uncommon in Nepal, it immediately made me mildly suspicious. The school was obviously anything but well-resourced and had about 400 pupils. Why would they need an accountant and a president, both apparently full-time posts?

 A huge billboard on one of the classrooms bore the photographs of a group of students and the caption, “Heartful Congratulation to SLC Achievers!”. The SLC exam is the equivalent of bursary and is taken by children in year 10 (16/17 years). It is a requirement for admittance to college and every school erects banners and posters, ostensibly congratulating their students but also advertising the school’s success rate. There seems to be fierce competition between schools and I suspect that private education is a fairly lucrative business. Education is certainly highly valued. Ramesh and Sarala are very proud that all the children attend private schools. 

 Having taught at both private and government schools, I can attest to the private schools being better resourced, but I’m not entirely convinced that true value for money is being obtained from these institutions. The brochures tend to hyperbole and all seem to boast of non-existant facilities and standards. Here’s a bit from Mahalaxmi’s brochure (verbatim):

Mahalaxmi English High School is a private an English Medium, co-educational school, full of educational environment and physical facilities, established in 2050 B.S. [1994] on the pious dedication and appreciable efforts of social server and educational personalities Lecturer Mr. Sanak Man Maharjan (founder) and Miss Punya Devi Maharjan (Principal). The school is formally and registered at District Education Office, Kathmandu. It has passed 13^th years with the difficulties and conspires. Now, it is going forward against the repulsive efforts of some jealous, dissipative, blandisher and bruiter.

 I’ve heard PTA meetings in NZ can get a bit heated, but this level of conspiracy and intrigue was a new one to me. I wondered if I would be enlisted in some sort of on-going battle with those ‘jealous, dissipative, blandisher and bruiter’ elements mentioned. 

 Bear in mind, too, that these schools pride themselves on their English language instruction. Mahalaxmi even boasts of a rule that only English is spoken in the school grounds, and I have seen students taking down the names of others who were observed speaking Nepali at school, for reporting. Despite this, the level of english is poor. The principal was unable to  converse with me and although other teachers were described as possessing MAs in English,  they, too, struggled to make every-day conversation.

 Now, I am mindful of sounding like a real snob here. I am well aware of the cultural gulf that separates a place like this from good ol’ NZ and I am certainly not trying to knock them in a boorish attempt to amuse. It’s easy to take the mickey out of mis-spelt signs and brochures, (and I will), but there is a deeper issue here, whereby people like Ramesh and Sarala pay money for what they believe is a top-class education for their kids. I suppose that all these schools are much of a muchness, but I do get annoyed at the thought of unsuspecting folk being taken for a bit of a ride. And a full-time accountant, ‘president’ and non-teaching principal at a private school of 400 smacks of nepotism, to me. Fire the accountant and buy some books, I say.

 Anyway, the principal seemed a bit indifferent to my offer to help out. I wasn’t expecting her to turn cartwheels, but I thought the free services of a native English-speaker for a couple of months might have appealed. In the end I got offered a class of year 7s to play with, which was fine by me. I was shown to a classroom of giggling kids and given an English text-book and a piece of chalk. No, wait – I got given the text-book; I had to send a kid to find me some chalk. And my teaching career in Nepal had begun.

 In the end I only spent a couple of weeks at Mahalaxmi before Ramesh agreed with me that I would be of more use at the Government school, which was very civic-minded of him, considering none of the orphanage kids go there. I certainly felt more inclined to work at the state school. This was Shree Phutung Secondary School, and if I thought the private school was under-resourced, this was to be, perhaps predictably, even worse.

Shree Phutung High School.

Classes often seem to be without a teacher. Luckily the well-disciplined children manage to supervise themselves.

My year 4 class, Gor’ bless ‘em.

 I was greeted with a bit more enthusiasm at Shree Phutung and they apparently have the occasional foreign teacher put in a spell with them. In fact, on my first day I met a departing Danish teacher. He was a prospective student teacher and had been in Phutung for 6 weeks. He told me that his stint had not endeared him in any way to teaching as a profession, but that he loved Nepal and would be coming back. 

 One teacher was particularly keen on my helping out. He taught English and explained that they only rarely had a native English speaker to assist them, and that he felt this was preferable to European and Asian volunteers who spoke English as a second language attempting to teach it as a subject. I agreed and he immediately enlisted me to assist with his class. Subsequently, for a period each afternoon, I would read aloud to his class the passage they were currently studying, to demonstrate correct pronunciation and so they could hear how English is spoken amongst us whities. (The teacher would then give a  synopsis in Nepali, so that the class could actully comprehend what had been said). I would wander around the room, loudly proclaiming lengthy tales about such heroes of english folklore as St Francis of Assisi (Italian), William Tell (Swiss), and Joan of Arc (French), ever mindful of tone, rhythm and diction, and fancying myself becoming a popular voice-over artist. I could be the James Earl Jones of Nepal.

 In addition to my English class I was asked to teach ‘computers’ to a class of older students. I was initially a little hesitant – not considering myself much of a computer expert – but I needn’t have worried. Only one of about 20 students had ever touched a computer before, so I must’ve seemed like Bill Gates himself. Unfortunately the school only has one computer, an aging beast with a broken CD drive and an antiquated version of Windows, so the principal suggested I start with a theory lesson. Um…  Sure. 40 minutes later I had a whiteboard covered with terms like ‘Operating System’ and ‘CPU’ and 20 Nepali kids, who had diligently copied everything down, wondering why the hell we hadn’t turned the computer on. 

 After that I dispensed with the computer science theory and got them playing with the keyboard and mouse. Lessons basically consist of students taking turns to open a program, painstakingly type out their names or draw a picture, save and close. I started bringing in my little notebook to add another computer and reduce the waiting time, but the first time I did the other teachers were so fascinated by it I spent most of the lesson demonstrating it and answering questions such as how many US dollars it cost, does it play CDs and can I buy it in Nepal?

Advanced Computer Science class with ‘Bhon Sir’.

 The school dogs. And goat. One of the neighbours regularly grazes his cow in the playground. She makes quite a good ‘elastics’ partner, apparently.  

 Just how bad the lack of resources is was brought home to me when, for about the third class in a row, I had dished out lines to a couple of kids who didn’t have their English books, and I finally realised they had never had an English book. Whoops. Sorry kids. I made up for it by stealing them a couple of text books from the staff room. (I would’ve asked first, but I fully expected an answer in the negative. There are several piles of books on the staffroom floor, and I suspect they are all earmarked for future classes). Other annoyances have included power cuts during computer classes (“Ahem. Right. Just bring me that whiteboard would you, Raj?”), and teachers ‘borrowing’ the school’s one multiboard, which is used for the computer. 

 I have to admit, my classes can be a little shambolic and must attract a degree of attention. Twice I’ve had teachers come and sit in on a class, to observe. The first one ended up by filming me on his cell-phone (I’m confident there was nothing on the blackboard that could be used in any subsequent hearing. Not in any evidential way, at least), and the second offered me a friendly teaching tip. This second guy had sat at the back of the class while I had them all copying out ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’. The class ranges in both age and ability, but none of them can read or write worth a damn, so I normally try to encourage them to do both. For instance, they couldn’t copy out a sentence like that above without spelling and transcription errors, and they certainly couldn’t read it aloud. (They are most comfortable with ‘copying’. I would set them homework involving answering some simple questions from the textbook and I would invariably find that they would copy out the questions – unanswered – and the passage, including any diagrams, but have no clue as to what was being asked). 

 Now, you may have spotted my deliberate error (ha ha), in that I wrote ‘jumped’ instead of ‘jumps’ over the lazy dog. The teacher wandered up from the back of the class and smilingly pointed out my error. Fair enough. Ta, mate. He then went on to offer me some advice. I was expecting some handy tips on dealing with rambunctious Nepali children, but what he had to say surprised me. He advised me to change ‘jumped’ to ‘jumps’ and explain to the class that I had altered the tense of the sentence from past to present. I gently tried to explain that we were not having a grammer lesson but were practising the alphabet, because approximately half the children could not write it out correctly, and that I might as well throw in subjunctive clauses and relative pronouns while I was at it, for all the good it would do, but he didn’t seem to get my point and again advised me to change the tense of the sentence. What planet are you on, mate? Not one of these kids could stand up and read that sentence from the board, let alone discuss the tense. 

 Such differences in pedagogical ideology aside, teaching at Shree Phutung has been fun. I’ve had plenty of laughs – mostly at myself – and moments of absurdity.  Not the least of which occurred when, as I was leaving after computer class one evening, I heard a scurry of footsteps on the stairs above me – someone obviously disturbed by my entrance into the stairwell. All the students had left and I thought I was pretty much alone, so I expected a truant student who had been hiding on the roof (not unheard of); or perhaps someone more nefarious, maybe a thief! I turned and ascended in a couple of energetic bounds, leaping around the final flight to confront…

… a goat, nervously chewing his cud and looking as sheepish self-conscious as his satyric features would allow. We both backed away, embarrassed, mumbling/bleating our respective apologies and agreed to not speak of the incident again.

Haircuts.

While in town one day, about two weeks into my stay, Sarala asked me if I would like a shave. This was actually about the third time she had mentioned it, so I took this as a hint that I was looking a bit unkempt and assented. Consequently, we went to one of the little barber shops that seem to be on every corner and I parked myself in the profferred seat. The barber, a dapper little man who had discarded his paper upon our entrance, asked what I wanted, so I indicated my head and said, “Number zero, thanks”. (I have recently accepted the inevitable dominance of the Drysdale genes and taken to shaving my head).

To my dismay there was no outcry of, “But sir! Your beautiful hair!” He simply gave the customary head-waggle of agreement and picked up his clippers. Five minutes later I was feeling a cool breeze on my pate. Nice. Next, the shave.

I had never had a ‘cut-throat’ shave before, but I could tell straight away that I was in the hands of an expert. Barber-shop shaves seem to be the norm in the city, as are use of the services of the shoe-shine merchants, hand-wash laundry shops and a myriad of other street vendors; all labour intensive industries and a product, I surmised, of low cost of living and a massive labour force.

The barber was deft and unhurried, firstly giving my face a thorough soaking from a grubby spray bottle (the contents of which I tried not to think about – I just clenched my lips and hoped it wasn’t getting up my nose), and then expertly working up a lather. He completed two entire shaves and concluded with a further soaking, and then the stinging application of after-shave (the alcohol was hopefully counteracting that spray bottle). It was a thoroughly professional effort, which he probably reproduces dozens of times every day, and I was trying to work out an appropriate tip when he embarked on the massage.

I didn’t know this at the the time, but a head and shoulder massage is all part of the service at these barber shops. I admit it took me by surprise; I was just levering myself up from the relaxed slouch I had slipped into during the shave when the barber whacked me on top of the head with both hands. I paused, wondering what the hell was going on. The blow, though solid, hadn’t hurt and his knuckles had emitted a loud ‘crack!’ I was trying to work out whether this was a mugging, and if I should whack him back, when he repeated the action, and I realised it wasn’t a clumsy assault but was part of the service. I settled back and he continued. The knuckle-cracking action (which reminded me of the ‘breaking an egg on your head’ trick from school), is oddly soothing. He then started on my shoulders and back, placing a folded towel on the bench in front of me and demonstrating how I should lean forward and rest on my arms. The massage was good, if a little insipid for my tastes – I generally prefer someone to get stuck right in. My Nepali, however, was far too poor to go anywhere near a phrase like, “I like it rough”.

Me, post-shave, looking like a young Peter Garrett.

Head-lice and worms are just two of the little treasures I’ve shared with my new brothers and sisters since arriving. The former, however, are generally out of luck with me; I imagine them realising their mistake when they land and immediately scrabbling to get to greener pastures. (A few hardy souls have managed to hang on, and I admire their pioneering spirit. I think of them as the wandering ascetics of head-lice, spurning companionship and the lure of the ‘easy life’ on the scalps of unwashed orphans to brave the barren wasteland of my head. I imagine them being mocked by their fellows, thus: “Are you nuts? This guy shaves his head! Just look at the rest of these kids, will you? – that little chubby one practically has an affro!” I like to imagine one such soul, ignoring the protests of his brethren and determinedly following his own path, seating himself in the shade of a solitary hair and vowing not to rise until he has solved the riddles of Suffering and Medicated Shampoos; embarking on an inner meditative journey and eventually attaining Enlightenment. A Buddha-louse, if you will).

ANYWAY, as well as noticing the lice problem I had seen a couple of the kids wandering around with haircuts that made them look like they had been caught in a combine harvester. I discreetly enquired of Sarala whether she had cut their hair, but to my relief it turned out they had cut each other’s. Looking to kill two birds with one stone, and wanting a trim myself, I bought a set of hair clippers for the kids.

Rabin immediately volunteered for the role of barber and set about practising on his siblings.

Rabin takes to his first victim, Bijay.

Bijay, absolutely delighted with his new look.

Keshab submits, in a desperate attempt to make his head look small enough to fit his body.

Here he is with a neck brace I gave him, to help him cope. Poor little guy. (It’s like an orange on a tooth-pick, honestly).

Another of Sweeney Todd’s victims, Narayan.

I used the clippers myself, but declined Rabin’s offer to wield them. Unfortunately, we experienced one of our frequent power-cuts when I was about half-way through, so I was left with a very un-cool looking tonsure. I was due to teach a class before the power was restored, so I left for school wearing a cap and praying I wouldn’t forget myself and take it off.

All-in-all I think the clippers were a good idea. At least the kids look like real orphans now, with their little clippered heads. Like proper Romanian orphans. Or members of a cult

Movies and momos.

PARENTAL ADVISORY
The following post contains language that some may find offensive. (Actually only one word. But I said it. Sorry).

It began innocently enough, with a request from Rabin that I take him and Roshan to the movies in town on Saturday.
“Sure. But you’ll have to ask Mummy first”.
Somehow, asking Sarala for permission turned into telling the other 19 kids that we were all going to the movies.
“All child want to go, ok?”
Well, it was ok with me if it was ok with Sarala and Ramesh. Luckily Sarala had said she would come, too. I would be happy taking just Roshan and Rabin, and maybe the older kids, on my own but if we were taking the whole tribe I definitely wanted Mum along. So we made a plan to see a movie on Saturday afternoon. We were to catch ‘micros’ (minivans operated as buses), to Belaju, catch a flick and then have ourselves a little momo party afterwards, as a real treat. Simple.

Saturday came and saw the kids all decked out in their best gear. Jeans, clean t-shirts and shiny scrubbed faces were the order of the day. Ramesh had declared that morning that there was another transport strike in progress, so that meant no buses or micros. The kids were all still keen, so after a quick head-count we were off walking. (The ‘No. 11 bus’).

Setting off.

The girls, looking resplendent.

Walking through Phutung.

The main road to town. I’ll never complain about pot-holes again.

The walk to Belaju took over an hour, and that’s where things got interesting. The kids were still in good shape, with the prospect of a movie proving a great motivator for tired legs. Nepali kids are very affectionate and will seize any opportunity to hold your hand (or pat your head, stick a finger in your ear, or jump all over you in general, actually), but having 3 or 4 kids vying to hold your hand makes for a slow march. Especially in the traffic and general chaos of Belaju Junction. (They end up – after a bit of pushing and shoving – divying up your available fingers. I’ve walked to school with four kids swinging happily along beside me). Our little parade – looking like nothing so much as a line of ducklings being herded by Mother duck, with me bringing up the rear – soon degenerated into groups of 2 or 3 children darting between street vendors and dodging motorcycles. I was terrified we were going to lose somebody and kept trying to count heads, with one eye on where Sarala was going and the other on Govinda, the perennial dawdler. To make things worse, the kids were still trying to hold my hands, despite the traffic whistling past. I tried pointing out that walking 3 abreast was tantamount to suicide, but the children, displaying a casual indifference to other road users that seems to be something of a national trait, blithely marched on, with me trying to steer the three I had hold of and keep watch for stragglers at the same time. Other children would periodically appear to see if I had an unattended finger they could grab, or to share some riveting anecdote about something they had just seen, while I ducked and weaved, dragging giggling kids off the road and trying desparately to spot where Sarala had gone. When we finally arrived at the ‘theatre’ I was sweating like a madman, and it wasn’t just from the heat.

We lined the kids up against a wall and numbered off. I couldn’t stop the little buggers from moving around and had to count about 5 times before I was satisfied they were all present. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t lost anybody. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t lost me.

Sarala went off in search of tickets while I shouted everyone an ‘ice cream’ from the dodgy vendor outside, who dug into his hand-cart to produce little tubs of slush, which I couldn’t decide were chocolate or vanilla. (The kids liked them, but I wouldn’t touch one with someone else’s gastrointestinal tract, thank you). We then lined up for the movie.

A fair crowd had built up already, though we had about 30 minutes to wait til screening time. I couldn’t see the entrance proper, but we were all standing on a wide concrete step that fronted the two-storey cinema, opposite the concession stands and surrounded by garish posters of grim-faced bandannered men clutching automatic weapons. I hadn’t seen a movie in ages and despite the hectic journey to get there I found myself looking forward to sampling Nepali cinema. (I had already seen Nepali tv – which deserves a post unto itself). The wait was punctuated by occasional bursts of cheering and clapping erupting from inside.

With about 10 minutes to go the crowd on the step suddenly seemed to double. Sarala and I got the kids up and marshalled into some sort of order. I anticipated a bit of a press getting in, but what happened next took me by surprise. With a loud bang! a fire exit near us flew open and people began streaming out, stranding several children and Sarala on the other side of the ensuing human torrent. At the same time the crowd surged toward the entrance, instantly knocking all the kids off the step. We waited for the flow of exiting patrons to ebb, then re-organised ourselves. I kept propping kids back onto the step, only to have the press of swarming movie-goers knock them back off. This wasn’t going to the movies – this was like trying to get into a mosh-pit.

Sarala had worked her way back to the front of our little ensemble and was preparing to charge towards the entrance gate, Roshan and Rabin in tow. I tried to catch her eye, half expecting (and hoping) she would pull the plug on this little endeavour. The older kids could take being knocked around, but I was worried our girls and little fellas, aged 5 & 6, could get hurt. To be honest I was getting pretty annoyed at the callousness of the crowd, but like most mob situations I couldn’t really single out any main offenders. They were all just pushing to get in. I exchanged a few words and shoved back when the pushing got a bit intense but managed to suppress an urge to start tossing little asian people around. I wasn’t in Team Policing now and I would’ve been torn apart.

Without a backward glance (what faith in me!) and shouting something I took to be a Gurkha battle-cry, Sarala plunged into the crowd, disappearing instantly. The children behind her had no chance to follow and couldn’t even retain their place on the step. That left me with 19 kids, all turning to look at me with imploring eyes and burgeoning pouts. Great. I stepped out of the crowd and got the kids together. There were several large concrete pillars on the step and I could see that the crowd were channelled into the entrance by steel rails, forming three lanes. Righto. I told the kids to follow me and forced my way back onto the step. Wedging myself between the pillar and the railing, I forced my arms out and turned my back to the surging crowd, blocking a whole lane and forming a little gate at about waist height. I gave the first of the kids the nod and they began to file through beneath me, into the safety of an empty lane to the entrance.

Needless to say, I started to receive some attention from the people behind me, but with 90kg and thirty years of a western diet behind me, the rest of the crowd was half my size and there wasn’t much they could do about it. A few were laughing – it must’ve looked quite funny – but I felt a couple of ineffectual blows on my back and shoulders, and as the kids were shuffling through a male began shouting something into my ear. I was well and truly over it by this stage and was about ready to have a go. I turned to him, flashed him my most winning smile, and told him to get f***ed. He gave me a toothless grin back, and obviously spoke no english. By now the kids were all through, so I turned my smile on the crowd at large, happily suggested they could all do as I had advised my new friend, and turned to follow. As it happened, Sarala was anxiously waiting inside the entrance and made sure that the gate attendant let us all through together. We were in.

I thought that would be the end of our troubles, but just as we had filed into two rows of hard wooden seats near the front of the theatre, one of the employees turned up and began remonstrating with Sarala. She turned and explained to me that there were “too many people”, and the children would have to share a seat between 2. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t our problem if they had oversold the theatre, but my cogent and reasoned argument was hampered by my lack of Nepali, and I was reduced to shouting, “Ek tikaat, ek seat!” (One ticket, one seat!). Obviously impressed by my debating skill and comprehensive grasp of his language, the man glanced at me, gave a final wave at the children and left, ushering other patrons into our seats as he went. We ended up sharing 10 seats between 23 of us, in that cramped and oppressively hot cinema, Sarala and I both sporting kids on our knees.

The lights went down, tinny music swelled and credits started bouncing on the cracked and stained screen. Movie time! (Little did we know it, but this Nepali movie was the first to be released after the April elections and since the government had cracked down on anti-establishment media a few years ago. As such, it was a blatently pro-Maoist, anti-government propaganda extravaganza, which slated the military regime and idealised the heroic struggle of the Maoist rebels, much to the delight of the crowd).

The story opened with a group of politico-military bigwigs discussing how best to oppress the massses. The job was handed to their most vicious General, and off we went, raiding villages and peforming atrocities across Nepal. We then met the heroic members of the Maoist rebels and followed them as they were variously killed, captured, tortured, rescued and, finally, granted victory in an epic final battle.

The most original part – I thought – was a musical sequence set in a government prison, wherein a group of oppressed peasants burst into song – mid-torture, no less – beseeching their uniformed tormentors to show some mercy and patriotism and join the cause.

Technically, the film was a shocker – the foley artist must’ve been drunk and the editor deserves a slap – but it was obviously cobbled together in a hurry to catch the wave of public sentiment, and it was certainly popular. Not being a Maoist sympathiser, I found it hilarious, but it was a reminder that this country has just emerged from what has been effectively a civil war which claimed thousands of lives. (Sarala later told me that Anju, one of the orphans, had lost her family in the fighting. The film was quite violent and I was worried some of the children might be upset by it, Anju in particular. A couple of nightmares were reported, but the kids all enjoyed the movie and Anju showed no signs of distress).

We made it out of the stifling theatre a good three hours after entering and traipsed back to Belaju Junction for a momo party. We subsequently invaded a small restaurant and cleaned them out of momos and coca cola, to the delight of the kids.

Invasion of the hungry orphans.

Mmm. Momos and coke…

While we were eating it began to rain. And it continued throughout the long hour it took to walk the rest of the way home. There were still no buses or micros running, so we had little choice but to get soaked. At least it wasn’t cold. A few bedraggled shoulder-rides later and we were home, looking like the proverbial drowned rats. But the kids had had fun.

Rice planting.

It was an important day yesterday – the rice crop was planted. The monsoon rains had finally flooded the rice fields (khet) enough to allow planting and Sarala had prepared two new fields for the crop, not far from the orphanage.

The aim is grow enough rice to meet the needs of the whole family. The gardens around the home already provide corn, potatoes, beans, radishes and chiles, but rice is a staple and eaten twice a day, in quantity.

More importantly, it was a chance for Rabin, Roshan and me to inaugurate the sport of rice-paddy-wrestling.

Rabin and Roshan discussing tactics, preparing to take on ‘The Rock’.

You can run, but this field is only so big…

‘The Rock’ about to fall.

Roshan, smelling what The Rock was cooking.

And his cheeky mate, too.

Prior to jumping into the mud, I had asked Sarala about Nepal’s famous leeches, which come out in force during the monsoon. “Not here”, had been her reply. “Good soil, good plants”.

Right then. On with the mud fun. Two minutes later: “Hey, Roshan-bhai. What’s this?”

“A leech”.

Smoko. Eating rice (of course) and buffalo curd. Did anybody else hear that snake? (Speaking of snakes… I’ve seen 3 since I’ve been here. The first was about 6 inches long and had taken up residence under the kitchen. The kids noticed it as it was trying to drag a toad under the house; the second was about 8 inches and slithered across the path one day as I was walking to school; the third was at least a metre and a half long and was trying to get into somebody’s house. Awesome).

Doing some actual work. Sarala is carefully monitoring, in case I stuff up an entire crop and induce a famine.

The real workers. Women from around town pitch in to help plant.

All in all a good day. If I’d stopped to consider the leeches – or the 30 minute yoga routine under a cold tap I would need to get clean – I might not have challenged for the title, but what the hey:)

Thamel, 1^st June.

Morning, and I am woken by the sound of dogs baying in the streets. It’s early but already warm and I’ll never get back to sleep, so I decide another shower is in order. (After tomorrow I don’t know when the next hot shower will be, so I’ll take ‘em while I can get ‘em). As I enter the bathroom I notice for the first time the duct that runs uninterrupted through to the adjoining bathroom and I can clearly hear someone humming while showering next door. I recall with amusement the solo concert I performed last night, including – if I remember correctly – timeless classics by the likes of Barry Manilow and Tom Petty. Ah, well.

This morning I am to meet with Mr Dipendra, who organises volunteers for several orphanages, including Nandumaya. I phone him from the hotel and he tells me that his office is not far away and he will send one of his employees to collect me, so I wait downstairs, leafing through the tourism brochures in the lobby. Soon a young Nepali man enters and approaches, diffidently enquiring if I am, “Mr Vaughan?”. Turns out I am, so we set off down the street.

Mr Dipendra’s office is only a couple of hundred metres away, but I would never have found it on my own and I’m glad for the guide. Thamel, like the rest of central Kathmandu, is a maze of unnamed streets and twisting alleys, lined with hundreds of small shops. Signs are everywhere and you may have to walk down a corridor, across a courtyard (apparently belonging to a restaurant), and up several flights of stairs to get to the establishment you’re after. (I’ve since returned several times and it is gradually becoming less daunting. Of course – as I’ve explained before – I am ‘directionally challenged’).

Mr Dipendra greets me warmly and immediately offers me chiya. He is a clean-shaven, casually dressed man of – at a guess – about 40 years. He is also solidly built, being one of the largest Nepali men I have seen. We are speaking in the office of his cargo freighting business, which is located down a corridor next to the travel and trekking agency he also runs. His english is excellent, though – as I have found with nearly all Nepali english speakers – his pronunciation sometimes makes comprehension very difficult. We speak about the orphanage and he enquires about my trip so far, and about my plans after Nandumaya. Dipendra helps run the ‘Royal Nepali Friendship Society’, which is involved with several orphanages and he is the volunteer coordinator. We agree on a loose timetable and he offers me several other placements after Nandumaya, including one “in the mountains”, which sounds interesting. He is also keen to accommodate any sightseeing and trekking I might want to do.

As we are talking a figure wanders down the corridor, carrying a large billy-can and a basket, and Mr Dipendra asks me if I have had breakfast. When I reply no, he says something to the man, who immediately squats down and produces some boiled eggs from the billy, offering them to Dipendra and me on scraps of newspaper from the basket. The man waits to see if we require anything further, then accepts some coins from my host and wanders back out to the street. Breakfast sorted.

The couple who run the orphanage will meet me at the hotel tomorrow afternoon and I am to have several language lessons with a young man who works for the society before then. He will meet me this afternoon. Meantime, I will keep myself busy in Thamel. Mr Dipendra shakes my hand again, assures me he will see me before I leave for the orphanage, and I make my exit; after agreeing wholeheartedly with him that I will be able to find my way back to the hotel without any trouble. 20m down the street and I am lost.

No panic. I have several hours to kill and am confident I will come aross it sooner or later. I begin to explore the streets of Thamel, constantly assailed by hawkers, rickshaw drivers and hashish pushers. (These last are quite skilled; they sidle up unannounced, or suddenly fall into step beside you and enquire, in a voice quiet-yet-distinct amidst the general hubbub: “You like to smoke?” Or just, “Smoke? Best in Nepal”. They each had their patch and they were so regular I began to use them as landmarks: turn left at the little temple with the goat, then right at the yellow-shirt-dope-guy).

I stumbled across the New Orleans Cafe, where I made a mental note that they offer free wireless internet, and stopped for lunch. I ordered momos but saw ‘daal bhaat tarkari’ on the menu. I knew this to be lentils, rice and vegetables and to be the mainstay of the Nepali diet. The menu bore this caption: “22 out of 24 million Nepalis eat this twice, every day!” I’d be getting this at every meal at the orphanage, and so wasn’t in a hurry to try it. After lunch – and a beer, to prepare for my afternoon study session – I managed to locate my hotel again and awaited my Nepali tutor.

His name was Guru and he was a 26 year old student who volunteered for the Friendship Society. We went to the Society’s small office, located opposite and several floors up from Dipendra’s businesses, and tried to knock some Nepali into me. Several hours later I left, feeling a little disappointed. I had a list of phrases and terms – mostly food – to memorise and felt I could’ve done as well on my own. Guru’s help with pronunciation was invaluable, however, and I felt much better after the next day’s lesson, when Guru seemed to warm up a bit and we got to chatting. He explained more of Nepal’s social system and niceties and we went for lunch at a local eatery, where I tried daal bhaat – and eating with my hand – for the first time. This was what and how I would be eating at the orphanage and it was very useful to have the etiquette explained to me. On the whole, Guru was very helpful and even gave me his old cell-phone with a new local sim card, telling me to text him with any problems or questions during my stay.

Something I meant to mention earlier are the guards outside the bank next to my hotel. They are dressed in snappy green uniforms and give everybody requesting entry a once-over with hand-held metal detectors. Even cooler, they carry Gurkha knives in their belts. Now that’s what I call a deterrent – unlike the $10-an-hour overweight armorguard guys you see outside our banks. Nothing makes a potential robber think twice like a hungry looking Gurkha fingering a 10-inch blade.

That night – my last in Thamel – I headed back to Rum Doodles for dinner. The place was full of various trekking parties of different sizes, some obviously dining with their guides. Initially I was the only person dining alone, but I noticed a solo Japanese patron enter soon after me. I was having fun reading the comments on the walls around me when my dinner arrived. I had ordered a steak but instantly regretted my habit of ordering my steak rare. It was big, bloody and looked like it had already been chewed. Upon reflection, even the waiter had looked a bit incredulous when I had ordered it. Nevermind. I put thoughts of power cuts and back-street butchers aside and tucked in. Then it was back to my hotel for an early night.

I survived the night (and the cockroaches), and was woken by the dawn chorus of dogs again. (They seem to be everywhere in Nepal, lying mangy and flea-bitten in the gutters during the heat of the day or scrounging through the rubbish piles. Even the local schools have a few hanging around. I’ve seen dogs enter classrooms on the third floor – while a class is going on – looking for scraps. None of them are large dogs and they all seem docile enough, but I certainly don’t get the urge to pat any or play fetch).

The day was spent with Guru, until three o’clock when Ramesh and Sarala Lamachhinane, my hosts at the orphanage for the next two months, arrived to escort me to Phutung.

Kathmandu. Saturday, 31^st May, about 9pm.

 Kathmandu does not have any street numbers and not every street is named, so addresses usually refer to a district and a local landmark, such as a temple or a square. (Which means every business within 100m of the same temple has the same address. Small wonder most businesses use box numbers for correspondence). Samil was not familiar with Thamel, the tourist district where my hotel was located, but the address I had made reference to a branch of the Bank of Kathmandu, so after stopping to ask directions from a couple of locals we managed to find the Hotel Tashi Dargery, hidden down a short alley.

 I wandered in with Samil and enquired at the counter about my reservation, which the hotel  had no record of. This was no real surprise – monsoon was about to start and it was the off-peak tourist season. Add to this the slump in tourism due to the civil unrest over the last few years and there was probably no need to book in advance. What had been described to me as a ‘reservation’ was probably more a recommendation. No problem, they were happy to provide a room and I opted for a cheaper non-airconditioned room on one of the upper floors.

Kathmandu is at about 1338m altitude and it was definitely cooler than the lower plains of the Terai region we had driven through. Although it still got uncomfortably hot during the day, I could cope without AC at night. The hotel was mid-range, at about $20 NZD a night.

 It seemed the hotel was virtually empty and the staff were tripping over themselves to carry my bags and get me settled, so I thanked Samil with a small tip and sent him on his way. (During the drive I had asked him if he was driving back tonight or staying in Kathmandu. He said he was staying the night. Wise man). The hotel was to be home base for the next 3 days and it was great to be able to open up the pack and stretch out in my own space. I eyed the shower and the bed and considered my priorities. Downstairs for a beer and a plate of momos, methinks. 

 Momos are spiced dumplings made with chicken or buffalo meat, served with a dipping sauce. They are a Tibetan dish and are very popular throughout Nepal. (The kids at the orphanage love them. We went to the movies one Saturday – that’s a tale in itself – and afterwards had a ‘momo party’ at a local eatery. Everybody loves a momo party).

 I entered the empty restaurant and ordered my momos and an Everest lager. As I sat waiting I could hear the chef-cum-desk clerk whipping up my dinner in a shed in the hotel courtyard. I could also hear a covers band playing Coldplay from somewhere nearby. This was definitely the tourist part of town. I was leafing through a copy of ‘The Kathmandu Post’ at my table and a couple of the headlines immediately caught my attention: ‘Cervical Cancer Most Common Among Women’ (really?), and ‘Wife Set Alight Breathes Her Last’. Brilliant.

 The beer and momos hit the spot and I decided I couldn’t let my first night in Kathmandu go by without testing the adage that no matter where in the world you are,  a fellow kiwi is never too far away. So I went upstairs, washed my face and pulled on the ‘All Blacks’ t-shirt Rach had given me before I left. If this doesn’t get me recognised as a kiwi, I figured, nothing would.

 The music I had heard turned out to be coming from an establishment about 50m up the road, called ‘Rum Doodles’. This is actully Thamel’s most famous restaurant and bar. If you climb Everest you can eat here for free, for life. (Good to know). Inside, the walls and ceiling are covered with cardboard ‘bigfoot’ cut-outs bearing the names and comments of trekking parties from all around the world.

 I climbed the stairs and sashayed my way past the receptionist in fine kiwi fashion by waving to someone inside and striding confidently in. I could see a milling crowd of westeners, all wearing colourful flower necklaces, and I wasn’t going to be denied by some ‘private function’. The place was full and pumping. I elbowed my way to the bar and ordered another Everest, then turned and tried to distinguish the accents. There seemed to be a lot of poms, though I could also hear something like German or Dutch, and a few dark-haired swarthy members of the crowd looked Spanish to me. I drifted through, enjoying seeing so many like-faces. As I neared the opposite side of the room a figure detached itself from a group and pointed to me.

“Kiwi?”

I grinned and gave him the traditional raised eyebrow salute. Never too far, indeed.

 His name was Jeremy and he was actually an ex-pat, living in London and he spoke with a pommy accent, but he hailed from Rotorua and took me to a table occupied by two other guys.

“Oi! Guys – Kiwi!”, was the shouted introduction, and there were handshakes and grins all round. These two were Steve and Jason, both diesel mechanics from Huntly.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, indicating the crowd around us.

“We’re all here for the race, mate. We’re the only kiwis here, though”.

“What race?”

 It was called The Rickshaw Run and it involved teams of two or three driving autorickshaws – like those I had enountered in Delhi – from Kathmandu all the way to the bottom of India.  Steve and Jason were the ‘Cross Country Kiwis’ and were the sole New Zealand entry. Jeremy and a crazy Dutchman named Lars were part of another team. The party was the farewell social for the entrants, who were departing tomorrow at midday from Durbar Square in Kathmandu. It sounded like a real blast and I had no doubt that two enterprising kiwi mechanics would do well. Of course, I immediately received a drunken invitation to join them and would’ve done so on the spot, if not for my plans in Nepal. I explained why I was in town and it was best wishes all round.

 The bar shut at 11pm and we drifted down the street to another upstairs dive that the boys, who had been in town for a couple of days, knew about. This place was called The Reggae Bar and was an obvious dope joint, where patrons removed their shoes and sat on cushions at low tables. A 3 piece band played reggae and the walls bore anti-drug signage which had been ostentaciously edited. By this stage our party numbered about 7, with various people joining our table, including a pom named Craig whom I had met at Rum Doodles. He was not part of the race but had been adopted by the kiwi boys and was described to me as a bit of a lost cause, but “a good guy”. We all sat and chatted over a beer while Craig rolled hash cigarettes and handed them to all and sundry. (Mum, refer previous post). Email addresses were swapped and Jeremy assured me of work in London if I ever wanted it. I spoke with Craig about Kathmandu and he said he loved the place, but he had been robbed in the street twice in the first couple of days he had been here. I looked at the spliff in his right hand and the beer in his left and noted his pupils were the size of saucers.

“Really?”

 I could imagine him stumbling through the streets – he might as well have a sign reading ‘mug me’ on his back.

 After about an hour I was feeling the combined effects of travel and the beer and, mindful of Craig’s experiences, decided to join Jeremy when he called it a night. I bought a final round of drinks, waited for Craig to focus enough to register my farewell, wished them all god-speed and left.

 The short walk home proved uneventful, with only a few rickshaw drivers in evidence. I waved away a few half-hearted offers and found my hotel, then headed upstairs to take the shower I had promised myself earlier, and fell into bed.

And that was my introduction to Kathmandu. Perhaps not entirely culturally authentic, but certainly fun.