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Cons
No road rules
Throw rubbish anywhere
To many Ngos driving Toyota 4wd's
12 Hour rotating blackouts
Haggling with taxi drivers
Beggars
Potholed roads
Mangy dogs
Dirty Air
Pros
No road rules
1$ coffee
Beautiful Scenery
Good Cheap Food
3$ taxi anywhere
Nice people
Safe streets
380 holidays a year
Con's-Pro's*days=16
I'm outa here
We went to Mez's friends place down near Chitwan where the boys had a couple of serious days of Mountain Biking while I relaxed around the pool.
It's Hollie time.
All the boy's and girls walk around with mischievous grins looking for the nearest tourist, friend, or stranger to target. The shops are full of balloons. People throw buckets of water from there balcony's. The naughtiness is infectious. The festival is to celibate the coming of spring and in Nepal it's a public holiday. I've bought a whole pile of plastic bags and a couple of pouches of brightly coloured dye from the supermarket. The guy smiles at me,”Are we going to play hollie?” No answer required. I could get into religion if it was all as much fun as this.
It's not a day you wear your best clothes. The object is to cover your self and everyone else in as much water and brightly coloured powder as possible. Red if favourite, blue, green, and yellow are also big sellers. Dean and I head up to Mez's roof with a bucket of water and the rest of the gear. First of all you colour your face to show your ready to play. Then we fill a pile of balloons with brightly coloured water, and wait. Gangs of kids ,mostly boys, are on the streets and rooftops around us having a huge multicoloured water fight. They throw water bombs across roofs, at each other, and especially at girls who sequel then fight back. Etiquette states that you only hit people after you've asked them, but this rule seems to go out the window after about 10 o'clock. As the kids run past we launch salvo's at the street below. I feel like the U.S air force, I'm that high that I can't even see what I'm hitting. The next door neighbour and his wife are encouraging us from there roof, but not playing, so I give him some bags and dye. Soon him and his wife are chucking buckets of water at each other. How easily there led. All around us are huge roof parties with people getting into it.
We have a barbie and watch the action but have to retreat indoors to eat. By the afternoon its starting to quieten down. I wash as much colour of myself as possible, and we all head out for dinner. The little kids have gone but the teenagers are still out chatting up the girls. Amazingly a few people still have some water bombs left even though everyone on the street is well and truly coloured. Some how we manage to get some pizza at a local restaurant without getting covered, and home again. The madness is finished for another year. Happy Hollie.
After all the delights of the Indian immigration system (system is probably to nicer word), it was nice to finally get to Nepal. Line up at the counter, brief glance at the visa/passport, stamp. Down to the baggage hall where lots of Nepali's are waiting to get there bags x-ray ed. Guy looks at me and waves me through the metal detector with my bag. I'm in.
Clare has organised a car for me, so I find the guy with the Himalayan trails sign and jump in. Kathmandu has changed a fair bit in the last couple of years. Last time I was here there was a civil war and a general strike on. Mick and I had to walk a couple of KM's into town. There was a night time curfew. Now I'm in a new car with air conditioning. Buildings are going up everywhere, the traffic is kaos. If your not on a bike everything moves about two miles an hour. Road rules are arbitraryand every light pole has a "road safety is no accident" sign which is universally ignored. I rock up to a cup of tea at the house and spend the next couple of hours trying to stay awake, before we head off to a nice Japanese restaurant for dinner. I sleep like a log.
Next day Mez and I head up to his Hill House. He's turning it into a weekender for guests but he's also going to move up there with Clare .First of all though there are a few electrical issues to sort out. We head off to the shop to grab a couple of lights,switches, and other things. Then it's on to Mez's Bike, a new copy of a 1950,s Enfield. The factory was shut down in England and moved wholly to India where with minimal change there still made today. It has a great throaty note, compared to the little mopeds popular around here. Riding a bike here is not for the fainthearted. You spend most of the time on the wrong side of the road racing frantically to pass slow moving traffic, horn blaring while hopefully finding a gap to miss the oncoming bus. Mez's main modifaction is an extra loud horn. Trying to do this with a backpack full of tools, a couple of 4 foot fluro lights and a panicking pillion passenger is a bit of an art. Finally after what seemed like an hour but really only about 10 min we got out of the traffic and into the hills. Another 20 min of steep winding road and we come to a military check point.This is a quick stop to buy a pass to get through the National Park. Nepali's10 rupees foreigners250 about 4 bucks. We go to the parks office and fill out a form with the usual passport, nationality,etc stuff. pay our money then we go back to the check point, about10 feet, and fill out all the crap again while showing the guy our ticket. Eventually the gate is lifted and where off. Another fiveiminutes and where there. The view is spectacular, a bit like being in Muholland Dr and looking over LA. At least it is most of the year, now its Spring, so the Fog,smog and burning off hide most of the city in a cloud of haze but you can see just enough to get the idea.
Mez's house is more of an estate. Leased from the local general and comes with a big house, a guest house,a drivers/gate house, a caretakers house, a couple of sheds and some fields. There is also a caretaker/groundsman/cook and his wife included , all for the grand sum of about $500 month. We hook into to the reno for a couple of hours, it would have been quicker but we have left some tools back in KTM so everything takes twice as long. The local fittings are pretty badly made, and the shop keeper looked at me dumbly when I asked for a wire connectors. Twist wire,put tape,no need connector.There obviously not a big seller. We are only interrupted lunch, a great potato curry with rolled rice, cooked and served to us buy the grougroundsman's lovely wife. Mirrors hung and lights fixed we head off for a quick walk around the village, then it's on to the Enfield to brave the traffic again. We get back and take off for Pizza with a bunch of Mez's mountain biking friends in the centre of town.
The next day one of the bikers, Chris and I go and check out the old royal palace. It has become a muesum since the crown prince chucked a hissy fit and shot the whole royal family and himself, over some minor disadisagreement. Perhaps I can pick up an AK for Prince Harry on my way to England? The whole palace is decorated in what I would call 70's op shop. My local Red cross would pass on most of the furniture here. There is the odd gold nick nak, and a couple of tastefull plates with Liz and Phill the Greeks pic's on them from the 50's, but the rest would go straight to the dumpster. Every now and then there is a stand with a number noting the point at which one of the royal family met there demise, the only thing missing is a chalk outline of the body. Chuck a tour of this in with a breakfast of sheep testitesticle's in back ally cafe, a cup of tea at the monkey temple, and dinner at the North Korean Embassy resturestaurant, and you have almost the perfect day of tackiness.
More Pizza for lunch, then to the artist friend's of Mez,s to check out some paintings. Chris buys 7. We head back up the hills for the first official tryout of the accommodation Conversation drifts around mountainbiking, Nepali air (good/Bad) and what was the appropriate wine to drink with Dhall Bart. Not that it mattered we only had rose. A few Bourbons and beers later it was off to bed. The guys got up early the next morning to ride single trail back to the city. They where joined by Steve a bike mad Sth African and a few Nepali's who had ridden up the mountain from town at daybreak, a fair feat in it's self.
The leftovers Dean, Claire and myself wandered back down the road to the nearest village to get the taxi back into town. Tomorrow its Hollie a crazy festival where everyone throws dyed water bombs at each other, and generally gets covered in colour.. Utter ,madness ensuies I think I'll have a quite night.
Check out Mez,s and Clare's Websites especially if you want to come to Nepal or go mountain bike riding.
http://himalayan-trails.com/
http://www.uniquetrails.com/
Pic's here
I'm beginning to feel like a bit like George Cloony, well more like one of his characters. You know the movie where he spends all his life in airports. Melbourne, Hobart, Newcastle, Adelaide Darwin,Singapore,Bombay,Katmandu, and that's just the last month. I got into Bombay at 1.AM and had to wait 7 hours to get my flight to Kathmandu. I had hoped the lounge would be open but no luck there. I've been to Mumbai before and its not much fun trying to find a hotel room in the middle of the night. The airport is an hours travel from the centre of town. There is not much there, the Cricket World Cup is on, so I've decided to head straight to Kathmandu.
Life in India is a bit like swimming in a pool full of sharks with a life vest made of anchovies. Everyone's out to make a buck, which is just about the average daily income here. Last time I was here with Sal we left the hotel on the first day, for the 200 meter walk to the India Gate. In the room I had given her 100 Rupees ($20), out of the 1000 I had, "Why don't I get half". "When you spend that I'll give you some more" I said. As soon as we leave the hotel a pack closes in. Within 10 meters Sal has some flowers tied around her wrist by a cute little child, 20 meters on another around her neck. By 50 meters we have our own holy man installing red dots on our foreheads, and offering blessings. By the time we get to the gate we've attracted a woman with a baby and a swarm of children offering every thing from drinks to guided tours.I'm snapping pics of Sal surrounded buy the mob, It's a feeding Frenzy, the sharks swarm for the kill. Sal heads off to a nearby store to buy the kid some tinned baby formula. "Eighty bucks for a tin of formula, I didn't realise it was that expensive. I just gave her what I had left." she say's on return. It's a scam, I say. $15 Bucks in Oz.. We had been out of the hotel 10 Minutes, That,s why I didn't give you half I said as I handed her another 100 rups.
All I have to get from one airline terminal to the other, shoulden't be that hard. Bombay airport ( they've changed the city name but not the airport ) has had a complete rebuild for the Commonwealth games and the World cup. A bright shiny high tek terminal awaits me. Or at least it would in the real world. This is India, It,s 18 months behind schedule, the old terminal has been cut in half, and a huge 60 percent complete but useless building stands in the middle of everything. There's a bus from one terminal to the other.
The bus is broken, a young guy tells me. You need to catch a Taxi as the other terminal as it is on the other side of the airport. Funnily enough there is a taxi sitting right there. It's 2am, I'm tired, but I'm also a life long cynic who's never been able to get a taxi when he wants one. There is a pile of Indians with bags waiting around. "I'll wait" But the bus is broken he says. "I'll wait". The bus turns up and I get on. A 5 KM lap of the airport ensues, weaving through Planes, airport machinry, and building rubble.
I find the lounge and crash on a couch for a couple of hours. Then it's off to the check in. It's a bun fight. There is five counters open with about 15 people standing in line. Sorry I mean 15 families. Each has a trolley stacked high with bags. As they get to the counter they put the bags on the scale. The person travelling pulls out a ticket. There are five large suitcases with about Eighty Kilos of stuff. The woman behind the desk politely explains that the baggage limit is 20 Kg. Surly you can just let my bags through, the man asks. The woman tells him the cost of the excess baggage. Hysterics ensue, Outrage, pleading, begging and finally bribes are offered, all to no avail. One bag is checked, and the family take off with the rest to try and pack it all into his hand luggage. The people behind have all witnessed this, and you would think by now they realise there not going to get there extra bags on. No this is India. It's the same thing every time. This is all done in Hindi, but by the time you've spent an hour in the queue, you know what there saying. I get to the counter and collect my boarding pass, I only have hand Luggage. The airport wasn't built for the post 9 11 world so once you get through customs most of the terminal has been taken up by X ray machines. They are mostly used to stop Indians smuggling stuff that they want tax free back into India. One has been set aside to do outgoing baggage. Queue time again. When I finally get into the waiting lounge It's packed with about three times more people than it can handle, but at least I'm here.
Through the gate, into the bus, out to the plane, up the stairs, take my seat, I look out the window, I'm 20 meters from where I arrived, my planes still there. Well at least I can relax. From here it's a cake walk.
Fun at the Cranbourne Rodeo. The start of this blog. I was just a test to see if it worked. The good old days when Photobucket was usefull.
