week 3-5: a summary of sorts. part I

After the events of the first week, the next few were certainly more relaxed. This is when we explored our temporary home of Kathmandu. We learnt how to catch the bus to and from Thamel. Now this may seem very rudimentary (and it is) but since this was Nepal, it required the skill of an army black-ops personel at times.

For one thing, you had to find the right bus. You’d think this was fairly obvious. It wasn’t. There’s a guy who jumps out of the bus at all stops and announces where it’s going. The Nepalese way of “announcing” is to mutter so fast, that you sound like a rapper on speed. The place where we stayed was called Ja-wa-la-khel. A mouthful, but hey you’re in a foreign country. If you kept your ears open for that, you’d never find the bus. Due to the speed of muttering, what you hear is this: “Lakhel, La-khel, La-khel…” The only reason we put up with such confusion was the fact that each leg of the journey cost about 15cents.

It was also during this time that we experienced many culinary delights. Being in Nepal, we decided to eat…pizza. And pastries. And meat pie. And Japanese. We lived near the ex-pat part of town and hence there were many restaurants that catered to “ethnic” (from the Nepali point of view) cuisine. Due to the prices, you never saw the average Nepali even attempting to set foot in such places- they could have 10 meals for the same price. We thought it was cheap: about $5 for a decent, filling meal. Ah the exchange rate!

Eventually, we felt adventurous and decided to explore more “traditional” places. Like charcoal chicken (or in this case, the equivalent – Tandoori Chicken). It became a regular meal stop. It was cheap and filling and we, after all, were poor uni students. Our trips there continued, til the day that Jimbo found a fried maggot in his rice. We started to explore other venues then.
It was also during this time that we became friends with the meddie from America, Bonji and Bong, whom I’ve mentioned before, Jimbo’s high school friend from Melbourne, who independently organized the EXACT same trip as us. Many games of 500 were played. And cheat. No black-out or freezing weather could stop us! It was a time for great bonding. Too much bonding in fact…

This was because on the 3rd week, we decided to have a mini-party: just the people at the guesthouse + Bonji (who lived elsewhere). We ordered the food from a place nearby and ate contently while playing card games and chatting…just like the good ol’ days of 2 weeks ago. The next day, we were all sick. Like I said: too much bonding. The strange thing was, we all had different illnesses. I had a fever/cold/felt like shit. Bong had a fever, slept for 24 hrs was then fine. Lexy had something mild. Jimbo on the other hand, had more than his share of shit. Literally- he had food poisoning.

Due to this, our outings paled considerably in contrast to our first weeks. We basically stayed close to home and explored Thamel, the city centre. It is around this time that OR2K became our much beloved hangout. I swear I was mildly high due to the sheer amount of marijuana that was being smoked there! The coolest thing was, at one stage, they saw me enough (or were high enough) to let me put my own playlist together. So all of us sat there with a respective book each, inhaling the fumes and… reading. It was quite a sight.

Our ill-health continued for a while: 2 weeks nearly. In that time, we became quite touristy. We just took the bus/walked to nearby temples and shrines (and there are a lot by the way!) and ate at restaurants that were of better hygiene. On the note of temples, I’m surprised Buddha is portayed as a fat man. If he had been alive and visited all the temples dedicate to him, he’d look anorexic! I say this because it seems when planning a temple, the Nepali people say to themselves “hmm, what’s the highest and steepest we can find nearby? Oh that one! Let’s build a temple on top of it!” Or maybe it was their subtle way of telling Buddha “we like you and all, but we DON’T like heart disease, so while we’ll follow you, we’ll just burn calories too!”

Hey even they consider Buddha enlightened, not fit. Well they might, but that’s beside the point!

Tis getting to be a long post, so I'll stop here! For now...