A Maoist protest in Pokhara.
The four of us together again!
Krishna firing some silver. In the factory across the street kids from India ranging in age from 10 to 20 work making knock-off designer bags. Every day they would ask us for a little bit, gesturing with their friends. A little bit of what we wondered?? We soon discovered it was chocolate they were after!
The cycle rickshaw race! FYI - that's not rain you see. They're dust particles that the camera's picked up. Kathmandu's a pretty polluted place and a lot of people walk around with masks on.I just want to start this post by saying thank you Dani, Tania and Krista. You guys managed to make Nepal an even more magical place for me and I didn’t think that was possible : - )
In case you haven’t already guessed, Kim and I were lucky enough to have three friends visit from home and the weeks spent with them in Pokhara and Kathmandu went by far too quickly for my liking. Can you guys come back please?!
Tania was the first to arrive and she did so in fine fashion, arriving during a bandh imposed by the Maoists. A bandh is a country wide strike where the roads are blocked and vehicles aren’t allowed to drive and all shops, schools and offices are closed as well. This particular bandh lasted for over one week and Tania was lucky enough to arrive smack dab in the middle of it, an interesting introduction to the country to say the least. She flew into Kathmandu at 10pm and I had been assured by her hotel that there would be a government bus with police escort there to greet her and other travelers to ensure they made it safely to their hotels and guesthouses. Kim and I were in Pokhara, a town 7 hours drive away or we would have been there to collect her ourselves. As it was I was only able to reach her briefly on her mobile while she was in the airport in Hong Kong to warn her about the situation otherwise she would have been none the wiser as no report of what was happening here in Nepal seemed to be making headlines elsewhere in the world.
In any case, the government bus wasn’t there to greet her as promised so she and another girl she met in the airport decided to take a chance and get a “taxi” to take them to Thamel where she had a room booked for the night. As she relayed to us later on the taxi driver drove with his headlights off through the winding streets and at one point saw a group of people up ahead and said something along the lines of “uh oh – this could be bad.” I’ve since been reading about bandhs in the Lonely Planet and this is what they have to say – “Don’t travel during bandhs or blockades and get very nervous if you notice that you are the only car on the streets of Kathmandu!” I’m pretty sure that they were the only car on the street at that time and I’m also pretty sure they were nervous as hell and rightfully so! What a crazy welcome to one of the most incredible countries in the world. Thankfully everything worked out and now Tania has a great story to tell. Thanks for letting me share it here!
Tania was supposed to travel the next day by bus to meet Kim and I in Pokhara but because the roads were blocked she took a flight instead which meant I got to see her even sooner which suited me fine! I should clarify here that the roads were closed, yes but that somehow didn’t apply to tourists travelling on Enzo the super Enfield. I think it would look bad if the Maoists attacked tourists (lucky for us) so tourists are given special leniency and because we have our own wheels we were still able to get around which was good because Kim and I were taking a 4 day whitewater kayaking course that started the same day the bandha was imposed and we were stuck half way between Kathmandu and Pokhara. We didn’t really want to have to drive the 5 hours back to Pokhara through mobs of angry Maoists wielding sticks but given that Tania was coming and there was no way to communicate with her from the river camp we decided to risk it and off we went armed with a sign written in Nepali that said – We are tourists and we need to make it to the Indian border as our visa is expiring so please let us through. As it turned out we didn’t have to use the sign but we did drive through two or three big groups who were happy enough to part and let us through once they saw our white faces.
Our time in Pokhara was spent mostly relaxing in our guesthouse garden drinking beers and catching up as the shops and restaurants were only open for two hours each evening between 6pm and 8pm. It was definitely a strange time to be in Nepal but we kept reminding ourselves how lucky we were that we didn’t live here and therefore had to deal with an unstable political situation time and time again. Nepal has a lot going for it; friendly people, massive mountains, beautiful rivers and ancient cities but the one thing that holds it back and causes unnecessary suffering to its people is the political instability. Their constitution was meant to be signed on May 28th of this year but with none of the parties able to reach an agreement they’ve deferred it for one more year. It’ll be interesting to see what happens and what this next year brings for the people of Nepal.
After spending almost a week chilling in Pokhara the bandha was lifted and we headed to Kathmandu to meet up with Dani and Krista who had been travelling in India. I met them at the airport because, after Tania’s crazy arrival, I thought it would be nice for them to see a friendly face waiting for them.
After catching up and a couple of nights of fun it was down to business, business being learning the tricks of the silversmith trade from Krishna at Golden Hands Designs. Tania and Dani own a jewelry business in Vancouver called byDania and they’d come to Nepal to hone their skills and make connections with people in the business overseas. Kim and I tagged along and the four of us spent almost two weeks together working every day at the factory designing and making pieces under the expert instruction of Krishna and his workers. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we had a lot of fun at the factory.
The factory is small, just big enough to accommodate Krishna, his two workers and the four of us. It’s located in an area not far from where we stay in Thamel and every day we’d walk and/or ride Enzo down, spend the day working, usually from 10am – 7, 8 or even 9pm and then we’d come back, meet up with Krista, have a drink in the garden and head out somewhere for dinner. This was always a bit of an effort as everything in Nepal shuts down early and by 10pm your options for eating are extremely limited. But, we never went hungry and we ended up having a few nice meals out, one that ended in a random encounter with Russians resulting in drinking cheap bottles of vodka until the wee hours. It should be noted that the wee hours here in Nepal means 1am!!
We did have one day off from the factory and we used that time to soak up the sights of Kathmandu. Our day started off with the scariest ever cab ride. Seriously, I feared for my life! This guy was a maniac and the fact that we were all nervously laughing our heads off only made him drive faster. We survived though and spent a few hours at Swayambhunath or the Monkey Temple which is a beautiful Buddhist stupa located on a hill overlooking the Kathmandu Valley. After that we went to Durbar Square which is in the centre of Kathmandu and is over 200 years old. It’s an incredible place with a very medieval feel to it. Then, to top it off, we took a cycle rickshaw ride back to our guesthouse. Dani and Tania paid their guy extra to get there the fastest so they won. Sneaky buggers!
There are so many memories that Kim and I will take with us from Nepal but our time spent with the girls tops the charts. Thanks ladies!
