Last weekend I was in Nepal with my parents, sharing the last three days of their package tour through India. I was really looking forward to a couple days of five star living, and to seeing the mountains. Ironically, however, I caught a terrible bug from being in a hotel with so many darn foreigners. So for the better part of this last week I was in bed with the flu, wondering why I ever abandoned my sub-tropical, filth-infested home for the bracing mountain air.
One thing I have learned: it is impossible to overstress the importance of travel companions with a similar metabolic rate. That is, the tour group we joined up with was mostly empty nesters and, as a consequence, they have reach that stage where you totally transcend base physical needs, food in particular. So the tour included breakfast at the hotel but then no rations for the next 8 hours! Despite my best efforts to get a muesli binge in early, I was starting to get a little peckish by our second Hindu temple and was practically fainting away by the time we were given free time to wander through an authentic Nepali traditional tourist emporium.
From what I could see through the haze of near starvation, Nepal has plenty of interesting architecture and is generally more approachable than India. All of the temples were very busy, which is not the case in Delhi. We saw several little boys on the way to get their sacred thread tied on—which is sort of like first communion for upper caste Hindus, except with a parade. The parade includes people carrying all the things that will be offered to the gods on your behalf, culminating in the sacrifice of an animal. Which I was very anxious not to have to witness.
Also, there has been a shortage of petrol and kerosene for about seven months now in Nepal. Apparently, this was because the Indian government started refusing to let tankers travel through its territory en route to Nepal because Kathmandu owes the Indians money for petroleum shipping. The finances seem to have been sorted out, so oil was supposed to be on its way. But a city between the India/Nepal border and Kathmandu had hijacked two tankers in the preceding days to force them to deliver oil to their community rather than driving it all the way to the capital. So now no more truckers were going to come into Nepal without a security escort.
The visible consequence of this was huge lines of cars and motorcycles for blocks & blocks. The vehicles were left in line to hold a spot for however many days or weeks necessary. Similarly plastic kerosene containers were lined up on the sidewalk, hundreds in a row. Ropes were run through the handles of twenty or so jugs, to discourage scrambling of the order. Also, my sister and I saw some kids burning tires while taking a taxis. They weren’t being very hardcore about it, but that is still a personal first for me – seeing tires being burned in protest of something, I mean.
The Himalayas are amazing. While I might in years past have felt very unhardcore & tacky flying in a little plane to get a view of the mountain peaks, I was spared these thoughts by the many recent books on the Everest climbing industry (eg). There were a bunch of trekkers on their way to Base Camp actually. Yuppie scum - seriously, why even bother climbing a mountain if you are going to have Sherpas and oxygen. (I am starting to feel a bit defensive about how long its been since I've done any cardio.)
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