19 December

Journal from Kathmandu, 19 December 2007

I was definitely malingering in bed this morning. It was cosy, my nose told me that it was cold outside and even though ti was light the streets below my hotel were quiet. Besides I was having erratic dreams. When I eventually got myself out of bed it was in the hope that my headache might go off. I was glad that I had decided to leave the third bottle of beer unopened. As I showered in surprisingly hot water, I wondered what they put in Elephant Beer. Formaldehyde perhaps. I'll stick to San Miguel in future, I thought.

Setting out into the busy streets of Kathmandu, camera in hand, I found myself grinning stupidly to myself. It was still early and there weren't many people around, but here was plenty going off. School children, smart in their British style uniforms, were waiting for transportation to school. Butchers, their counters open to the street were doing a lively business, as were neighboring bike repair shops. I love photographing this sort of thing, although I am not sure why. I suppose that it is a continuation from the things I used to photograph when I first started photography -- the markets and streets.

More and more shops were opening up as I walked around. I took a shot of masks on a tourist trinket stall and was told photographs are free but that I should remember the shop and come bak later to buy. They had a huge amount of stuff, most of which was junk. I had to admire them for the amount of work they had to put in. If I had to unpack and re-pack that amount of junk every day, I think I wold take up something simple, like teaching.

After an hour of waking around my hands were frozen. There were gear shops all down the road near my hotel, so it was easy to buy a pair of gloves. I got a nice windproof pair of Mamuts for about the price of a beer. Not genuine I suppose, but definitely good value.

Snow Leopard's drier was half an hour late, understandable, given the state of the traffic. The roads are narrow and busy and the Kathmandu population has grown rapidly in the last 10 years, both in numbers and wealth. In another ten years the place could well ground to a complete stop. My driver explained that there was a fuel shortage, and that was why the roads were quiet!

Snow Leopard is run by Yankila Sherpa, an animated woman of about 55. The company has its origins in the research that was made on the snow leopard by Peter Matthiessen. Yankila's late husband worked with Matthiessen's team and later founded the trekking company.

Snow Leopard
snowleopard@trek.wlink.com.np
fax 977 1 443 4619
http://www.visitnepal.com/snowlprd

Yankila Sherpa was, until recently, a member of parliament and the minister of tourism and airlines. She talked at length about her business, the politics of Nepal and her ideas about tourism as I got colder and colder. Noticing that I was starting to shiver, Yankila had one of her workers bring an electric heater into the office. Placed within six inches of my legs this produced a comforting glow but proved completely ineffective against the cold draft coming from the wide open door. Only by risking immolation was I able to stave off a premature death due to hypothermia.

I was invited to lunch in a still colder room. Fortunately Yankila's son Samten invited me to go and sit outside in the sun for the second course. Samten, an economist by training, studied in Michigan and Delhi before moving back to Nepal to help run his mother's company. They are a successful family: Yankila's husband was a banker and their other son is an airline pilot working in Dubai.

Sitting in the midday sun, I started to warm up and we discussed things that we could do with the children when they come in march. The professionalism of the company started to become clear during the conversations and we talked about other ventures that we might work on together. We finished with a discussion of a summer trek in Mustang and me wondering if I could put together a summer tour for parents. Mustang sounds very special and is a particular challenge as it is both difficult and expensive to visit. The permit alone is US$ 900.

Dambar returned with me by taxi to Thamel. He checked through my gear and pronounced most of it fine for the trek with the exception of my balaclava. This was too old-school as far as he was concerned and he recommended that I go and buy a new windproof fleece hat. This was easier said than done -- there are many gear shops here, but sorting out the real stuff from the inferior copies is far from a simple task. Prices on hats ranged from Rp350 to Rp3500 and to be quite honest I couldn't tell the real stuff from the fakes. I settled for a Rp550 balaclava, which whilst not being particularly attractive, is at least helping keep my head warm in the restaurant.

Apart from hat buying, this afternoon I walked down to the Durbar Square. From the photographs I was expecting something absolutely huge. It was not, but I hadn’t realised at the time that there are several Durbar Squares in Kathmandu. Perhaps I should have bought a guidebook. As I walked around the stupa taking photos, large amounts of grain fell from the sky and pigeons flocked around me. Quite where this rice came from was a mystery. It fell from above, but there was nobody and nothing above me. I contemplated this phenomenon without resolution for a full five minutes before deciding that I must be mistaken. Then another huge fall of grain landed and I once more disappeared under a cloud of birds.

I ate at the Thamel restaurant, just down the road from my hotel. It is an attractive place in the eves of the building, with low tables and cushions on the floor. I ordered a selection of things from the menu and was told by the waiter that they didn’t go together, so he concocted a delicious menu around one of my choices. Before my food arrived the waiter brought me a small starter of some sort of nuts in a mixture of limejuice and spices -- quite delicious. With the meal he also brought me a tiny sake cup into which he poured an incredibly fiery brew called roxie. Goodness knows how strong it is but it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like those on the dead pig I photographed in the morning.
I leave in the morning on the early flight for Lukla and the start of the Everest Base Camp Trek. Almost everybody I have spoken to has sounded surprise that I am going to complete this particular trek at this time of year. But at least they have all agreed that it will be quiet in the Khumbu National Park.