Austin Peters in Nepal

date: Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 9:50 PM
subject: delays and festivals

Hi all,

Well, we were not able to get out of town as planned yesterday. Ashley got really sick and spent most of the night throwing up so she was not in the mood for an 8-10 hour bus trip on unpaved roads in a hot bus.  Instead we spent another day touring around kathmandu and visiting more temples and shrines and such. The monkey temple was particularly cool. As was the 40ft statue of golden Buddha.

Unfortunately today (tuesday) is Ho-li. The festival of colour. This holiday involves lots of water baloons which have been raining down on us from every roof top for the past week in preperation for the main event. Now today the water fighting is out of control and in addition people  paint faces of passers by with Tika, the usual Hindu red dot. But instead of just the dot you get your whole face and body painted. White tourists are at a significantly greater risk. In any case, there are no busses to the north coutry today so we have to wait at the hotel. The hotel staff is pretty insistent that it is not a good idea to go outside. Its not that its particularly dangerous, you just get very wet, and very red and it is perhaps not the best way to keep your only set of clothes clean.

The political situation is a different story. Yesterday riots closed one of the main streets through the university district of kathmandu. Its definitely time to get out of this city and into the mountais. A 10 O’clock curfew has been instated in the tourist district of Thamel where we are staying… but it is pretty relaxed. Not that there is much of a nightlife in Kathmandu what with 16 hour load shedding.

There is a rotating electricity schedule such that each district only gets power 8 hours a day in two four hour incriments. Last night we headed into a restaraunt amidst a huge bussle of people, and shops, bright lights and music like any major city on the eve of a holiday. But went off at 8pm and when we stepped out onto the street after dinner and a few drinks aroud 9:30pm it was mostly completely empty. Very dark with only small generator powered lamps and candles and a few garbage fires in the street gutters. Its kinda creepy but something we have almost gotten used to after four days in KTM.

Its a different kind of thing.

Trekking in Nepal

In any case. With any luck we will be taking an express bus to Dunche tomorrow and will start are trek then. This change in plans has probably bumped our schedule back a couple of days so returning on the 23rd is likely. That gives us one more full day in KTM to shop around and then prepare for the long trip home.

Namaste.