Well I have eventually arrived at Kathmandu, or as we locals refer to it: the city of temples...
I said I’d do it – and I did – tho’ must admit to being extremely fatigued and have had to give instructions to minions to keep an eye on me and see that I actually do get up tomorrow. Shouting, shaking, slapping and finally – if all else fails - the bucket of cold water...
It was very exciting flying into the Kathmandu valley – with the backdrop of the Himalaya on one side. The airport is pretty basic and getting out of it was a bit of a nightmare. Touts throng the entrance and in the guise of being helpful (whether one wants help or not) try and get ones’ attention and patronage for transport, hotels,... or whatever one has come to Kathmandu for.
As to be expected - Nepalese and Middle Eastern officials in the airports being equally obsessed with security - one kept getting frisked, having to remove shoes and have them x-rayed while wandering in socks, luckily I had put my trekking socks on ready, so was relatively comfortable in cool-max!. But it all adds up to make one feel like you’re constantly swimming against a tide of travel officials, customs, immigration; then - beggars, touts, street traders and con artists of various sizes (starting at aged 5 and over !).
I have experienced another situation of loss, I’m sorry to say. While being transported from the airport to our first stop-over at the Malla Hotel, Bunny managed to take off on her own! It must have been all too much for her, she was born in Thailand – and I assume that she just decided to go home! So – I was totally alone from that point. I can’t remember alot of detail about the arrival – but I know I was knocked out by the sheer volume of interesting scenes as we ploughed thru the Kathmandu traffic. So much to see that I have never seen before... people shaving customers outdoors on a patch of rough ground, women washing their hair in bowls in the streets of the city’s housing and shops, or at washing places dotted around the city – the same method of carrying out laundry duties and personal bathing that has been carried on over the many centuries. The citizens don’t seem to have washing machines! - I expect very few homes have running water. Doubtless it is cheaper to give your washing to a woman to beat against rocks than to sent it for mechanical attentions. Water for washing and cooking must be obtained from a pump. Women are also to be seen drying clothes near the river banks where they have been doing the family washing. God knows how they manage to get anything clean in this environ. Washing can be seen drying on unexpected clothes horses – on barbed wire stretched across a plot of land, or spread out over hedges or sparce stretches of green which may be some sort of grass, or what substitutes for grass. .
Everything is different here, it’s very grubby and primitive but also wonderful and exotic and vibrant and full of life.
The hotel where I spent the first two nights had most of the usual comforts - with the exception of an electrical system that can be tapped into via adapters, and the provision of ice for drinks – well, it’s God’s way of keeping me off the gin & tonic with a slice of lime (though which particular God in this pantheistic landscape ...).
Temperature
It’s not ‘too hot’ at this time of the year, roughly Spring, and the evenings can be quite cool – still, it was warm enough to wear summer clothing, for us Europeans, though many of the Nepalese don thick trad clothes, jumpers or coats as the afternoons mature. The weather was very pleasant during these first days and although we did witness several showers and at least two thunder storms , some days were really very hot and I managed to get sunburned quickly, my nose glowed for the first week and still looks a little red now.
Back at the airport the next day – for a small-plane flight around the summit of Everest, and along the ridge of the Himalaya. Read somewhere that it takes forever to get places by plane because of delays, and that would seem to be the status quo.
Later, in the city, a visit today to some ghats (stone steps) at one of the many rivers – which, because it’s the dry season, are mostly sandy banks with a lazy trickle of water, occasionally flowing into deeper stretches. The ghats are common accessories to many Nepalese and Indian rivers. The term describes a series of steps down alongide the riverbank, allowing convenient access to the waters. Many of these sites are used for ritual and in this case, cremation of the dead. I found the words of Alun Lewis’ poem – the Mahratta Ghats coming into my mind.
Kathmandu - City of affable dogs (and few, if any, cats), my first genuine greeting at the station had been from a cheerful mongrel pup around 10 months old, a smiley busy sort of off white and brown mixed mutt. Wagging a sturdy scimitar shaped tail all the while; he sniffed at my luggage hoping, no doubt, to identify something edible about my person. But was pleased enough to receive a friendly human voice and surreptitious pat (I knew I shouldn’t be doing this...but...) I wished I had some titbit to offer him, but this was hardly the time – I needed to find out where my contact was and my transport to the right lodgings before I got distracted or misled in the chaos of this arrivals free-for-all.
It seemed intrusive, crossing the bridge and standing at the banks of the river overlooking the burial rites. On one side of the bridge men were preparing funeral pyres while, upon a prepared couch of timber and kindling a saffron cloaked body was undergoing a religious ceremony attended by bearers carrying out the observations reverentially, one whom I took to be the deceased’s eldest son taking the lead, fulfilling his duties with devotion. There was something familiar about this ritual, despite the proximity to the reality of cremation, somehow there was nothing that made one feel – this is strange or not usual... I felt a common bond with the mourners who were surely distant strangers, but seemed part of me, of my species. The whole area of the ghats was thronged with spectators, like some lazy village event politely attended by scatterings of temporarily idle villagers. We moved across the bridge where there were different stages of ritual being enacted. Bodies were laid carefully on stone shelves beside the ghats, one sloping shelf supporting the body conveniently near the river’s edge - a complex ceremonial ritual was underway.
I was intrigued by the young teenage boys - like mudlarks - continually pitching something, like a fishing line, into the waters of the river and running along the marginal platforms of stone or the sandbags that mark the course of the river. I was uncertain as to what they were doing, occasionally skirting the stones or even wading in the murky waters with their mysterious lines. I looked through the camera's lenses - zooming in on the 'mudlarks' - yes, they were mudlarks! Trawling the dark shallows with what I assumed to be magnets - picking up , metal - coins, or, I mused darkly, even gold tooth fillings?
My interest in the mudlarks lead me to press the shutter, and as I did so - I realised that my shot had inadvertently included the image of two of the funerals of the deceased at that side of the bridge, loving attended by their families and friends. Somehow, I felt part of that ritual, reverently observed, while life in all its diversity continued, as ever, around these most auspicious of events.
I am mindful of the themes that have occupied my thoughts for some months: the briefness of human life, mortality, the passing of lifetimes that have made up my existence, my own mortality, my knowledge and awareness of my world, losses, echoes of loss, grief and its process, my life of separateness, making sense of it all...
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day ...
To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle ! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
It seemed intrusive, crossing the bridge and standing at the banks of the river overlooking the burial rites. On one side of the bridge men were preparing funeral pyres while, upon a prepared couch of timber and kindling a saffron cloaked body was undergoing a religious ceremony attended by bearers carrying out the observations reverentially, one whom I took to be the deceased’s eldest son taking the lead, fulfilling his duties with devotion. There was something familiar about this ritual, despite the proximity to the reality of cremation, somehow there was nothing that made one feel – this is strange or not usual... I felt a common bond with the mourners who were surely distant strangers, but seemed part of me, of my species. The whole area of the ghats was thronged with spectators, like some lazy village event politely attended by scatterings of temporarily idle villagers. We moved across the bridge where there were different stages of ritual being enacted. Bodies were laid carefully on stone shelves beside the ghats, one sloping shelf supporting the body conveniently near the river’s edge - a complex ceremonial ritual was underway.
I was intrigued by the young teenage boys - like mudlarks - continually pitching something, like a fishing line, into the waters of the river and running along the marginal platforms of stone or the sandbags that mark the course of the river. I was uncertain as to what they were doing, occasionally skirting the stones or even wading in the murky waters with their mysterious lines. I looked through the camera's lenses - zooming in on the 'mudlarks' - yes, they were mudlarks! Trawling the dark shallows with what I assumed to be magnets - picking up , metal - coins, or, I mused darkly, even gold tooth fillings?
My interest in the mudlarks lead me to press the shutter, and as I did so - I realised that my shot had inadvertently included the image of two of the funerals of the deceased at that side of the bridge, loving attended by their families and friends. Somehow, I felt part of that ritual, reverently observed, while life in all its diversity continued, as ever, around these most auspicious of events.
I am mindful of the themes that have occupied my thoughts for some months: the briefness of human life, mortality, the passing of lifetimes that have made up my existence, my own mortality, my knowledge and awareness of my world, losses, echoes of loss, grief and its process, my life of separateness, making sense of it all...
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day ...To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle ! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more;
it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
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