31 October 1994 – Mahalaxmi Guest House, Kathmandu
Kathmandu! The very name conjures up adventure and mysticism. I can’t believe I’m actually here. It’s a place I longed to visit even before I knew where it was simply because of its evocative name. It is so good to be travelling again. It feels like weeks since I left home.
Our Royal Nepal Airlines flight was one of the most cramped I’ve ever been on. The decor was a lurid orange – not exactly conducive to a restful night. Luckily my Lilliputian legs don’t need very far to stretch. However, my seat mate was a rather large Irish man called Eugene (he’s now my room-mate) and I felt quite sorry for him, struggling to adjust his knees which jutted out at all sorts of awkward angles in the limited space. Since we were both travelling alone and are both naturally gregarious, we soon struck up a conversation.
‘Are you on an organised tour?’ asked Eugene.
‘No, I’m on a very disorganised tour. I’ve no idea where I’m going. I expect I’ll just make it up as I go along.’
We both pulled our guide books out of the seat pocket. We soon discovered that we both wanted to go trekking and had similar ideas of trek length and region but slightly different half-formulated itineraries. Eugene was determined to do as much of the Annapurna Circuit as possible in three weeks. I had also thought of this on a previous perusal of the guide book but abandoned the idea since it sounded too long, high, cold and difficult for wimps like me who are used to sub-tropical temperatures. I had shied away when I reached the bit about the dreaded Thorong La pass. Its 5,416m sounded a hell of a long way up. Lonely Planet had a long section on the perils of altitude sickness.
‘But,’ argued Eugene, brandishing his alternative to the Lonely Planet guide, ‘if you stop at **!@ and ??!! (names as yet completely unfamiliar and unpronounceable) and take four days to go over the pass instead of two, and then fly back from Jomsom if you’re short of time, then you’ll have done a more interesting trek than simply up the trail to Jomsom and back in the same amount of time.’
He sounded extraordinarily convincing. Maybe that’s what they call Irish blarney. Anyway, when we stopped for an hour in Frankfurt I was still wavering, but by the time we touched down in Dubai I had decided that if one is going to do something stupid, there is no point in doing it by halves. Although we still talked of it as a maybe, I knew that I was going to end up attempting the Annapurna Circuit. I left Eugene embroiled in the ‘intestinal troubles and parasitic diseases’ section of his guidebook and wandered off to browse round Dubai Airport’s vast duty-free shop. Sprayed myself with several dollars worth of Parfum d’été to mask the smell of sweat.
It was unbearably hot and stuffy on our orange plane and every time we were just about dropping off to sleep, a sweet stewardess in a sari came and prodded us awake to shove plastic plates of plastic food into the minute space between us and the seat in front. It was overcast as we approached Kathmandu. We craned our necks towards the window and just made out the tips of several Himalayan peaks jutting through the fluffy banks of cloud. The sun gleamed rosy pink on the snows and I felt delicious shock waves of excitement at my first sight of the world’s highest mountains.
We stumbled into Tribhuvan Airport jet-lagged and brainless and joined a series of queues – a good two hours’ worth. First came the queue to change money. The bank clerk was puzzled by the New Zealand woman ahead of me as she tried to explain why the name on her passport was different from that on her traveller’s cheques. He smiled delightedly in a flash of realisation.
‘Ah! Happy wedding!’
‘It’s happy divorce actually,’ the woman replied and Eugene and I sniggered.
There followed a lengthy snail-paced queue at passport control but the smiling stamper proved an antidote to the usual surly passport control men. The customs queue finished with us having our backpacks riffled and chalked upon by the customs men. We were then spat out into the big wide world.
Eugene and I agreed to share a taxi to Thamel, the travellers’ cheapo hotel centre of town but, being knackered and looking lost, we were easy prey for the hotel touts vulturing around the exit ready to ambush. The victor grabbed my bag and, promising us a cheap clean hotel room, barged through the clammering hoards towards a waiting vehicle. Since it was 6pm and dark with stiff competition for rooms from the contents of all the airport queues, we followed him. We were driven through congested streets full of potholes. We made out bright fruit stalls and little groups clustered round makeshift kitchens with flaring gas lights. The smell of petrol and kerosene permeated everything. Being catapulted into a third world city is quite surreal.
Mahalaxmi Guest House is in a quietish corner on the edge of Thamel. Being cheapskates, we are sharing a twin room. It’s basic but clean with a hot shower and a real toilet rather than the squat variety and Mana, our taxi man/guide/hotel owner seems friendly and pleasant. Revitalised by a brief rest and hot showers, we felt ready to venture out into Thamel in search of food, information, and potential trekking companions. You either love or hate South Asian cities. I find them vividly alive and am fascinated by the constant bustle of life led on the streets. This was Eugene’s first venture outside the developed world but, fortunately, he seemed captivated rather than horrified by everything. We wandered down narrow, dirty, slightly smelly streets dodging bicycles, stray dogs, rickshaws, and swarms of people peering curiously into tiny ‘sell everything’ shops. Everyone was small and dark. Even I felt tall and Eugene looked like a high-rise block plonked amidst one storey residences.
Two painted Nepalese eyes and a promising roof garden attracted us to Les Yeux restaurant. There was a great view of the street, dimly lit as there was a power cut (a not infrequent occurrence in Nepal). We spotted two girls from our plane so I did my brazen hussy bit and barged over:
‘Hmm. Excuse me. Weren’t you on our plane from London? We’re looking for a) people who’ve just come back from a trek and can give us lots of tips and info, or b) people who have just arrived and might want to come trekking with us, and I think you might be bs’.
Sarah and Amanda are friends from London and are trying to cram as much as possible into just two weeks in Nepal so are not up for a trek as long as the Annapurna Circuit. However, they were delighted to have some new company for a meal and there followed a most enjoyable evening. We swapped stories and travel plans, discussed the joys and pains of solo travel and laughed a great deal. Amanda turned on her recording walkman so I wonder how much of our conversation will be recorded for posterity. I ordered San Miguel beer (from the Philippines) and Sarah and Amanda were drinking Tiger beer (local plonk). We tempted Eugene to abandon his coke on the second round. I ate a rather good vegetarian moussaka although it did taste suspiciously similar to Eugene’s chilli con carne. Amanda and Sarah had dahl baht, Nepal’s national dish. I was tempted to order it but since it’s likely to be our staple diet for the next three weeks, thought I’d better benefit from Kathmandu’s cosmopolitan menus. As always seems to be the case with my crowd, we were last to leave the restaurant and had to be gently pressurised to go. Kathmandu is not, it seems, a city for dirty stop-outs!
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