Back in Kathmandu

Five and a half years ago I visited Sarah (my sister) who at the time was living in Kathmandu. Although I wasn`t there for that long, Nepal turned out to be one of my favourite countries. On the long bus journey from the Indian boarder to Kathmandu, I was filled with excitement and a little bit of anxiousness. I wondered what it would be like now, whether I would remember places and whether I would like it as much as I had before. I didn`t want to return and find I wasn`t so fond of it and have my previous memories a little saddened. I was also very tired.

The day had started in an unusual manor. I`d made friends with just the sort of travelling companion I need when coming to a city such as Kathmandu - someone who`s nice and friendly and who likes to aimlessly wander and even more importantly likes to try no end of different foods. But this wasn`t the unusual thing. We were sharing a room in quite a bizarre town on the Nepalese side of the Nepal / India border. Generally I`ve found that border are towns aren`t the nicest of places and this was no exception. It was even called Kakka something or other. And Kakka in many languages seems to mean sh*t (I hope people reading this don`t mind the use of that word, but this is the translation and I feel it would be wrong to change it, so I`ve replaced one of the letters with a little star). Anyway, this also was not the unusual thing. What was unusual was this. We were woken at ridiculous o clock by loud banging on our door. In sleepy confusion we weren`t really sure if it was our door, but a little later it happened again, and yes it most definitely was our door. We opened it and requested not to be woken again. But sure enough, a bit later the knocking again. This time they insisted we had to get up as if we didn`t we`d miss our bus. We checked our watches but we still had plenty of time so we sent them away... again. By this point we were too awake to get back to sleep so we sat up tiredly and ate cake. Then when we thought we still had 15 minutes before we needed to leave, we were disturbed by yet another knocking on the door. It really was getting beyond irritating by this point, well, actually it had long before this point. This time though we were told we had to leave right away. As usual our knowledge of the local language let us down and our door knocker couldn`t really speak English, but eventually we discovered that the time in Nepal is different to India. The difference is 15 minutes, and we`d had no idea at all. So then after being woken so early (I think people here must think everyone, or at least foreigners, need far longer than they really do to get ready) we were all of a sudden having to rush around as we really were about to be late for our bus. Of course when we got to the bus station and on to the bus, we had to sit and wait as the bus was late leaving anyway. Also we`d been sold tickets for a bus that was a little bit nicer and a little bit more expensive than the least enjoyable to ride bus. We`d chosen this option as it was a very long journey, this option would mean we`d be dropped where we wanted to be dropped rather than way out of town and in need of a taxi, and I`d got confused and thought we`d be on the bus overnight which we wouldn`t be at all. Anyway, our delightful ticket seller had succeeded in ripping us off as we discovered we were actually booked on to the least enjoyable to ride bus. Still, it wasn`t that bad, but when we arrived tired and in the dark into Kathmandu we did have to get a taxi to where we hoped to stay, and our driver didn`t have any idea where that was so it did take a while. So that was my first full day in Nepal.

For the next three days we had a wonderful time of wandering and eating and eating and wandering. Oh and of drinking too. We discovered two particularly amazing lassie places, so these were visited at least twice each day.

First I shall tell you about the lassies. These are drinks made of yogurt. Both places put lumps of some sort of cheesy / thick yogurt stuff on the top along with dried fruit. The cheesy / thick yogurt stuff may sound on the rank side but I can assure you that after the first time when it feels a bit weird, you realise this is just in your head and actually it tastes amazing and no lassie is complete without it. One of the lassie places did fruit lassies. So we`d go here each morning (and sometimes in an evening too), filled with excitement whilst having the very serious discussion about what fruit we would request to be added that day. You could even have a mix of two different fruits for the same price. It was quite some dilemma. Here you could sit on a little bench and drink your lassies and then when you were nearly finished the nice lassie making man would beckon for your glasses and top them up with the left overs. We did however discover that if you were a boy, or with a boy, then you never got these most important extras at the end. The other lassie place was just a little shop where you stood outside in the street to drink. At every minute of it`s opening hours the street outside was crowded by people in a mini sort of heaven on earth as they drank these most amazing plain but sweet lassies.　I am not able to tell you which lassie place I prefer. All I can say is that if you are in Kathmandu then both need to be visited regularly.

So to the food. Kathmandu not only can provide you with delights such as those lassies. It also has an immense selection of different and unimaginable foods on offer. And so many of these are foods that you can just buy a little of on your journey as you walk past their seller. They are also very cheap, so in all sorts of ways I feel it would be wrong not to try them. So, we tried plenty of little tiny sweet things, which could be described as sweet sized puddingy cakes. There is perhaps an infinite selection among the shops that sell them, which seem to be along almost every street you walk down. And so these had to be tried regularly. Mostly when we asked what they were, the same reply was told to us - they were "milky". They did not look milky but they did taste a little milky and they did also generally taste very nice. Sometimes they weren`t milky though and this always bought forth extra excitement. Then there were all the different pudding type things and a huge selection of fried things varying in their sweetness and deliciousness. There were bakeries full of normally underwhelming cakes. There were fruit juice stalls and all sorts of different fruits and vegetables to try. Then there were of course cooked meals and snacks sold from street stalls or cafes and restaurants. One thing we tried was a lump of what looked like hard cheese. We both imagined some sort of delicious strong cheese, but bought just one small lump to try between us at first. We tried to brake it in half and then bite it in half but we could`t even dent it. Then a kind man with a knife placed it on the dirty metal railing we were stood next to, and using all his strength he succeeded in chopping it in half. We thanked him and put the pieces in our mouths. We sucked and we chewed and we checked we really were supposed to be eating it, which we were, but all the same we could not do anything with it. It stayed whole and unchanged in our mouths. It didn`t taste of anything and so in the end we just spat it out. We call it yak bone though what it really is I do not know.

So, we were kept extremely busy. But this food sampling is a job that you can do, and admittedly is best to do, whilst wandering and exploring. So we also did lots of exploring.

We found beautiful temples often covered in pigeons. Some of which you could climb up their huge steps and sit at the top watching all that was going on below. We past people selling animals cut in half and also goats heads that appeared to be looking vacantly at you - their eyes and teeth and hair were all still very much there like they would have been if it was a whole goat and it was alive. We found lots of cows walking the streets, not as many as in India, but they were still clearly present and feeling top of the ranks on the roads. I found places I recognised from when I was here before, and even found the very first place I stayed at. All in all, returning to Kathmandu really was a very enjoyable time!