Basu and the Roof of the World
March 18th
After ten weeks in India, we left this morning for the Kingdom of Nepal. Kevin would be spending just seven days there, before returning to Bombay and thence back to England. For myself, I was allowing for at least three weeks in Nepal before getting back to grips with India once again.
We had booked the coach trip to Kathmandu via the Garden View Hotel. Included in the Rs550 cost was a ‘free breakfast’ at the Hotel Most Welcome near the bus-stand. It was here that we came across a young Canadian girl, Poonam, who had been born in India and who still spoke perfect Hindi. As we strolled up, she was just in the process of mopping a thick layer of grease off her ‘free’ omelette with a wad of toilet paper. Following her example, we listened on as she gave us many helpful hints. One thing she particularly warned us against was the giving of money to child beggars. It only encouraged them to leave school early, she said, and left them no option later on but to take up begging as a full-time occupation.
After eight long hours on the bus, we reached Sonauli on the India/Nepal border. We passed quickly through immigration, customs and police check-points, filling out forms all the way, and then took stock of our surroundings. Our first impressions were not good. The whole area round the border was derelict, filthy and generally unsavoury. And our ‘free’ lodgings for the night – at the Nepal Guest House – were an absolute disaster. The food in its attached restaurant was undercooked, over-spiced (even by Indian standards) and totally inedible. Several of us got stomach problems there. A banana pancake I ordered arrived with no bananas on it. Kevin ordered a ‘banana split’, and that was precisely what he got – a lone banana, with a split down the middle. Then Poonam turned up weeping: she had just found two strange men sharing her room. ‘There is no problem,’ claimed the manager, with an arrogant grin. We suggested he put his sister or mother in a room with two strange men, and wait for them to tell him what the problem was. But he was intransigent. So we gave Poonam our own room, and slept in the open dormitory instead. It was full of restless, loudly snoring tourists.
Aggrieved by the manager’s attitude, I strode off into the dark for a quiet cup of tea. Before I knew it, I had wandered back into India. The border had been empty – no security, no police, no customs, nobody on duty at all.
Back at the lodge, a new friend – Trevor – recounted his collection of Indian ‘signs’. While some of the best had been on buses (e.g. VIDEO IS NOT CONDITIONED and NO STANDING ALLOWED), his favourite was a Bombay street sign which had requested: PLEASE DO NOT COMMIT URINE! I retired to bed in much better spirits.
March 19th
As we boarded the 8.15am bus to Kathmandu, the lodge waiter came out to rant and rave at us for not paying the breakfast bill. If he called the evil slop he had served us ‘breakfast’, we informed him, he was quite insane. I regretted having eaten any of it. My stomach began to feel queasy.
And as the beaten-up, battle-scarred bus began to pick up more and more passengers en route, my seating space became uncomfortably cramped. Nausea began to sweep over me, along with a dawning realisation of ill-health. I was aware of Nepal’s notorious reputation for sickness amongst travellers, but to be struck down on my very first day here – after such a good record throughout India – seemed so ridiculous that I determined to ignore it.
But I couldn’t ignore it for long. Four hours into our journey, we made our only stop for food. Kevin and I opted for a sumptuous feast of dhal, plain rice and raw chipped potatoes. I stood up afterwards, and felt a strange, slimy, shifting sensation in my stomach. Moments later, the entire contents of my guts slid uncontrollably into my trousers. I just stood there, with a cup of tea in my hand, unable to believe what had just happened.
Watched by a couple of curious Nepali children, I dived round the side of the restaurant and abandoned my splattered underpants. Then I climbed back on the bus, and tried to convince myself that six further hours on the bumpy roof with chronic diarrhoea wouldn’t be so bad.
Practically everybody on board had got on the roof of the bus by now. It afforded much better views. The route to Kathmandu took us up a series of narrow mountain passes, adjacent to which was a long, winding river. The only way to cross this rapid, powerful river was via the few frail rope bridges that had been thrown across. Ascending the passes, the bus skirted sheer-drop precipices at every turn and the grey-black foothills and mountains grew ever more formidable – until, at last, they blotted out the sun. With this, the wind blew icy and cold, and everybody on the roof stopped singing jolly songs and began to freeze to death. Prepared by the Patna-Nalanda run, I climbed into a sleeping bag and donned a thick sweater. Kevin was so desperate, he laid hold of a motorcycle helmet and strapped it round his head to keep his ears warm. The rest of him froze solid.
At one point (thankfully) the bus stopped for a flock of vagrant sheep, and I toppled gratefully off the roof, my trousers round my ankles, and helplessly squitted in a ditch. Looking up, I saw a whole bus-load of impassive Indian faces gazing at me with polite interest. I motioned ‘Toilet paper?’ at them, but none was forthcoming so I had to use dirty leaves from the roadside instead. I was so sick, I was beyond embarrassment.
We came into Kathmandu at 6.30pm, with grinning Nepalis clambering all over us and a sick woman liberally spraying vomit over every single passenger.
Off the bus, I wanted only two things – a room to go away and quietly die in, and a chemist to give me something to make it painless. A friendly tout tuned up to guide us to lodgings. But at the New Diamond Cottage, it soon became plain that he was a compulsive liar. Everything he’d told us about this place to get us here was a figment of his imagination. There were no single rooms, only doubles. There was no ‘24-hour hot shower service’, only an overhead tap in the toilet with a thin, irregular dribble of cold water. And the hotel owner wasn’t a Gurkha Buddhist at all, but a Brahmin Hindu. The owner apologised for our having been brought there under false pretences, and gave us a reduced room-charge. He told us that the touts who brought him business received 50 per cent of each placement, so that it was little wonder that they resorted to such incredible fibs to attract tourists.
I collapsed into bed at midnight. By now I was running a high fever. Only two things consoled me: it was refreshingly cool up here in the mountain valley, and there wasn’t a mosquito in sight. Being ill in Kathmandu was going to be a breeze compared to India!
March 20th
Having left instructions for my burial with Kevin, it was a considerable surprise to wake up this morning. My limbs still felt like water, but I would survive. Giving way to a fit of optimism, I went down to the Central Immigration Office to arrange a trekking expedition into the foothills of the Himalayas. I figured this would give me an excellent reason for getting well again.
I obtained the standard seven-day trekking permit with ease. All they wanted was my passport, two photos, and proof that I had enough Nepalese money to survive up in the mountains should disaster strike. The whole thing took barely ten minutes. But if I thought this an improvement on Indian bureaucracy, I had yet to experience Kathmandu’s Tourist Information Centre. This gave me no information at all. The centre was manned by a bored, resentful youth who deflected every question or request I made with practised ease. I came out no wiser about Kathmandu than when I went in.
Walking round, I began to draw my own conclusions. On the surface, the city appeared smart and clean. But the backstreets were absolutely filthy. Just off the spic-and-span main road, New Street, for instance, there was a butcher’s shop with flyblown goat heads and bleeding cow legs on display in the window. Past the front of the shop flowed a gutter full of liquid faeces and offal. Another contrast was presented by the apparent respect for the smart, efficient-looking police and military force. I say ‘apparent’, because every Nepali we met in fact loathed the heavy presence of the military. They only put up with them because they defended the King, who is something of a major deity in Nepal.
The people of Kathmandu were a source of constant fascination. Even when they hassled for business or money, they did it with such charm and humour that you simply couldn’t take offence. The children I saw were all happy, all laughing and all mucky and snot-nosed. They seemed particularly fond of running up and down the backstreets, guiding large wooden hoops along with small metal sticks. The Nepali men generally passed by in small groups, each of them smiling brightly and wearing their fez-like topis. As for the women, they were usually walking around with a large troop of tiny slant-eyed children in tow. These women were nearly all beautiful, and nearly all pregnant. They appeared a good deal more open and friendly than the women of India, and the relationship between the two sexes here in Nepal seemed altogether more free and natural.
Each of Nepal’s three royal cities – Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur – has its own Durbar Square, where all the main pagodas, temples and religious monuments are concentrated. The one in Kathmandu I found teeming with action and people – mainly Tibetans, Nepalis and Gurung mountain-folk in native dress trading in gems, knives, prayer-bells and others curios of tourist interest. There were also a number of tailors and clothes shops in this area, and a resident contingent of local musicians. Every one of them I listened to was performing ‘Frere Jacques’. It was the only tune they knew.
This evening was a revelation. We came into Freak Street (so named because of its high population of hippies and spaced-out people) and found the Oasis Restaurant. Kevin went quite pop-eyed when he entered: all around him were display tables loaded with fresh apple pie, quiche Lorraine, banana cake and other culinary delights. After months of deprivation in India, it was almost more than he could bear. He gave a short grunt of disbelief, and ordered impossible helpings of everything in sight. By the end of the meal, we were both speechless. Kevin was in his seventh heaven. And I finished my repast with a ‘Double Night-Life Special’ (hot lemon laced with Khukri rum), which provided this excellent feast with the perfect complement. We retired to bed in the highest spirits for weeks.
March 21st
Travelling back to the Durbar Square by bicycle this morning, we met another of the friendly one-string fiddle players. This one wanted to sell us his fiddle. Kevin told him he had already bought a kerosene bicycle lamp (a most peculiar purchase) and that he had no money left. But the fiddle-player wasn’t deterred. He began playing his instrument as thought his life depended on it. And he didn’t just play ‘Frere Jacques’ either. He knew practically every Nepali folk-song going the rounds. A crowd of smiling locals gathered to listen to this charming performance with us. It was very good. But we still didn’t buy the fiddle.
In Kathmandu, nearly every day is a festival of some sort. Today, the Godejatra (Festival of the Horse) was being celebrated. The streets were lined with laughing, mucky-faced children eating rice in leaf-plates, as between them passed a colourful performer twirling a long pole surmounted by top-knots of horse hair, as well as a small troupe of drum and flute players. We were just admiring this when Kevin spotted the Gurkha soldiers. They were passing by on parade. Kevin upped and bolted over to the sergeant, begging him for a photograph. To my great surprise, the sergeant brought the whole troupe to a halt, snapped them to attention, and let Kevin get his photo before marching them all off again.
What really made Kevin’s day, however, was his purchase of an authentic Gurkha knife. And the manner in which he obtained it was quite extraordinary. One minute, he was sauntering indolently round the quiet Durbar Square, making casual enquiries about a souvenir pocket-knife to take back home. The next, he was surrounded by a bristling phalanx of traders, all urging him to buy the largest, most deadly blade possible. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Looking across the square, with all those knives being whipped out and flourished in the glinting sun, it seemed to me that Kevin was on the point of being murdered. Rushing over to his assistance, I found him instead in ecstatic top form.
‘Look what I’ve bought!’ he exclaimed jubilantly. ‘It’s a knife!’ I stared at it. It was more than just a knife. It was in fact the most scary-looking executioner’s hatchet I had ever seen. Kevin told me it had cost him just £22, and began waving it experimentally in the air. Everybody instantly stood well back.
Back in our room, I was just having a quiet doze when I heard a strange sound in the background – something like a regular thok...thok...thok. What was Kevin up to? I opened one eye to find out. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, hunched up like a garden gnome, methodically chipping bits off his wooden washing-brush with his new knife. The brush stood end-up on the ground, and the brutal blade was whistling down on it in a flashing arc of moving death...only to stop short a moment before each impact and chip a tiny sliver of wood away, in preference to hacking a huge hole in the floor. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked Kevin. He looked up, surprised. ‘I’m trying out my new knife, that’s what I’m doing!’ he retorted. And then he went back to work. By the time he was finished, the wood-block had been reduced to a neat little pile of wood shavings on the floor.
Later on, we went down to the Ratna Park to see the military horse-riding and acrobatic display, which was to be opened by the King of Nepal. But the King forgot to turn up, so the display never started. What an unfortunate lapse of memory on his part! The huge crowds outside the stadium turned increasingly ugly, and the police were forced to wade in and start cracking many heads with the long wooden stanchions called ‘lathies’. It was a scene of total chaos.
March 22nd
As I popped the first ‘beedi’ (Indian cheroot) of the day into my mouth, I suggested that we celebrate my return to good health by spending the whole morning in the Oasis Restaurant. Kevin glanced briefly up from his resumed woodwork classes with the Gurkha knife, and smiled happily.
Kevin’s ‘breakfast’ didn’t finish until lunchtime. I let him go ahead, did my morning chanting, then wandered down to the Oasis. By the time I arrived he had already packed away a huge platter of omelettes, toasted sandwiches and banana cake. Then he decided to start all over again, just to keep me company. ‘I couldn’t possibly eat another thing!’ he declared as I sat down, ‘Now where’s the menu?’ By noon, Kevin was absolutely glutted. He sat opposite me holding his stomach, he eyes glazed right over and an idiot smile on his face.
The problem with Kathmandu, we decided today, is that it simply eats up money. We spent the whole day spending: on irresistible food (mainly cakes and confectionery), on attractive clothes and souvenir curios, and on entrance fees to temples. The very worst place we found for expense was Durbar Square. To linger here for an hour or so was to invite trouble, for a whole week’s money disappeared before you knew it. Kevin accused me of trying the buy up the whole of Freak Street.
We also paid a quick visit to the unique Kumari Devi, an 18th century red-brick building full of exquisite wood-carvings, in which the famous Kumari (‘living goddess’) is housed. She is a young girl, always a virgin, who is hardly ever seen. She apparently only emerges from her secluded prison to bless prospective kings of Nepal, or to tour the city at the end of each monsoon. At puberty, the current Kumari is replaced by a younger one. The new Kumari is selected by placing ten small girls in a small locked room and frightening them to death for a whole night. The infant who is least paralysed by fear in the morning becomes the new Kumari.
March 23rd
Today was another festival in Kathmandu. This one was in honour of Hanuman, the Monkey God. The occasion was marked by twenty young men weaving drunkenly round Durbar Square carrying a huge effigy of Hanuman on a flower-decked chariot. Such was the weight of this thing that the carriers had no idea of where they were going. Before they had reached the end of the square, they had mown down one itinerant beggar, two stray flute-sellers, and finally a sleeping policeman who lay across their path. Then, as the wild panoply of noise and colour reached its climax, one of the youths – a giggling, bug-eyed character – detached himself from the carriage and snatched up a duck from the roadside. The duck didn’t know what hit it. One second it was strolling along the gutter minding its own business. The next, it was being hoisted up in the air by its feet and stuck under the processional chariot. As it squawked and flapped away in furious protest, everybody nearby clapped and cheered raucous appreciation. The duck was evidently a necessary addition to Hanuman’s curious retinue.
Back in Freak Street an even stranger sight came into view – two young Nepal boys break-dancing on the pavements. Both wore leather jackets, tight trousers and dark sunglasses. They were both chewing gum and trying to look as ultra-cool and as much like Michael Jackson as possible. As time went on, we noticed more and more Michael Jackson clones wandering up and down the street. By the evening, we had learnt that Michael Jackson was, after the King of Nepal, the single most popular person in Kathmandu. The city was littered with Michael Jackson lookalikes, T-shirts, records, cassettes, stickers and badges; everyone here seemed to revere him as some sort of gum-chewing, highly fashionable Messiah.
March 24th
Getting up at 5am, Kevin and I walked down to the bus-rank by Bhimsen Towers, and bid our final farewells. Kevin dearly wanted to go on with me, but he was just about out of money. So his coach for Varanasi went in one direction, and my bus for Pokhara went in the other. For the last thirty days of my tour, I would be travelling alone. Or so I thought...
It was eight long hours later that the crowded, uncomfortable ‘luxury’ bus deposited me in Pokhara, at the foot of the Himalayan mountains. My backside was destroyed. A fellow passenger assured me that things could have been much worse, for had I taken the cheaper ‘local’ bus, I might well have arrived with no backside at all!
A wiry, grinning Nepali cycled up to me at Pokhara. He introduced himself as ‘Juggernaut’, and put me up in a private hut in the middle of a potato field for just eight rupees. Then he brought in a friend of his, Basu, who offered to be porter and guide for my forthcoming mountain trek. Basu was a clear-skinned young Nepali with a shock of black, greasy hair who smiled a lot. He agreed to take me up to Poon Hill, which affords one of the best views of the western Himalayan peaks, and then back again for a daily rate of NR40. We didn’t discuss whether or not this rate included his meals and accommodation. This was a bad mistake.
Returning from the popular Baba’s Restaurant, which looks over onto Pokhara Lake, my torch batteries suddenly gave out and I tripped over something in the dark road. It was a bookshop owner, who was lying here with his leg in plaster. He told me that he had broken it the day before in a glass factory. I asked him why he wasn’t in bed, and he replied that his injury was good for business. ‘If I am lying here like this,’ he confided, ‘people are feeling so sorry that they buy my books to make me happy!’
With no torch, finding my way back to the potato field in the pitch-dark was fraught with difficulty. It was not long before I stumbled knee-deep into a muddy quag at the side of the road, and resigned myself to the loss of yet another pair of precious socks. Another twenty minutes passed before, squelching my way miserably round the potato field, I happened on my small hut. I fell asleep, fully clothed and damp, as soon as my weary head hit the thin, dirty pillow.
March 25th
Having completed an excellent ‘Big Breakfast’ at Baba’s, Basu and I hitched a lift into Pokhara Town from a passing Swedish resident in a jeep. Then, in view of our late start this morning, we opted to take a further jeep on to Suikhet instead of making the dry, dusty and dull five-hour trek there by foot.
This jeep ride was like taking part in a stock-car rally. The sturdy little vehicle charged relentlessly over pitted dirt-tracks, ploughed over rock-piles, plunged down into river gorges, and finally aqua-glided over rushing streams before depositing us, some two hours later, in the tiny trekking outpost of Suikhet.
On this journey I had two companions from Seattle, USA. Both of them sounded exactly like Henry Fonda. The three of us spent the bone-crunching trip with bandanas tied over our mouths and throats, to keep out the clouds of dust blowing regularly into the jeep. Basu, and the other Nepali passenger, looked at us mystified. They didn’t seem to think this expedient necessary.
Basu’s indifference to the dust had him coughing and blowing gouts of phlegm into his tracksuit sleeve the whole journey. As we alighted, shaken and breathless, from the jeep I realised that he had come down with a stinker of a cold. I asked him whether he wasn’t better off back in bed, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The ghost of a brave smile passed over his pale, fever-racked features, and he moved on ahead.
Tucked away at the foot of the mountains in a dry valley bed, Suikhet town seethes with all the pioneering activity, and all the raw, rugged energy, of a Wild West trading post. Here, around the few rough eating-houses and lodges, local pilgrims, trekkers, mules, guides and porters laugh, and shout, and jostle each other cheerfully as they prepare to head up the mountain trails. The whole place is quite electric with the excitement of impending adventure.
From Suikhet (3,650ft above sea level), Basu and I set up the steep, rough-hewn stone stairway that marked the start of the trekking trail, and came one hour later to the lively little hill-village of Naudanda (4,675ft). It had been a hard first climb, and I took a glass of lemon tea to replenish lost perspiration. Naudanda’s dry, dusty street was alive with goats, lambs and chickens, all running wild. By the roadside, local women – heedless of shame – bathed naked to the waist. Everywhere else, mucky, tousled children ran about, begging ‘sweeties’ from visiting trekkers and shyly picking their noses as they awaited a response.
I was just emptying my pockets of chewing gum for them when my meal arrived. It was a bowl of tepid, green curried water with two spinach leaves floating in it. The waiter called it ‘vegetable soup’. I called it inedible slop. A faint sparkle appeared in Basu’s moody, feverish eyes. His look dared me to eat this thin gruel, and to enjoy it. I let him eat it instead.
The warmth and companionship of the trekking trail soon enfolded me in its friendly embrace. All along the dry, dusty path, passing travellers shouted jolly greetings of ‘Hello!’ or ‘Namaste!’ – welcoming me into the camaraderie of the trekking circuit. I picked my way along the narrow trails, and soon noticed the long mule trains carrying heavy climbing equipment and trade goods up into the mountains. The ‘lead’ mules, wearing twice as many bells at the others (along with long feathered head-plumes), were instantly distinguishable.
Coming up towards Khare (5400ft), I began to take in the magnificent scenery. Way down in the valley below, Lake Phewa wound and glistened like a jewelled snake in the reflected light of the noonday sun. On the hillsides, women threshed wheat with powerful strokes of long cane sticks. Opposite, on the shaded mountain, slate-roofed Buddhist dwellings nestled in tiny rock clefts. Aged, wrinkled grandmothers walked up the track, bearing impossible burdens of firewood and fuel. An English-run ‘nursery’ for fresh fruit and vegetables appeared, set up on the edge of the slopes to catch optimum sunlight. And all around lay the massive black mountains themselves. Dark and forbidding, encircled by heavy mist, these sleeping giants awoke now and groaned in pain, as the warship prows of massed rain clouds clashed in wrath over their tranquil peaks, their wounded tears streaking downwards to bring, at long last, rain to the dry, cracked river-bed valleys below.
I had just left Lumle (5300ft) when the first drops of rain began to fall. And I welcomed the slight drizzle, for it tied the dust down to the trail and drove the close heat from the air. I came into Chandrakot soaked, yet refreshed. A look at the dark, lowering sky told me that a real storm was, however, not far away. Consequently, Basu and I agreed to remain the night in Chandrakot.
This was a small, quite primitive, village with just one or two lodges for travellers. Like most of the other buildings in town, the simple chalet we stayed in constructed mainly of wood, with some labs of mountain rock included, and the roof was neatly tiled with thin, resilient sheets of slate. Like most trek lodges, we were charged just Rs2 (five pence!) each for our tiny, bare dormitory cells, but were expected to eat all our food there.
I was becoming worried about Basu. He was getting more woebegone by the minute. As we sat down to supper, and as he studied me with hangdog hopeless dejection, I wondered again where his big smile had gone. I hadn’t seen it since leaving Pokhara. To make matters worse, there was no electricity up here in the mountains, and a long, gloomy evening sitting in the dark, unable to read or write, was an unbearable prospect. Soon, the sun’s last rays faded over the storm-dark horizon, giving a last brief glimpse of the two ice-streaked giant peaks nearby. They reared up from the inky depths of the black hills like twin white whales, wreathed in a spray of ice-white mist.
I was saved from an evening of silent mourning with Basu by the unexpected arrival of two boisterous New Zealanders. They kept me entertained with stories of their travels late into the night. They were so entertaining indeed, that the lodge owner joined us, together with his three young sons. Everybody, including the children, were soon busily rolling up hash cigarettes and passing pipes of peace. A very mellow evening was had by all. Except poor Basu.
March 26th
Travelling up this damp, chill climate dressed in just a thin tracksuit, and armed with no sleeping bag, is not a sensible action for a mountain porter. Especially a porter with a bad cold. Consequently, Basu woke up this morning with double-pneumonia. It didn’t seem to concern him at all. As he coughed and shivered his way downstairs to me, the only worry he had on his mind was his food and lodging bill. He wanted me to pay it.
This request came as a surprise. I had thought Basu responsible for his own expenses. Further, I had already spent nearly half the NR450 in local currency which I had brought on trek, most of it on buying Basu expensive fizzy drinks. When I explained my situation to him, he just shrugged and showed me his empty pockets. With a sigh, I paid his lodge expenses and told him to go home to bed. I wouldn’t be needing his services anymore.
Proceeding on down the trek trail by myself, I took one look back. Basu was still standing where I had left him, staring after me. And his face hadn’t changed. It still wore the same shocked look of surprise as when I had told him I was going on alone. He seemed to think I was crazy.
For the first few hours, I would have agreed with him. After almost getting trampled to death by donkeys and nearly falling off the cliff-face a couple of times, I began to realise how dependent I had become on following a guide’s practised footsteps. With a heavy rucksack on my back, and little experience in negotiating the treacherous, crumbling rock paths, my trek suddenly transmuted from a jolly holiday into a gruelling forced march. It took me some time to realise the advantages of travelling alone – namely, that without a guide, one is not only saving money, but also able to rest where and when one likes, as well as meeting a lot more people. At first, however, all I could think about was survival. If you have an accident way out here, I had heard, the only way to get back home alive is to send out to Pokhara for a helicopter pick-up. I couldn’t even afford a messenger, let alone the helicopter.
Having battled through the mule-trains, I came down the steep bath into Birethanti (3400ft). Then my heart stopped in my mouth. Way above me, my next objective, Hille (4800ft), towered a daunting two-hour climb up a sheer rock face. By the time I reached it, I was bathed in sweat and barely able to stand. Hille was a quiet place, a small Gurung-type native village with just a few empty cha-shops, wood shacks and traveller’s lodges to its name. Coming into it, the dust-caked rock trail gave way to neatly layered stone paving. Packs of mules stood tethered in small corrals, resting after their hard climb. Elsewhere, a couple of ponies were rolling about in the dry dust. Red, white and blue flags fluttered on long bamboo poles, painted with prayer inscriptions. Hille was evidently a Buddhist village.
Feeling filthy but determined, I pushed on into the wild, rugged hinterland, beginning now to savour the pleasure of not having Basu around. Crossing over the charming rope-bridges at Tirkhedhunge (4900ft) indeed, I was actually enjoying myself. But then I looked up...and...up...and up, searching for the next point on my route. It was Ullere, a dizzying 2000 feet above me, at the top of a mountain. And the ascent was one sheer, unrelenting slog. It never levelled out at any point. Even passing pilgrims, on their way to Muktinath Temple, were having problems with it. Seasoned climbers all, they were without exception fagged out. A red-faced, sweating Australian chap passed me, going down. ‘What a sod!’ he puffed as he drew alongside. ‘I tell ya, mate, I’ve climbed them all: Jomsom, Dhaulagiri, many other major peaks. But this bastard takes the biscuit!’
This climb finished me for the day. The views it provided, however, were spectacular. Rippling yellow harvest of corn and wheat stretched out below. Natural waterfalls gushed out of gashes in the mountain walls. Vast, yawning gullies dipped down into dry river beds. Meadows and fields shimmered gold and green in the glint of the sun. This was all very beautiful. But nobody I met who had done this climb ever wanted to do it again.
I had been trekking some seven hours when I finally came into Ullere. I took a room at the Annapurna View Restaurant and collapsed on its veranda to die. Here I met the only other guest, a Dutchman called Joseph. He congratulated me on arriving just in time. ‘Just in time for what?’ I croaked. He pointed at the lowering sky and told me that a bad storm was coming. And he was right. Minutes later, the heavens gaped and the rain came down in sheets. Twenty-five other travellers crept into the lodge as evening approached. Every one of them was soaked to the skin.
The storm raged through the night. We sat under a canopy on the veranda to watch it. The black clouds crashed together like titans, sending claps of violent thunder rolling over the hills, and brilliant sheets of white lightning ripping open the dark canvas of the night sky. It was the most incredible natural firework display any of us had ever seen, and it sent the village dogs crazy. They howled their anguish right through the night.
I ate my evening meal of ‘dal bhat’, boiled eggs and curried vegetables in very mixed company this evening. Around the dim, candle-lit table were ranged travellers from France, from Switzerland and Germany, from Holland and Belgium. Few of us could speak each other’s language, but all of us had by now discovered the lodge’s unique ‘outside toilet’ and this provided a humorous conversation piece which transcended all national barriers. This outside loo was located in a small hut on the edge of a precipice, and the lodge owner wouldn’t let you use it unless you promised to lock yourself in with a special key. Everybody thought this odd, but they understood his concern once inside. The loo was just two parallel blocks of wood laid either side of a big hole in the floor. You went in, squatted down on the blocks, felt the gust of chill air wafting up your nether regions, looked through your legs, and watched the bottom fall out of your world for a sheer drop of two thousand feet! The reason for locking the door was obvious. Any unwitting interloper who swung it inwards when you were squatting over that hole was certain to knock you off your perch and straight down it. And that would be a one-way trip to oblivion. With your trousers round your ankles.
March 27th
Last night’s rain had washed the mountains clear of mist, allowing a magnificent dawn view of Annapurna II summit from the lodge veranda. I watched this with Joseph, and with two friendly young Germans, Peter and Thomas, before setting off with them up to Gorephani Pass (9300ft).
This section of the trail was very attractive – full of red rhododendron and white orchid trees, with much greenery. Reaching the Pass some three hours later, I waited for the others to catch up and sat down to take a leisurely look at the rich red blooms of the rhododendron forest surrounding me. The sun was now high in the sky, sending sharp shafts of light through the dark shroud of arboreal gloom and illuminating the tranquil, sleeping woodland. Apart from the distant tinkle of mule-train bells, all was quite silent.
Reaching the Riverside Lodge at the back of Gorephani Pass, Joseph, Peter and Thomas became transfixed by its roaring hearth fire, and could not be persuaded any further onwards. Consequently, I climbed the final leg to Poon Hill (10,500ft) alone, and took lodgings at the Hilltop Lodge near the summit. This guaranteed me a good early view of the mountains the following morning.
I was the Hilltop’s last guest of the day. Moments after my arrival, a dense blanket of mountain mist swept over it, rendering it quite invisible to any further prospective customers. I was glad I had made the effort to reach this place – it also had a lovely, roaring log fire and I made friends with a young Canadian couple, Nick and Lorraine, who were ‘collecting’ memorable Indian signs. One of these, seen at Jodhpur rail stations, had a picture of man carrying a suitcase, followed by three small children blacked out by larger crosses. TRAVEL LIGHT! cautioned the sign. PLAN YOUR FAMILY! Elsewhere, Nick had come across a sign outside a Hindu temple instructing women having their periods to clear off. DO NOT ENTER WOMEN DURING MENSTRUATION! it cautioned.
As we all huddled over the warming fire, another fierce storm blew up. This one also raged through the night. Hailstones the size of eggs rained down on the thin tin roof of the lodge, making an incredible din. There was, however, one compensation. The storm, we knew, would certainly clear the mist for a perfect view in the morning.
March 28th
Everybody in the lodge was up early this morning, and trudging up the final twenty-minute ascent to Poon Hill’s observation platform. Minutes after arriving here, came the dawn. The first rays of the rising sun pierced the horizon, striking the summits of Mt Dhaulagiri, then Annapurna I, then each of the lesser peaks in turn, illuminating their shaded peaks with an intense blaze of white light. Then the sun itself rose, a stately orange-red fireball, and the dark mask of shade over the landscape’s visage was pulled aside, revealing thick forests of cherry-red rhododendron blossoms for as far as the eye could see below.
The whole range of western Himalayan peaks were now exposed, each of them shining forth with crystal clarity. As the eye travelled from right to left, Mt Macchapuchhre, then Annapurna I, then Nilgiri, and finally Dhaulagiri glistened ice-white against the dawn sky, with a whole vista of less prominent peaks interposed between them. All of us up on the observation point – our cares and worries and aching limbs forgotten – knew we were seeing one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
I returned to the lodge in excellent spirits, and took a good breakfast of porridge and honeyed Tibetan bread. Then I set off back towards Suikhet, on a return route that would take me an estimated three days. My estimate, however, began to suffer as soon as I ascended the black hills overlooking Gorephani Pass, and entered the notorious rhododendron forest blocking the route to Ghandrung. If you lose the trail here, say many travellers, you may never find it again. And I could well believe it. A short way into the thick forest, the trekking trail simply peters out and dies. More accurately, it splits off at regular intervals into a wide fork of false trails, most of which lead precisely nowhere.
My natural sense of direction being very poor, I was soon lost to the silent, smothering grip of the forest. A chill went through my heart, for I could see no way of getting out the other side. Then, at the point of total despair, I heard the sound of an axe in the distance, and traced it over to a lone woodsman who gave me a good set of directions. Without them, I might have been wandering that forest for hours, even days, making no progress whatsoever.
A single hour later, I broke out of the dense woodland and into open ground again. Now my only problem was the trail itself, reduced by the recent rain downfalls to a muddy, slippery death-trap. One false step on these quaggy slopes, and a broken leg or two was the very best I could hope for! But then, further up the track, I met Robert and Ismo. Robert was a swarthy, spade-bearded Italian giant, and Ismo, a small, pale elf from Finland. All three of us were having problems with the treacherous trails, so we decided to travel on together.
Descending greasy, hazardous slopes (with the constant risk of sliding down bottomless chasms), we were finally spat out by the black forest as the Purna Lodge, some four hours out of Gorephani Pass. A short rest here, and it was on through persistent rain drizzle via Bithanti towards Tadapani. I don’t know how Ismo got round to tracking down Yetis at this point, but he did. As we ploughed through yet another boggy swamp of mud, dead leaves and dead rhododendron blossoms, he hopped forward – nose to the ground – following a series of curious three-toed footprints. It was only when we booked in for the night at the Mountain View Lodge in Tadapani, that he finally located his ‘Yeti’. It was a Nepali porter, also staying at our lodge, who had been running on ahead of us all day. His left foot only had three toes.
As I hung my grimy, sweat-soaked clothes over the roaring lodge fire, I learnt from other travellers that I had been wise to take up with companions for this section of the trail, for it was apparently notorious for attacks by local bandits on people trekking alone.
The evening came to a lively end, with the lodge owner dragging in a big black goat from out of the rain, and then chasing all his chickens (hiding under our tables and chairs, near the warm fire) back into the cold again. The quiet lodge suddenly erupted into a squawking, flapping bedlam of flying feathers. None of the chickens wanted to go. One of them indeed was so against the idea that it flew into the flames and set fire to itself.
March 29th
I climbed off my bare-plank bed this morning cold and stiff. But I was beginning to enjoy the outdoor life up here in the mountains, and had decided to extend my trek. My seven-day permit expired today, yet there were so few check-points on the trails that I felt confident of not being challenged on the return to Suikhet.
By the time I arose, Robert and Ismo had set off ahead towards Ghandrung. After taking in marvellous views of Macchapuchhre and Annapurna South peaks from the lodge forecourt, I followed on. Today, the path had dried out and was good deal less muddy. It also ran relatively straight and even, allowing me to pay more attention to the surrounding fauna. Again, the dark forest, full of dangling creepers and red blossoms, claimed me, though now I was able to appreciate its tranquillity instead of being preoccupied with survival.
The thick woods suddenly parted midway between Tadapani and Ghandrung, and presented me with a scene of rare splendour. Far below lay the massive bowl of a dry riverbed valley, enclosed on one side by jutting hill-forests of pine trees and on the other by a raised cliff-plateau where Ghandrung village glittered bright in the sun. Behind was a backdrop of stout rust-brown mountains, over which the monstrous ice-streaked behemoth of Mt Macchapuchhre loomed, silent and grim.
The final walk down into Ghandrung was also a great pleasure. With the sun’s warm, gentle rays playing on my neck and shoulders, I passed into the quiet rural hamlet alongside swaying fields of yellow corn and wheat. The air was musty and sweet with the odour of fresh manure and hay, and I came past the small thatched farmhouses waving back lazily to the local people and their children, filled with a sense of well-being.
I shared a bottle of Chang (beer) with a young Swiss couple at the popular Himalaya Lodge, and then plunged shakily some three thousand feet down into a deep gully via a very treacherous trail. At the bottom, I found Robert and Ismo waiting. They didn’t seem very pleased to see me. My arrival meant they no longer had any excuse for not tackling the long, sheer climb up to Landrung. It was during this particularly arduous ascent that Robert fell and damaged his knee, and Ismo began to get heart tremors. We came into Landrung completely wiped out.
As he recovered, Robert saw an old local woman spinning wool on an antique Tibetan spinning wheel. He wanted that wheel. He wanted to take it home to Italy. I told him he’d be lucky to get it back to Suikhet – it weighed a ton. And the condition Robert was in, lugging a bulky spinning wheel twenty miles back across the trail would surely have been the end of him.
March 30th
Heading on towards Dhumle this morning, the level trail suddenly swept up into a steep hill-forest, forcing us to scramble up the sharp inclines on our hands and knees. Shortly before Bhichuk, at the summit of this precipitous woodland, the silence of the forest was broken at last – by an army of giant crickets in the foliage, all chirping away in hypnotic harmony. Then it was up once more, a real grind, until we came to Pothana. Worn out, Robert grunted that this village name reminded him of a word – putana – by which Italians often swore, and that now he knew why.
We came into Dhumle (5900ft) after three hard hours climb, knowing that the worst was over, that now it was all the way downwards into the valley of Suikhet again. We rested on a lodge’s green lawn, and peeled off our grimy, sweaty clothes to dry in the warm sun. Robert and Ismo promptly shifted upwind of me. They had just become aware of my socks. They were my very last pair, now set solid with grime and leaking an odious smell. I rinsed them out, and my companions cautiously rejoined me.
Returning down to Suikhet was not as easy as anticipated. On trek, one soon learns to look up and down and all around at the same time, but this descent was unprecedently steep and required our full concentration. Back on the dry riverbed valley, walking into Suikhet, we decided however to extend the trek one further day. All of us wished to head on up to the nearby point of Sarangot (5500ft) for a last look at the Himalayas before returning to Pokhara.
Consequently, at Suikhet we found a young Nepali guide who agreed to put us on the ‘short cut’ road to Sarangot, and to do it in just one hour (the usual route took three), since it was now already mid-afternoon. As we set off with him, I received a handsome offer of cash from a Japanese tourist who wished to buy my sleeping bag. I sold it happily. Not only was my pack now lighter, but the bag had not been washed in three months and badly needed fumigating.
The ‘short cut’ was a slog from start to finish. It involved a two thousand foot sheer ascent up a heavily-wooded mountainside, fighting the whole way through dense brambles, thickets and undergrowth. But we made it in one hour, as promised. Our loquacious guide reached the top scarcely winded. He had spent the whole climb talking Robert into parting with his sleeping bag. And he didn’t rest until he had purchased it.
He left us at the crest of the hill, having put us on the right trail for Sarangot, and we walked along to the small village of Deorali Kaski. This was another occasion for great consumption of lemon tea, though we dared not dally long. We were slowly but surely being surrounded by a circle of local bandits, all of whom looked a good deal too interested in our bags for our liking. Again, I was glad I was not travelling alone.
Having left this danger-spot however, the rest of the walk into Sarangot was a real pleasure. Following in the footsteps of a local man – who paused from time to time to add to his armload of cow dung gathered from off the track – we came to a series of delightfully unspoilt farming villages. Here we passed many smiling, brightly-dressed women carrying large firewood loads, and were greeted with friendly waves from farm labourers returning from the fields. Children ran up to beg sweets and to hold our hands, and toothless old men – cackling merrily over musty old bottles of Raxi and Chang – beckoned us over to join them for a drink. Above, the sky echoed with the lazy caw of black crows and the sharp cries of fleet eaglets, and a light breeze sprang up, sweeping over the golden fields of corn and tugging stray wisps of straw from roadside haywains. Robert, something of a romantic, said it all made him think of a Van Gogh painting. He wished he’d brought his own easel and brushes.
We took simple lodgings at a small family house near the base of Sarangot Hill. The place was basic, but the occupants had real character. The landlord had a voluptuous young sister, who instantly took a shine to Robert. Watched by her expressionless kid brother (who resembled a diminutive bald Churchill), she sat Robert down and began stroking his stomach with a coquettish smirk on her face. It soon became apparent, however, that her interest was not so much in Robert but in his expensive cigarette lighter. The moment it slid back into his pocket, she slid out of Robert’s lap and returned to the kitchen. Which was just as well, since otherwise we would have had no supper.
As the hearth-fire roared into life this evening, the lodge family joined us at our table, and bottles of beer and raw Raxi began to pass round. Not long after, the family discovered my cassette-recorder and began singing traditional Nepali folk songs into it. All of these songs were lively, lengthy and sounded exactly the same. I asked the landlord what they were about. ‘Marriage song,’ he replied. ‘Which one?’ I questioned him. ‘All are marriage song!’ came the response. Then he led into another one. Soon everybody, including Ismo (temporarily forgetting his amoebic dysentery), was loudly clapping and banging kitchen utensils on the table in rhythm with the music. Following which, the whole Nepali family trooped out into the dark night and began dancing traditional jigs in the middle of the road. This went on till very late.
March 31st
This last morning on trek, we rose at 5.30am to catch the dawn. A short stroll took us up to Sarangot’s observation point, a small bricked enclave flying a tattered Buddhist flag. From here, we had a perfect view in all directions.
As the fiery phoenix of the rising sun appeared over the orange-haze horizon, the entire eastern range of Himalayan peaks came into sight. And once more, as at Poon Hill (where we had viewed the western range), it was the summits of the highest mounts that first lit up with the dawn. Thus we saw Dhaulagiri first, followed by Annapurna and Macchapuchhre, and then the lesser peaks of Annapurnas III, IV and II. Down to our right, meanwhile, the wide, glittering expanse of Lake Phewa had become visible, the tiny veins of its many tributaries running into it from out of the distant mountain valleys. Directly below and forward of us lay the large, scattered complex of Pokhara Town, and down to our left plunged a deep ravine, leading down to a river valley of great beauty. It was a long hour before we left this magnificent viewpoint for breakfast.
The walk down to Pokhara lakeside was surprisingly intricate. We were all grateful that we had taken Sarangot from Suikhet, rather than (as is common) from Pokhara. The trail was difficult and poorly defined even coming down, so that many travellers seeking to reach Sarangot for its marvellous dawn views coming up were unlikely to reach it before noon. We passed at least a dozen ascending trekkers who didn’t know where they were at all.
Back at the lakeside, we took cheap rooms at the Mahendra Lodge and stumbled off to the Hungry Eye Restaurant to celebrate our safe return with a rapid succession of cold drinks. The waiter simply couldn’t serve them quick enough.
Over a delicious fruit muesli (chopped apples, bananas, oranges and papayas, packed onto a huge plate), I reflected on how much weight I had lost over the past week, and also on how much more healthy I now felt. Lots of good exercise, fresh air and simple food had done wonders for me.
My sense of fulfilment, however, was short-lived. Sitting still and doing nothing after a whole week of activity in the mountains came very difficult – to all three of us. By evening-time we were already fretting to be back on the trekking trail again. The rich, stodgy food, warm, muggy air, and lazy, laidback atmosphere of Pokhara did not agree with us at all. We felt smothered.
April 1st
Over breakfast, I met Megan – one of four young Scottish girls who had spent the past six months working on a geological project (collecting fish specimens) in Nepal. We agreed to meet up again in Delhi, and perhaps do some travelling together.
As the day got under way, it became increasingly hot and sticky. After a regular diet of fresh, cool mountain air, we were floundering for breath until late in the evening. Only two activities helped us keep busy and distract our minds from the heat. Firstly, we took small canoes (kayaks) out onto the lake, the strong undercurrents forcing us to expend great energy to reach the small cove-beaches on the opposite shore. Second, we hired a bicycle between us, and took turns to explore our surroundings. I ended up snowballing down an incredibly steep hill, hurtling through a series of winding, cobbled backstreets, and sending a startled array of old men, children and cows flying, before jolting to a halt at the bottom. Robert had neglected to tell me that the bike had no brakes.
We should have liked to go swimming also, but Lake Phewa isn’t nicknamed ‘hepatitis lake’ for nothing. A bubbling scum of filth and disease covers the water in many sections, and few people take the risk of bathing in it. Most folk we observed were taking their minds off the oppressive heat by spending lots of money instead – either on rich food, or on Tibetan knick-knacks and curios, or on cool cotton clothing.
Travellers I spoke to today complained that the Pokhara Lakeside area was rapidly becoming over-commercialised, that every restaurant here now had taped music, home-cooked greasy apple pie, and a resident sadhu selling blessings outside. But, despite the heat and the mosquitoes, I began to notice one very good thing about it: namely, that it was the best place (apart from the trekking trail itself) for making new friends – or for hooking up again with old ones. Everywhere we went, travellers were flinging their arms around buddies they had met back up in the mountains, or somewhere in India, with the enthusiasm of long-lost relatives. No matter that both parties had often met just once before, over a dim, flickering log-fire perhaps. Here, as in India, acquaintances tend to be brief, yet really deep.
April 3rd
Back in the New Diamond Lodge in Kathmandu, I was woken up by a dawn chorus of howling hounds below my window. I hired out a bicycle, and travelled down to the Indian Embassy, intending to extend my visa for when I returned to India. Of all the embassies in Kathmandu, the Indian one is the most difficult to locate. And when I had found it, it was closed. The security guard at the gate told me that today was a public holiday. He couldn’t remember which one.
A mop-headed little urchin raced up to me back in Durbar Square. He wanted to repair my shoes. Looking closer at him, I remembered that he was the same infant who had repaired my shoes the week before. I jogged his memory, and told him he could not have done a good job if the shoes needed repairing again seven days later. But he was sharp. He took one look at the mud traces on my soles and told me I had been trekking. I laughed and congratulated him on his deduction. He got his glue and sewing thread out and put the ragged trainers back together. An hour later, however, they had fallen apart once more. I tracked down the shoe boy and complained. He just shrugged and told me I needed a new pair of shoes.
The dogs outside my lodge appeared to have worn themselves out last night, for this evening all was quiet, and I finally got some much-needed sleep. Kathmandu, the second time around, was growing on me.
April 4th
The Oasis revealed a touch of class this morning, while I was eating breakfast, and began playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on its sound system. One of my favourite classical pieces, it put me in just the right frame of mind to venture out by bicycle to the royal city of Patan.
Patan’s attractive Durbar Square has just one western-style restaurant at present. It is called Cafe de Patan, and is owned by a beaming, broad-faced young man called Gun Muni Shakya (Gun) who runs his kitchen in between learning Japanese and break-dancing to Michael Jackson records. ‘Gun’ is a Nepali Buddhist, just nineteen years of age, whose father gave him this restaurant four years ago. In the course of our conversation, he told me of his eagerness to reach the age of 25, for then he would be married to a ‘good Buddhist girl’ and would not have to pay any further visits to the popular blue-movie cinema in town. He was rather puzzled when I explained to him the Western custom of fidelity after marriage. In his part of the world, because of severe restrictions on pre-marital sex, it was apparently common to take at least one mistress after marriage, which works out fine just so long as (in Gun’s own words) ‘wife does not find out of hanky-panky.’
The Durbar Square in Patan seemed somehow more ‘authentic’ than the one in Kathmandu. It was alive with people and chatter, markets and bazaars, atmosphere and colour. Within what was really quite a small square lay an incredible number of monuments, statues, pagodas and shrines. I sat back to observe them at leisure, and was particularly struck by the ornate dignity of the Garuda statue facing onto the magnificent three-storey Krishna Mandir. Then my attention wandered to the activity of the local livestock, much of which was roaming free in the busy square. Next to me, a sleeping man had acquired a curious companion – a large cow dozing on his feet. On the steps of the temples, meanwhile, scores of wild dogs could be seen fighting, playing or engaging in advanced sexual foreplay. Then a giant black goat appeared, strolling glassy-eyed down the road. It was promptly poked up the backside with a stick by some local adolescents, and ran amok. By the time it had quietened down again, a swathe of chaos had been cut through the marketplace – fruit, vegetables and indolent beggars having been sent flying into the air by the indignant goat.
I next took the bike to the Mahabouddha Temple or ‘temple of a thousand Buddhas’. It was the place where my friend Gun had told me ‘our god lives.’ It was serene and quiet in the temple courtyard. Just as I got up to depart, however, the old guard sleeping under the shrine suddenly woke up and began ringing a loud bell. He then brought out a large fly-whisk and started waving it in the face of the red-faced Buddha in the shrine. A small child who had turned up to beg for a school-pen told me that ‘now there are now flies on Buddha!
Having cycled back to Kathmandu, I dropped in on the cosy Mona Lisa Restaurant off Durbar Square for a lemon tea. This establishment had a charming sentiment on its menu:
We Serve to You and to your Guests with best possible Hot & Cold Drinks. We Honour our God when we Honour our Guest.
We serve Boiled and Filtered Water. Any complaints, Ask for That.
This evening, I teamed up with a dry-humoured Australian called Paul, and visited the renowned Yin-Yang Restaurant of Freak Street. The interior of this eating-house is a cross between a luxury penthouse suite and a film set for Cleopatra. The lights are low, soft music plays in the background, people recline and eat on soft silk cushions. The atmosphere is beguilingly relaxed and informal. Paul reckoned it was the nearest thing to ‘divine decadence’ he had come across in the East.
April 5th
I returned to the Indian Embassy again this morning, and arrived early, to be sure of being at the front of the expected large crowds for visa extensions. But the gates were closed as I cycled up. The guard told me that the embassy was closed again. Didn’t I know it was Good Friday? I instantly gave up on the idea of getting my Indian visa extended, and decided to return to England a week early instead.
By contrast, the rest of the day went well. I took the bike out again, this time eight kilometres out of Kathmandu to Bodnath. This massive stupa, some 500 years old, is said to contain the relics of Kashyapa Buddha, one of the Gautama’s predecessors. It is a large white-stone monument, covered with long streamers of coloured flags, and is painted with the yellow ‘all-seeing eyes’ of the Buddha.
The 40-minute ride to Bodnath took me through some charming little villages. Then, just before reaching the stupa, I dropped in on a small Buddhist prayer meeting taking place in a roadside shop frontage. People were just coming in off the street to squat down and support the ceremony. Within the small room, two facing rows of devotees methodically chanted off prayers from the high stack of small prayer-sheets before them. Their devotions were directed to the long table, at the back of the room, on which hundreds of tiny bells and candles stood, together with three decorated Buddha figures. Each prayer was punctuated by the blowing of loud matterhorns and the beating of strange drums resembling inverted frying pans.
Within the stupa courtyard, set back from the street, I talked to a Californian Buddhist whose Tibetan name was Tutod Dorge (‘strength everlasting’). He was seated in the shade of the stupa’s base, along with all the beggars and pilgrims taking alms here. Dorge was a rugged individualist, with weather-worn features and a pair of the brightest blue eyes imaginable. They twinkled, while he laughed. He laughed the whole time. He told me that all suffering was illusion, and that if people committed bad deeds against him, he just laughed at their ignorance until they apologised.
I sat down with Dorge and the beggars, and began to look at Nepalese life from the ‘inside’ for once. It was all very illuminating. Surrounded by gurus, holy men, cripples and destitute, I began to understand how they felt, and to share their simple curiosity and amusement at the passing ranks of uneasy American tourists being plagued by insistent peddlars. At one point I stretched out my hand to say something, and one of these tourists – thinking me a beggar – put a coin in it!
I was also struck, talking to these unfortunates, by their wisdom, humour and undaunted courage. The crippled pilgrim lying beside me, Siddhartha, had dragged himself all the way up here from Delhi on withered legs no thicker than bamboo canes, in his pure and simple determination pay respects to the Lord Buddha. His closest companion – a nervous, dissolute beggar called Ram – presented a complete contrast. He spent the few alms he begged on the strong local Chang, and weaved his way back to us progressively more inebriated as the afternoon wore on.
Amused by Ram’s continual complaints that everyone got alms but him, Dorge suggested he change his tack when begging. ‘Stop chanting “Om-Mane-Padme-Om,”’ he suggested, ‘and try saying “Oh-money-give-me-some” instead!’ This joke really tickled all the beggars lining the walls of the stupa’s base. They were quite beside themselves with laughter. The only person not amused was Ram. He had instantly tried the new chant, but it didn’t work.
Dorge took me along later to a small cha-house nearby, and sent the grim, sour-faced housewife within into raptures by giving her a string of precious prayer beads personally blessed by the Dalai Lama. She was so overcome by this gift (the Dalai Lama is considered a living god by many Nepali people) that tears flowed freely down her face and she began to treat us like royalty. Dorge commented that were one to travel up into Tibet armed with a stack of photos of the Dalai Lama, one could live like a king.
He then began to recount his life story. He told me that it was whilst fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, as part of the American forces, that he had suddenly ‘seen the light’ and decided to stop killing people. He had told this to his commanding officer, and had been sent straight away to a psychiatrist. It was decided that he was psychologically unfit to kill people anymore, and he was awarded a military pension on this basis. Since then (sixteen years ago), he had been travelling around with a developing interest in Tibetan Buddhism, which he liked for its sense of peace and happiness. He was presently on his way to a personal interview with the Dalai Lama, and would return to marry a Tibetan girl he knew, with whom he planned to set up a business in America, selling Tibetan carpets.
By the time we had finished our meal of vegetable kothey (small doughy dumplings like momos), I was however becoming concerned about Tutod Dorge. It wasn’t so much his self-appointed mission as a spiritual teacher to mankind that worried me, but his apparently clear memory of past incarnations as eminent Tibetan lamas. Together with his belief in his probable descent from Jesus Christ himself.
I left presently, and returned to Kathmandu. Here, to my surprise, I met up again with Tim and Jill from Ooty, and took them to the Yin and Yang Restaurnat. After pointing out a gem on the menu – CARNAL CUSTARD – they entertained me with a list of Indian train signs they’d seen recently. Their favourite by far came from Londa Junction station, and it read: TRAINS RUNNING LATE MAY MAKE UP OR LOSE SOME TIME. They also told me of a strange contraceptive commercial they’d seen on Bombay TV. Its slogan read: USE ‘NIRODH’ FOR NEAR-NATURAL SATISFACTION AND SPACING CHILDREN.
April 6th
Today I left Kathmandu again, for the ancient Buddhist stupa of Swayambu, which is some two thousand years old. Getting there involved towing my bicycle over a long and narrow rope bridge spanning the Vishnumarti River. Not only did the bridge have no hand supports, but there were several planks missing or collapsing underfoot, as well as a continual troop of heavily loaded villagers coming the other way. How I missed plummeting down into the boggy sewer of the river bed, I’ll never know.
At Swayambu, I left the bicycle and climbed the steep 250-foot stairway up to the temple. There was an uncomfortable crush of tourists at the top when I arrived, so I went for a walk round the back of the complex until the crowd thinned out a bit. I came to a small courtyard housing a local Buddhist shrine, where all the local community were gathered together sharing a friendly ‘holy day’ celebration. I stayed here two hours, listening to impromptu performances of music played on drums, finger-cymbals, harmonicas and an ancient wheezing squeezebox. The local menfolk clapped along to the music, and took turns to ‘guest’ as singers with the small, lively band. Once more, anonymously melting into the background and allowing the rhythmic, hypnotic music to steal slowly over me, I was able to shed my tourist face and become just part of the local community. Somebody came up to tie a bright red string around my neck. All the guests at this cheerful little gathering, I noticed, had identifying orange cards tucked in their jackets or shawls. I don’t think they were sure of my identity. The only other creatures present wearing the little red prayer-strings round their necks were a few local dogs and a couple of unlucky monkeys.
Back at Swayambu Temple, the crowds had at last gone and I was able to walk around in comfort. The resident animal community up here soon held my interest. A whole hierarchical society of wild dogs (around the stupa base) and wild monkeys (on the higher levels of the monument) had developed on this site. I took the opportunity to make a lengthy study of one of these canine ‘families’, living mainly on the leftovers being thrown out by the nearby thali restaurant. The mother bitch stood at rest, three large pups noisily sucking away on her swollen teats. Even when she moved off to forage in a filthy refuse bin, the tenacious triplets retained their hold, swinging off her paps like three determined little bulldogs.
In the meantime, the large orange mongrel who was ‘Dad’ sat guard and spent a lot of time sleeping. He only seemed to stir himself for two things: either to get the best of the pickings (generally banana leaves, with dal bhat remains clinging to them) thrown out by the food-house, or to interpose himself authoritatively between any other dogs who had disturbed his sleep by quarrelling. He was evidently the king of this patch.
At the base of the stupa steps, there was a ‘fairground’ for the local people in progress. It was a very small affair. There were just four stalls located on this clearing, the most popular of which was the hula-hoop stand. The ‘big prize’ here was a pack of twenty un-tipped cigarettes (price about 10 pence), so one could imagine how little money these poor people had to gamble with.
The major attraction, however, was the ‘ferris wheel’. This was a light steel structure, groaning dangerously under the weight of twenty-four people, which was held together with just a few thin nuts and bolts. It was revolved slowly by two strong men and all the passengers, despite the imminent collapse of the fragile structure, looked absolutely thrilled. A young fairground roustabout (another Michael Jackson lookalike) came up to ask me if I wanted some heroin. When I said no, he suggested I might like a ride on the ferris wheel. I asked him what was more dangerous: the heroin or the ferris wheel?
Juddering my bike to a halt back down at the rope bridge again, I began to feel ill. The heat of the day was now at full intensity, and the awful reek of refuse, excrement and offal in the slimy riverbed below the bridge was quite nauseating. Crossing over with my bicycle was even more of an ordeal than on the way out. Then, just off the bridge, I looked up to see a tree whose branches were weighed down with a grisly burden indeed: a flock of giant vultures. I followed their steely gaze and saw, just to my right, a massive bullock being systematically slaughtered, skinned, gutted and chopped into small pieces. The butchers were surrounded by a crowd of clapping, appreciative infants. A refuse yard lay ahead; it was heaped high with skulls, bones and blood-streaked horns of various ex-bullocks. This ghastly pile of carrion was seething with flies and being picked at by red-eyed, scabrous wild dogs. And as I reeled down the street, overcome by the stifling odour of decay, filth and death, all I could see were wild pigs fornicating in the gutters, women and children urinating in public, and piles of refuse and flyblown excrement littering the dry-dust streets. I cycled out of this area as fast as possible.
I met up with Tim and Jill this evening, at the Palace Cinema in Naxal. Getting here was something of a problem, since at this time of day all the rickshaw drivers in town were set to shut up shop. Rather than say ‘no’ when I requested a ride to the Royal Palace (where the cinema was), they simply denied they knew were the Royal Palace was. Even when I insisted they should know, since it was principal feature of Kathmandu!
We had chosen to see the popular Hindi film Sultan, which Tim had been told would be easy for us to follow, since it had a lot of English dialogue. Unfortunately, it had no English dialogue at all, except for when the cast were in a bad temper and had to resort to foreign imprecations. The leading lady got really upset with the hero on one occasion. You could tell she was upset, because all she could think to call him (in English) was: ‘You...you...middle-class bore!’ The high spot of this film, however, needed no translation. It was a big musical number in which the whole cast ran about singing and spraying what appeared to be liquid blood all over each other with bicycle pumps. The number ended with everybody wallowing about in a mud-bath, singing at the tops of their voices, with nobody still recognisable as a human being. Other musical numbers had the obese hero trampling about on luxury sofas, wearing women’s clothing, and the heroine running through the woods, trailing her laundry behind her.
April 7th
I arrived early at the bus-stand at Ratna Park, intent on visiting the third of Nepal’s royal cities, Bhaktapur. From here, I would be making a one-day trek up to the heights of Nagarkot, which (on a clear day) is another fine viewing point for the Himalayas, and particularly for Mount Everest.
The bus to Bhaktapur was like travelling below deck on a slave ship. The tiny minibus was only designed to seat twenty people, with room for another seven standing. How fifty-six passengers managed to cram into it defied the laws of physics. I sat outside the vehicle and watched everybody scrum frantically into it, and drank a cool Limca while they all simmered away inside for the next twenty minutes. The close heat within the stationary bus was formidable. When it finally made to leave, I leapt up and jammed myself in the back. Twenty minutes later, I crawled off at Bhaktapur bent double and with my left arm twisted behind my head.
Bhaktapur, being the least accessible royal city of Nepal, is also the most unspoilt. Its quiet and stately Durbar Square was a good deal cleaner and less populated than that of Patan or Kathmandu. Walking down a small side-street, I came to its magnificent five-storied Nyatopola Temple, which was situated in a small, lively market square all of its own. Taking lunch at a small pagoda-style restaurant here (which had a priceless toilet sign: PLEASE PUT UNDISPOSABLE DIRTY STUFFS IN THE BIN), I observed the two huge processional ‘juggernauts’ used to carry the temple gods round town at festivals, and gradually talked myself round to commencing the trek up to Nagarkot.
The climb up to these heights is a complicated one. On a good day, one can expect to make it in four hours. On a bad day, with all sorts of false trails cropping up along the route, you don’t make it at all. This felt like a bad day. The heat was overpowering, the air was enervatingly close, and my innate poor sense of direction concerned me. I studied the map again and again, and then decided to trust in whatever gods were looking after me and set off up the road.
I needn’t have worried. The local people of Bhaktapur gave me perfect directions for getting out of the city, and I reached my first landmark, the Army Barracks, with no problem. Feeling optimistic, I decided to attempt a series of short cuts across country, rather than taking the dull route up the winding main road. To my relief, just as I struck off into the great unknown, a young Nepali boy turned up. He knew the shortest routes possible to Nagarkot. Carrying two boxes of shoes he’d just bought in Bhaktapur, and whistling for all he was worth, he led me a fierce military pace down a quiet, lonely trail which ran parallel to the city’s water pipe, and which led into beautiful country and farmland scenery. We passed down winding lanes, through a gauntlet of blooming red-rose bushes full of tiny, twittering birds with white-tipped wings. Then we came over a small rickety wooden bridge, below which ran a babbling brook, and soon reached the end of the valley. Here there was a large dam and my young guide took me off the level plain and up a sheer hillside, through thick forests of pine trees. Breathlessly emerging at the top, I found that we had reconnected with the main road again, having shaved a whole hour off my scheduled arrival at this point. A short way up the road, my diminutive helper came to his house and bid me farewell. His house was right next door to an ancient Buddhist stupa.
A few minutes later, just as walking on asphalt was becoming tedious, another young lad popped up to show me another short cut route. He pointed to a high stile on the side of the road, and told me that if I crossed it I should save myself another half-hour on my journey. He was right. I reach the foot of Nagarkot having walked a total of just two and a half hours. Which was much better than four hours, and a good deal better than not getting there at all!
Near the summit, yet another mysterious helper appeared to direct me to a good lodge. This was the Sunray, on the crest of the mountain viewpoint. The dormitory room I booked at this pleasant hostel had just one other occupant – a quiet, dry-humoured Australian girl called Jenny. She was also travelling solo. Over our dal bhat supper, seated round a bare table lit by a single flickering candle, we exchanged experiences of India and admonished the acquisitive Nepali landlord for funding his regular flights to London and Melbourne by charging prohibitive food prices to poor tourists like ourselves. He gave us a simple choice: pay up or shut up. But he did it with a smile.
April 8th
Rising at 5am, we crossed up to the top of Nagarkot ridge expecting a glorious view of the Himalayan peaks, including Everest. But it didn’t happen. The heavy heat-haze rising from the plains below still hung like a shroud over the horizon. Last night’s light rainfall had been insufficient to disperse it. There was, however, one compensation: an awesomely beautiful sunrise. As Jenny and I peered into the lightening gloom, the sun emerged like a ghostly red will o’ the wisp from the dank marsh of fog lying over the mountains. Its dim lantern-light illuminated them for a brief space, and then the clouds rolled back again and all was lost to view. For these few minutes, however, the sight had been one of rare beauty.
The small minibus returning to Bhaktapur at 8am had twenty-seven people on the roof. We knew that, because Jenny and I were up there too, and we counted them. It scarcely seemed possible. And it certainly wasn’t safe. But the journey proceeded without incident, and the view on the way down – overlooking picture-book hamlets, villages and countryside – helped us forget our discomfort. Back in Bahaktapur, the cool, clean mountain air was instantly replaced by the cloying heat, dust and smells of humanity and decay. We took a brief look at the town’s famous ‘Peacock Window’ (one of the finest wood carvings in all Nepal) and then immediately set back to Kathmandu. The heat was overpowering, and both of us needed a nice cool shower.
I was, however, to be disappointed. Arriving back at the New Diamond Lodge – tired, hot and sticky – I learnt that my shower was ‘not possible’, because ‘water is off.’ Displeased, I demanded to know when it would be ‘on’ again. I informed them that I had now spent a total of six days in this lodge, and had not yet managed a single shower. The manager, yet another young Michael Jackson clone, was not used to being admonished. He just stared into his lap, looking sulky and bored.
April 9th
I don’t know why I decided to return to Delhi by bus. Long, uncomfortable bus journeys in India should have convinced me by now that Asian buses and I just didn’t get on. But for some reason – probably because I was now so keen to return to Delhi for my post, and because this was the quickest way of getting there – I managed to book myself onto a gruelling 36-hour bus trip from Kathmandu to New Delhi. It was sheer folly.
To its credit, the vehicle standing in Kathmandu bus-station this cool morning was the nearest thing to a ‘luxury’ bus I had seen in the East. It had padded seats, sufficient leg-room and windows that didn’t rattle. Further, I had supportive English fellow-passenger in front and behind who kept me in food and cups of tea when (very shortly) my Nepalese money ran out. All looked set for a calm, pleasant journey.
We left Kathmandu at 7.30am. It was still refreshingly cool. A couple of hours later, it was quite a different story. Descending from the high valley into the hot, blasted plains below, the atmosphere became uncomfortably muggy and close. Soon all aboard were wheezing and gasping for air out of the windows. By noon, the interior of the bus was like an oven. My nose, throat and mouth were dry as sandpaper, and I began to feel feverish with the heat. A raging headache seized me, and my brain felt like it was cooking inside my skull. I was reminded of one of those unfortunate funeral-pyre corpses at Varanasi, sizzling away to a charred heap of melted remains.
But it was when we reached Sonauli again, at 4.30pm, that my troubles really started. At the border, customs officials boarded the bus and began searching passengers. This search took three long hours, and all this time we were confined to our seats, baking to a crisp in a bus that had reached the temperature of an overheated sauna. The cause of the customs officers’ extended interest was a grinning Nepali they had found wearing a bright-blue tracksuit. They had gravitated to him immediately. Nobody in their right senses would wear a thick woollen tracksuit in this heat. He evidently had something to hide. And yes, he did have something to hide. Under his bright-blue tracksuit, he was wearing five more bright-blue tracksuits. And twelve pairs of luxury underpants. And seven pairs of socks. And a dozen silk handkerchiefs. One wondered how he had survived wearing this little lot, when all the rest of us were passing out in the pre-storm heat dressed in light cottons. The customs men didn’t seem surprised, though. They grinned at the overdressed smuggler, and he grinned back, as though this was the most natural occurrence in the world. Still grinning, the customs officials proceeded to go up on the roof and sift through all his bags and belongings. Searching for more contraband. One of them stayed below, and occupied himself by interrogating two harmless Buddhist monks seated within – looking in between the seams of their sandals for flattened strips of hashish. After two hours of this, the Nepali got fed up of grinning away in the sweltering heat, dressed in all his tracksuits, and summoned the customs men down from the roof. He grinned at them, and they grinned at him, and then he gave them the ‘baksheesh’ they had been waiting for all along. We were free to cross the border.
On the other side, I fell off the bus – steaming like a radiator – and downed a whole pot of tea. Then I staggered back, climbed up onto the roof, and lay there panting like an old man. The bus driver began jumping up and down in wrath below, ordering me to get back inside. I told him not likely, and would he care to send up a wreath, since I didn’t expect to reach Delhi alive. Three other dying people crept up onto the roof, and lay down beside me. The bus roared off into the night, and we closed our eyes and wondered if and when this nightmare would ever come to an end.
Finally, the storm broke. The sky crackled, the thunder rolled, and the rain came down in a solid sheet. On the roof, our cracked and dry mouths opened to receive the moisture, and we gave a concerted feeble cheer. Best of all, a strong breeze had blown up and this, together with the rain, soon drove the smothering mugginess from the air, leaving it fit to breathe again. We returned back to our seats within the bus, sure that now the worst was over.
But it wasn’t. In the middle of what was to be a long, long night, I came down with chronic diarrhoea again. It came very suddenly, and it struck very hard. Every stop we made, I would be clambering over sleeping bodies and vaulting out of the bus into dark trenches and ditches, moaning in agony as yet again the bottom fell out of my world.
This went on right through the night. But at least I wasn’t alone this time. After a while, the quiet, friendly German chap sitting next to me also got struck down. Every toilet-dash I made after that, he would be padding companionably along behind me. It felt a lot less lonely, the two of us groaning away together in the dark roadside ditches. Fortunately he was the only person on the bus who had a toilet roll to share.
Even so, the ordeal was a miserable one. My idea of the ultimate purgatory was no longer forty-one hours in the coffin of the ‘Express’ train from Delhi to Madras. For sheer sustained awfulness, thirty-six hours in the jolting, heaving oven of the Kathmandu to Delhi bus – travelling through drought, tempests and customs points with no food, no water, no money, no toilet roll and chronic dysentery – really took some beating. Able to sleep only in fits and starts, I spent the rest of the night in a trance of dejection, composing imaginary epitaphs for myself.
Halfway to Delhi, the bus hit a gigantic pothole in the road and leapt into the air. When it came down again, it did so with such force that I was catapulted out of my seat and had my nose smashed into the luggage rack above my head. All in all, I thought, this had been just about the worst day of my life. But then, I didn’t know about the day to come.
April 10th
Things went from bad to worse. Purgatory no longer sufficed to describe what I was going through. This was Hell, and nothing less. Other passengers suggested I eat lots of curd at each stop, for this would set like concrete and steady my stomach. But it didn’t work...It went on and on, until I simply abandoned myself to my fate. By now I felt like I had made the acquaintance of every roadside ditch and slit-trench in India. The attacks were soon coming so fierce and fast that I couldn’t even get to a ditch, but simply fell off the bus with my trousers down, ready to go where and when I dropped.
But all good things must come to an end. The bus rolled into Delhi at last, and I managed to keep my trousers up long enough to stumble off with a semblance of dignity. My mind, body and spirit were however in a state of complete turmoil. The last few hours of that journey had been the worst kind of medieval torture. I simply couldn’t believe it was over. It was like being plucked, only mildly protesting, from a living grave.
I caught a rickshaw back to the Hotel Chanakya, and asked for a room with an attached toilet. They didn’t have one. They offered me a room with an outside toilet instead. I told them to forget about the room, and to just rent me the outside toilet. They didn’t seem to think I was serious.
It was 9pm when I arrived at the Chanakya. It was a long hour later that I finally emerged from the outside toilet. There was a long line of Indians standing outside with toothbrushes, looking impatient. I told them to complain to the manager, and crawled over the road to find a chemist. The chemist listened to the account of my illness with increasing alarm, and prescribed me his strongest medicine. It didn’t work.
Five more attacks during the night left me totally destroyed. And convinced me that the Kathmandu to Delhi bus was fit only for lemmings or for people seeking a really painful way to die. If I ever did it again (and this would only be under extreme compulsion) I would take a rucksack full of toilet paper and would take care to write out my will first.
April 11th
I moved all my essential belongings over to the outside toilet this morning, and barricaded myself in. A storm of angry protests from hotel staff and guests failed to dislodge me. Through the toilet door, I gave the Chanakya manager a non-negotiable ultimatum – either he gave me a room with a loo in it, or I would stay where I was. In my condition, I was prepared to stay there all day if necessary. The manager gave in, and promised me a new room.
The new room had a loo in it. It didn’t however have any windows. Small, dark and enclosed, it reminded me of that awful, claustrophobic bus. I skulked around in here for a while, then felt the walls closing in and went up to the manager and demanded yet another room. He sighed patiently and gave me the last room he had. This had windows in it, and a loo. It also had a team of workmen hacking bits of wood about right outside my door. My nerves on edge I went back in search of the manger. But he had fled, and left a deaf receptionist to deal with me instead. This fellow was so absorbed in his paperwork that he didn’t even look up when I lodged my complaint. So I took away the paperwork, and repeated it. His sharp beak of a nose finally crept off the desk, and he surveyed me with puzzlement. He didn’t look like he’d ever received a complaint before. He didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, he told me that the offending workmen would be finished soon, and would be out of my way. They were just making a new toilet door.
Passing down Main Bazar Road, I found far more suitable lodgings at the Queen’s Hotel. Not only was it cheap (Rs35), but I had a loo, windows, two beds, a balcony leading onto the roof, and no workmen making noise outside. It was a real find.
Today, in the park opposite the Poste Restante, I saw a bullock mowing the lawn. It was hitched up to a rotary mower, and ambled erratically over the grass under the indifferent supervision of two half-naked herdsmen. Both had little cane whips, which they listlessly flicked over the bullock from time to time, probably to keep the flies out of its eyes.
A short time later, returning to my hotel by rickshaw, I passed a giant spade-bearded Sikh standing on the kerb. He wore a manic grin and his wild eyes gleamed with ferocious joy. He seemed to be some sort of popular magician. A large, curious crowd had gathered to watch him give a dazzling display of flashing sabres at the very edge of the passing traffic. Nearby, I saw a cycle-rickshaw rider sitting in the gutter rubbing his head. It was bleeding. The look he was casting at the performing Sikh suggested that he had just driven too close to the flashing blades and had had his hair parted for his carelessness!
April 12th
My chanting seemed to have a pleasant, soporific effect on the Indians staying in my lodge. They all assembled companionably on the roof to listen in as I began my prayers, then drifted over to go to sleep or recite Indian sutras to each other under my window. I was most touched.
I visited the Plaza cinema this morning, to see a Hindi comedy called Jewel Thief. It was really rather good. In fact, it was so good that I managed (for the first time with an Indian film) to sit the whole way through it. Even when it ran over three hours, and even though I had not yet had breakfast. My interest was held by the male lead, who was a dead ringer (though a few shades darker) for Cary Grant.
The plot of this picture, like so many Indian movies, moved at a very rapid pace. So did Cary Grant. He was continually running away from grossly overweight Indian ladies trumpeting love songs at him. He hardly had any time to be a jewel thief. And he was so tired from side-stepping buxom songstresses that when he managed to land a weary punch on some villain, his heavy heroine had to scrape him off the pavement and drive him home to recover.
The golden rule in Indian films of this sort is that the woman who sings best (and loudest) gets the hero. It doesn’t matter if other women have the faces of angels or the figures of Titian goddesses. If they can’t sing, they don’t get a look-in. The hero won’t even acknowledge their interest. In this film, the heroine (i.e. the woman who sang best) resembled a gargantuan, doom-laden Cassandra. The only time she wasn’t prophesying disaster or feeling certain of impending tragedy was when she was singing. Which was a pity for ‘Cary’, because he would have been far better suited to the nubile, petite secretary who kept trying to drag him off to bed. The only trouble with her was that she couldn’t sing. So he had to pretend to be bored every time he saw her. The man was so perfectly under control, that he could appear bored and indifferent even when surrounded by the state guard, a posse of trained snipes and three elephantine women who couldn’t sing. The only time he didn’t look cool was when the script required him to sing a love song on a mountain top dressed in lederhosen, a little red waistcoat, a limp brown tweed jacket, a huge bearskin hat and a pair of brilliant-black pointy shoes. Nobody could look unconcerned in that outfit.
The film came to an end very suddenly. There was no warning, no fade-out, no credits, no closing curtains, nothing. Just a bare, empty screen.
April 13th
As I lit up the first Panama cigarette of the day, I reflected that the more I saw of India, the more I liked it. Wandering through the streets, and observing the many herds of sacred cows, for instance, I could now view them as amiable, benevolent spirits rather than unnecessary public nuisances. Previously, I had been irked to hear that there were twice as many cows in India than human beings, and that this explained a lot of the prevailing food shortage. Now, however, I could see some of their value. Not only did their endless patience and calm stoicism impart some sense of order and tranquillity to busy Indian streets, but they also managed to keep the accumulations of waste and rubbish on the road down by eating a remarkable amount of it.
Part of my misconception of India, I was now coming to realise, lay in the fact that foreign tourists like me only saw a certain ‘type’ of Indian – generally the type who wanted money. The vast majority of Indian people are of course neither insensitive nor grasping.
I had further evidence of this when I joined a cinema queue for an English film this morning. It was a very long queue, and I was standing at the back of it with minimal expectancy of getting a ticket. Suddenly, a smiling Indian youth came up to me and said: “Do you want ticket?” Fully expecting him to be a tout, I snapped back: “And how much is that going to cost me?’ But I had misread the situation completely. He wanted to give me a ticket, not sell me one. As he went away, offended, the ‘house full’ sign went up and I realised that I would now never get in. Going over to the helpful Indian, I apologised for my misunderstanding and he laughed and said he quite understood. Walking on, however, I determined from hereon to always listen to people who came up to me, before passing adverse judgement.
It was while buying some cakes in Wengers, in Connaught Place, that I met up again with Megan, the Scottish girl from Pokhara. Over a delicious iced milk-shake, we exchanged tales of our separate travels, and I invited her to join me next week in Rajasthan.
Further along Connaught Place, we went into McDowell’s Pizza King for lunch. This establishment was celebrating some sort of anniversary. To mark the occasion, it had two guitarists singing woeful renditions of old favourites by Simon and Garfunkel. There was a curious card on our table. It said TRY ONE OF OUR CHICKEN AND EGG RELATIONSHIPS.