Although this is part 2 of the semester break series, it chronologically comes first. I am going to tell you the story of my travels to Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal.

We start at IIT Delhi, 5AM in the morning. Our flight was at 0730. The taxi was booked for 0545. I had a cup of tea, a quick pack of my bag, and off to the taxi with Alex, 5 minutes late. No taxi. I call the taxi service. 10 minutes, they said. 0600, we’re going to the airport. We get there at 0630. Check in, tags on the baggage, through to immigration. Alex gets a chatty old man; I couldn’t tell if the man was regaling Alex with tales of his past, or if the man was living vicariously through Alex’s stories. No matter, I pass through immigration quickly, into the shortest baggage scanning lineup. Alex makes it to the same line, 5 minutes behind. It’s nearing 0700. I pass security. I check the board, AI213 to Kathmandu, final call. The PA comes on. “This is the final boarding call for Air India Flight AI213 to Kathmandu, paging passengers Mr. Alexander Harmsen and Mr. Dominic Tong.” There’s a first time for everything, including a headlong sprint through the duty-free shop to reach the gate.

We get on the plane. The seat next to me is taken by a Chinese man, who was displaced by the Swiss French man who wanted to sit with his travel companions. The empty seat was somewhere at the front. Alex and I speak six languages of varying fluencies between us; this rotational swap of seats took three. The little things you don’t see when you sit at home in Vancouver.

A flight in, a visa application, USD $50, and a taxi ride through the winding, bumpy, unpaved roads of Kathmandu later, we’re at Jerry’s hotel. We’re meeting him here. I go to the ATM to get Nepalese rupees; Alex asks for the Malagasy, who is out somewhere in the city. Alex and I sit down in the hotel courtyard, outside, enjoying the sunshine and a cold soft drink. A plan is to be made for the day, just after noon. We order our food, I grab the $4 Lonely Planet of Nepal I had printed up, and off we went on our imaginary trip of Kathmandu. A walk would be good, we decided, down from the tourist center of Thamel to Durbar Square, the place where the city’s kings were once crowned. Then a visit to a temple on the east side of the city, and back to our hotel in Thamel for an early bus ride out to Pokhara.

Jerry arrived, we all ate, we all agreed it was a good plan. Step one, find a hotel. We found one. Somewhere. Unremarkable place, I don’t remember much other than sleeping that night. Then the walk down, wandering about, shopping for t-shirts (“My brother went to Nepal and all I got was this stupid t-shirt” for my companions’ siblings) and other miscellaneous things. This was the slowest walk through of a city I had ever done in my life, weighed down by the keen shopping eyes, eager to buy some souvenirs, and by the people. Traveling with Alex is like traveling with a novelty item, a constant source of amusement, consternation, and being in some other person’s scrapbook of “Look at the foreigners I meet!”.

What I remember of the walk: temples, everywhere. People, everywhere. Wildlife, everywhere. Garbage, everywhere. It was like the old Delhi, not the new south Delhi that I live in. Frustrating? Sure. But not a shock, not anymore. I wish I could put you, my reader, wherever you are from, into the Asan Tole, one of the main city squares. That is an experience to behold.

The masses of people, the smells, and the sounds are overwhelming in central Kathmandu.

We get to Durbar Square. A security guard walks up and asks for our tickets. What tickets? Over there, he points, at some booth. We brush him off, obviously a scam. Jerry checks his Lonely Planet. Nope, not a scam, we need to pay for this place. We wander to the tourist booth, and continue wandering. A guide offers his services. INR 1000, he says. Too much, too much, Alex fumes, over and over. We’d done a lap at this point. We get him to INR 500 and he tells us the story of Durbar Square as the sun sets. I honestly do not remember much. The sunset was beautiful, captured by Jerry’s camera.

A part of the Durbar Square, Kathmandu.

A quick walk back to Thamel, and into a travel agency to figure out the bus to Pokhara. All buses are full, and we are scared away from local buses at this point. (Ha! – see the previous blog post). A car to Pokhara, it would have to be, a pricey method to get to Pokhara, the town where we really wanted to be. Before dinner, I would buy a new backpack, a 50L fake North Face bag for use over the rest of the trip, my next south India trip, and not much else.

Dinner was a steak. Alex cuts his steak. It slips off the table. A quarter of a steak, gone. We talk about castes in India, a product of Jerry and Alex being in a sociology of India class back at IITD. Then, a history lesson about Yugoslavia and Tito, and some more about the Indian subcontinent. I have a lot to read about human history.

A quick cold shower, and that was it for my only day in Kathmandu.