This was not a long flight. Just an hour and a quarter. My note says arrival was at 11.00 am local time and that has to be the first thing to mention. Nepal is NOT India and just to make sure that is appreciated by everyone it is in a different time zone. A time zone of its own. The time is 15 minutes ahead of the time in India. A quarter of an hour.
The flight on Royal Nepal Airlines was great and I had the Himalayas on my left all the way and getting closer all the time. The landing was the smoothest ever and my bag came off first! Within 30 minutes I was through customs and on my way to my accommodation.
The notes say "FREE TRANSP to Maha Laxmi G.H." I can't quite work it out but I think that I ended up at this hotel because that's where the free transport took me and why, in turn, the transport was free. The place didn't have a great deal of character and was a bit spartan. The particulars boasted hot showers and given the fact that I needed a bit of a warm up I decided to have one. It was the coldest and most pathetic shower I have ever had. I remember having one of the members of staff up to show me how to get hot water. He turned on the appliance and ran the water and declared what came out as being hot when it was clearly not at all. It may not have been ice cold but it may as well have been. Still, the place had good reception for the World Service and I remember that in the few days I stayed there I listened to quite a bit of radio.
After freshening up I wandered down to the Poste Restante and picked up a letter. A pile of letters and cards, as a matter of fact. I changed some money and went to a place called "My Place" for a sit down to read some of the post and to get something to eat and drink.
I met a woman at the Post Office. I really cannot remember how we struck up a conversation. It was possibly because I was on my own. Somehow being alone makes a person more approachable (I've said this before, I think, but it is true). She accompanied me to "My Place". She was European but I can't remember from where and seemed very cool and relaxed, how you say, sympatico? Come to think of it she could have been Italian.
Funnily enough everything seemed cool and relaxed. I hadn't noticed at first.
We chatted over a drink. This woman seemed to have been living in Kathmandu for some time, years in fact. I think she was sort of stranded. The lifestyle she enjoyed seemed cool and laid back but I couldn't help thinking that it was no longer a matter of choice. I can't quite remember what the question I asked her was but it must have be about what it was that actually prevented her from leaving. I do remember her answer. She looked at me openly and earnestly and said "I think we both know the reason why". I noticed her teeth weren't very good and figured she may have been imprisoned in Kathmandhu by something that just would not let her go and that she wasn't strong enough to leave. She really was very nice, engaging and she had clearly once been much better looking. She still wasn't bad looking at all but the teeth did let her down. She seemed to be your archetypal hippie, self confessedly, almost apologetically washed up on the Silk Road, wasted by the product of the poppy.
Among the letters I had picked up from the Poste Restante was from my parents and it enclosed a letter that had been sent to me at home. That letter was one I wanted to read alone so I said farewell to my new acquaintance.
I never saw her again. Meeting this woman does seem to have had a profound effect on me. It was good to have been able to talk to someone friendly, knowledgeable and interesting on my first day in Nepal. I was grateful to whoever she was for the welcome. All the same there was a certain sadness about her. It wasn't self pity but a sort of resignation and submission to her having become something of a lost soul.
Since my return home I have met a fair few heroin addicts in the course of advising, assisting and representing them in both criminal and family proceedings and from time to time I recognised something of the woman I met in Kathmandhu in some of them. It's a shame to see something get such a grip that hope is almost extinguished.
There's a note in my diary that says "Jumper". It was cold as the sun set. I went back to my hotel to read the letter. It was was from Liz.
Here was something right out of the blue.
