To Pokhara

Some action at last. The notes say I was up at 6.30am and shortly afterwards was on a bumpy bus ride sitting at the back of the bus on an unfixed seat. You feel every bump and your seat leaves the frame at the same time. It was a pain in the arse, literally.

The bus suffered a puncture somewhere between Kathmnandu and the half way point of Mugling where there was a meal break.

The trip is only just over 200km but it takes all day. My notes say "Very scenic but imposs to appreciate. Indian group talking - no vision".

According to the Lonely Planet Guide a few kilometers North of Mugling is Ghorka and it certainly seems worth a visit. Regrettably I didn't visit, my bus was going to Pokhara and arrived there around 5.00pm as the sun set. There is nothing to report except that I booked into the Butterfly Lodge and got a very nice little room which had a writing table in front of the window with a view of the lake.

Having installed myself I went out and had something to eat in a place called Beam Beams. I think I remember that the music that was playing was Pink Floyd. On the one hand I quite liked it but on the other it just seems all wrong and irrelevant to the location. I went to bed and slept well.

Dead Slow

Boxing Day. A Bank Holiday at home. Just another day like any other in Kathmandu and just like the last few days it looks from my notes as if I underachieved.

I was getting very lazy or into some kind of rut. I had at least made some travel plans. The next day I was off to Pokhara.

My notes don't say so but I shouldn't be surprised if I hadn't managed to score something to smoke. I only say it because this was the fifth day in a row that nothing much happened. Perhaps I was permanently wasted. I don't think I was. I didn't bring anything with me from India. That would have been stupid. Not only would it have amounted to the equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle but also it would have been running the risk of lengthy incarceration in appalling prison conditions for doing so. That would have been even stupider. I also don't think I was stoned because I would have made a note of it somewhere.

Strangely, the fact that I was on my own probably contributed to the lack of . In contrast to elsewhere on the road there wasn't much interaction with other travelers. There could have been a psychological reason. The fact is that India is a very strange place. It is so out of one's normal sphere of experience that travelers need to relate to each other, a familiar point of reference. There was chaos and hassle, most of everything was weird and inexplicable. Here was laid back and chilled and there was enough that was familiar to comfort a person. No-one was threatened by the atmosphere. The inhabitants of Kathmandu got on with what they had to do without paying the tourists and travelers much notice. As a result the travelers may have felt less need to hang together.

I may have been bored. I don't think so. I went to the Poste Restante and spent some time at My Place. That's all I've noted.

It could also have been the weather. As I mentioned, every day started foggy and freezing cold so I wouldn't get up too early. A late start and a walk down into Thamel for a leisurely breakfast while the mist cleared would write off the morning. Then there were only a few hours before the sun would begin to set. Although the sun was more than warm enough to sunbathe in, when it began to set it became chilly again and I found myself retiring to the hotel. There I had a little den. I had my books, the radio and could write letters listening to the World Service.

This evening I had to pack everything up ready for the off the next day.



Overall the lasting impression I am left with of this sojourn in Kathmandu is one of a feeling of anticlimax. That is not to say I did not enjoy whatever I was doing, I certainly did like Kathmandu very much. It is just that India was just so full on all the time and Kathmandu was completely different. It was a culture shock.

Christmas Day

The evidence that I may have ruined my stats for non consumption of alcohol is that the notes suggest I did not wake up until well after 9.00 am. The note says "Hangover". I suppose it was inevitable if I'd had more than two beers. It probably wasn't a terrible hangover; at least nothing a freezing cold "hot" shower couldn't dispel.

I still had an appetite because around 11.00 am I was eating "Special Scrambled Egg etc" at the Nepalese Kitchen. Some of the letters I wrote home have come to light and I can expand on this breakfast. It cost approximately 90p and included a full pot of tea and the special scrambled egg was served on two thick slices of toasted bread.

Oh yes, it was Christmas Day. Just a normal day in Kathmandu as far as I could tell. There were no visible signs of any Christian celebrations anywhere. This was just the way I like it. I have to admit that I have issues with the celebration of Christmas at home. By the time Christmas Day arrives I am usually so tired of it that I can't wait for it to end. This was the kind of Christmas day I liked. No-one cared less. It didn't seem to mean a thing in Kathmandu.

I seem to have had a very relaxing day getting over the night before. It seems I went on to My Place where I finsihed writing a letter to my brother Hugo and wrote a letter to my friend Vincent and his family.

After that it seems I wandered around taking a few snaps (that's what is says in my letter) and later met a couple called Peta and Russell whom I had met in Kashmir. They were the couple who had booked on to the Houseboat Arizona while I was there. I suppose it is not that amazing that I should meet them again at the other end of the Himalayas to where I first met them but I had covered a lot of ground since then. I had been to the southernmost tip of the land mass, after all. The letter I wrote home says we had a coffee and my notes refer to La Cymbali where, says the Lonely Planet Guide "the Italian food may not be the best but it does make cappucino".

Next (in a truly very rare moment of charity) I bought a beggar some bread and cheese
and gave him 5 rupees for some chai. I got myself a sandwich, a piece of Apple Strudel, some tea and sugar and then retired to my room to write letters home. As my letter says "I wouldn't have thought I could have had a better Christmas Day - no presents = no grumpiness".

Chilled

I'm sure I wasn't bored but the notes for daytime on Monday 24 December don't suggest that I was doing very much. They say "Chilled & got photos - looked at them - Brill".

I am not quite sure now what these photos were but I think I had a set of slides from India developed and had them make "internegs" and print up a few because I could not wait to see them..




These days the process that had to be gone through to produce the couple of prints I got does seem quite extraordinary. This is especially so when it was so easy to scan the print and upload it here. When I got home I took some slides to have prints made and the results were rubbish. The lab in Thahity did a much better job.



I bought some black and white film there because it was clear that there was just too much to take pictures of and if I was to have any slide film left for later in the trip I would have to buy some more film. This stuff looked okay, it was well in date anyway.



I have been wondering why I spent so many days in a row in Kathmandu without actually seeming to do much. I think one of the reasons that I was in the hands of a small travel agency who were arranging my Thai Visa. I must have been checking in with the agency fairly regularly because the notes for the evening say "On the piss wi Travel Agents". I cannot remember anything about this but I think I probably ruined my average for consumption of alcohol.

Every Day Is Like Sunday

In 1990 Morrissey released his Album "Bona Drag" and "Every Day Is Like Sunday" was released as a single. I mention it because yesterday, Saturday, was like Sunday and today, Sunday, was even more like a Sunday than the previous day.



I must have done something but all the diary says is: "Chilled - Night in no food".



I put these pictures in here because I must have taken them either on this day or one of the next couple. I do remember this Stupa in Tahity. There are prayer wheels all around the square enclosure and as you walk around you spin them. They contain prayers written on long strips of paper rolled up around the spindle and every revolution sends up a prayer.

The picture of the girls in the doorway is one of my favorites of the trip. It would have been better if I had steppped away just a few more inches. If I had I would have managed to include all of the toes on the girl's foot at the bottom of the picture. Never mind. These girls seem to be in uniforms the same colour as the robes worn by the monks in Nepal. I don't know whether these girls were in a temple school and this was the uniform or what the reason was and it intrigues me. I didn't know then and I don't know now. I will try to find out.

They could be young girls from villages at risk of exploitation who are cared for and educated in Kathmandu. There are plenty of sites on the internet advertising ways to help stop the exploitation and trafficking of children and a quick surf led me to the following site. It is possible that this picture was taken at the side door of part of the Dhamma Moli Project. These girls look very happy.

Contrast in Pace

About Saturday 22 December 1990 my notes say "Like Sundays in the UK". The day before I had noticed that everything seemed very relaxed in Kathmandu. There was no pressure. If you wanted to keep yourself to yourself you could. It was very quiet. I got up reasonably early and went to Thamel to look for somewhere to have breakfast. It was cold and very foggy. I decided on the Nepalese Kitchen on the road to Durbar Square from Thamel.



Well, why not try Nepalese Cuisine at the Nepalese Kitchen? Shall we count the reasons? Is the Chef smoking a pipe? Is that a dog in the kitchen? Is the dog eating a bone? Isn't that a tripping accident just waiting to happen? Someone should have run the advertisement past the Health & Safety adviser. The Environmental Health Department could swoop and close the place before you could say "knife". Talking of which, the Chef seems to be wearing a dagger and I'm not sure he should be chopping chicken so close to the cooker?. Perhaps that is what the waiter is thinking but shouldn't he be paying more attention to where he's going?

I like the tag line "Taste it ... you will like it". It is similar to the advertising for Limca on hoardings and such like in India: "I drink Limca because I like it".

Seriously, the restaurant was OK. This was not India. This was a completely different country. It was a proper place to sit down and eat. It looked safe and clean. I didn't make a note of what I ate. After a couple of months in India the sort of food and refreshment available in Kathmandu was amazing. The difference was the Himalayas and the fact that climbers and trekkers and other lovers of outdoors pursuits from all over the world flock to Kathmandu before and after their adventures. This means that every taste is catered for. You could get Italian coffee, spaghetti, cheese sandwiches; you could get almost anything.

That Saturday morning was a little like this morning (Saturday 6 February 2010) here in North Wales. It was foggy until about 10.30 am and then the sun came out. The difference was that although it was quite chilly here in the fog, in Kathmandu it was very chilly indeed, a penetrating cold; and here the sunshine was quite pleasant today but not very warm while in Kathmandu the sun was very strong and quite hot. As the days went by it began to be a bit of a pain in the neck to have to wrap up warm first thing and then by lunchtime wish you didn't have to carry a coat and jumper around because they were heavy and it was rather too hot. Having said that the difference in temperature between the direct sunlight and shade was amazing. If you stood half in the shade and half in the direct sunlight one side of you was cold and the other uncomfortably warm.



The general calmness was eerie. Nobody accosted you as you walked around. That was it. There was no hassle.



This was really off-putting. It had seemed a relief to be out of India and away from the perpetual hassle but I wasn't ready for the culture shock. The hassle had been turned off instantly.

Kathmandu was beautiful. Every time you turned your head there was something to photograph. I couldn't get used to it. No one jumped in front of the camera.



I wandered around just trying to take it all in and trying to resist taking too many pictures.



I really wish I could have taken more. Eventually I went for something to eat at My Place and the notes say I went to a Travel Agency. There were several things that I needed to do. I needed to book an excursion. It was also going to be necessary to get a Visa for Thailand and confirm my flight onward in due course.



Everybody else just got on with things quietly. There wasn't a great deal of motorised traffic. That also contributed to the tranquility that seemed to pervade the place and everyone in it.

I went back to the hotel for a while before going for something to eat at the Nepalese Kitchen again. Here I found the answer to the "Why not Nepalese Cuisine?" question. The reason is that something advertised as Nepalese Meals was I think is the dish called dhal bhat tarkari and it is not very exciting. The Lonely planet Guide says: "Real Nepalese food is distinctly dull". That's about right.

I spent the night in my room reading, planning, writing and listening to live football commentary on the World Service. There was good reception.

What She Wrote and a Digression

The letter had been forwarded to me by my Dad who had written a short note letting me know that all the stuff I was sending home was arriving safely; that matters relating to the transfer of my flat in London into my sole name were complete; and he mentioned that the property market appeared to be coming back to life, which was good news. Then he wrote:

"Mail comes for you and most of it is pretty dull and not worth sending on but here is a letter that appears to be personal which did get opened but it remained unread. I do not imagine that you want to see bank statements and things like that"

As you can see from the envelope the letter had already been redirected from London up to North Wales.

I took it back to my hotel room and lay on my bed. This is what I read (click the image to view it large enough to read more easily):



I have thought about whether I should publish Liz's letter like this. I have done a bit of internet searching to see whether I could locate Liz (really quite a lot of searching using every permutation of her name with other key words) without success so I can't ask for her permission to publish it. I'm not sure if I need permission. The letter was sent to me. Anyway, there's nothing embarrassing in the letter. It is very personal but it is positively the nicest letter I have every received.

Ahhhh...Liz! As we are going on a digression you must imagine the scene in front of you going wavy to the circular strumming of a harp. We are going back in time ... back ... back ... back to before the beginning of the events set out in this Blog.

At a gallop: After doing the Final Exams at the Chester College of Law I had settled down to wait for the results. To my mind there was no point in doing anything towards getting Articles of Clerkship (as a Training Contract used to be called) until the results were published. I never thought for a minute that I would pass. The exams were the hardest I had ever done and I was convinced I had done so badly that there would no point in trying to get Articles because I was certain to fail.

My Dad had other ideas. He was not going to let me hang around literally doing nothing. So I was encouraged to write off some applications. I got a couple of interviews. One with a West End firm and one with the Maidstone Borough Council. So I went to the interview at Maidstone which was the first in time. I was not properly prepared for the interview. I had never had a job interview before. I was asked what I would say if I was offered the job. It sounded like a stupid question. I mean, why would anyone go for an interview for a job if they were not going to accept the job if it was offered to him? So I said I would accept. They asked me to wait outside and then I was asked back in and put on the spot. Doh! What could I say? I said I would take the job.

It didn't matter much, I thought, because it didn't alter the fact that I wasn't going to pass the Solicitors Finals anyway. I cancelled the interview with the West End firm. My Dad was off my back and after the results confirmed my failure I would tell Maidstone Borough Council and decide to do something else entirely.

Quite contrary to my expectation I actually passed the exams. I couldn't believe it and neither could the mother of a certain Oxford graduate Murray C. L. McPherson who actually called me up on the day of the publication of the results in The Times to ask me whether I thought there mightn't have been a mix up. There hadn't been, I explained to her, because candidates' names were not put on their papers. We all had numbers. I doubted that Murray's number was as similar to mine as our initials and surnames were.

So, practically by mistake, I ended up in the Garden of England. I couldn't let Maidstone down. They had been let down by a number of candidates before my accepting their offer. I didn't want to try to get another job anyway.

My first "digs" were in East Farliegh with a strange TVS VT editor called Potts who seemed to live on an exclusive diet of the worst convenience foods. How anyone can eat instant mashed potato almost every day is beyond me. Anyway, as soon as I could, I moved out and got a room in a cottage called "Woodlands" in the small settlement of cottages on Pizien Well Lane near Wateringbury, one stop further up the line from Maidstone West to Paddock Wood. This, by the way, is one of the prettiest little railway journeys you can take, at least until you arrive at Maidstone West and one which I had taken before on a "trip" some time the previous year. That is another story altogether but Wateringbury was where we had got off the train when things had started to get out of hand that day so it seemed there was some synchronicity at work.

It was 10-15 minute walk through strawberry fields, apple orchards and hop gardens down to the River Medway and Wateringbury Station. This is was the view as I came home every evening either on foot or on my bike. It was really the most beautiful spot. The white cottage in the front was in fact two cottages called Wheatsheaf Cottage. One was owned by Ken Tobutt a former resident of Woodlands which itself was owned by people who had emigrated to Israel. Ken acted as their agent. Woodlands is the cottage to the rear.



I had the room downstairs to the left of the front door at first. The rooms upstairs were occupied by Tony Swinkels, a Kent County Council surveyor; James Weatherup, a reporter for the Kent Messenger; and another bloke whose name escapes me now (was it Richard?) but who was a student at the Osteopathy College in Maidstone. Later, I got James Weatherup's room (where he had had spent a great deal of time entertaining his tennis coach girlfriend) which was the one on the right at the front with a window carved out of the roof. James had landed a job on one of the red tops.



This image is scanned from a print made of a drawing by an artist called Penny Edwards who had also once lived in Woodlands and with whom Ken Tobutt was in love. Regrettably she was in love and lived with someone else. The original drawing belonged to Ken. I think it was one of his most precious possessions.

One day Tony Swinkels turned up with two girls. Liz was one of them . She was about 19. I was 21. She had beautiful eyes and lovely skin and I loved the way she spoke. She had an infectious laugh. She came from Devon. She was then living in a flat in Larkfield, the other side of East Malling and she was working for Kent County Council. We fell in love and I think we fell into bed almost immediately after that.

We were together for only a few months but they were a great few months. We didn't so much go out together as see each other all the time. When you live in an idyllic rural location like Woodlands why would you need to go out anywhere? Liz came over to see me most nights. We had some very romantic times together. It was a very romantic place. It had a genuine Ingle Nook fireplace and there was a well, possibly the Pizien Well itself, outside the kitchen door.



If you walked up past the house and up into the garden there were woods. Looking back down from there you can see the back of the house and my bike outside the kitchen (possibly trying to get in, see "The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brien). Bluebells will always remind me of that time with Liz.



The other side of the small wood was Mereworth Castle which is decribed by John Newman in the Second Edition of his "West Kent and The Weald" volume of "The Buildings of England" edited by Nikolaus Pevsner, as one of the major achievements of Palladianism, the architect Colen Campbell's most fulsome act of homage to Palladio, a copy of the Villa Rotunda built on a knoll outside Vicenza. Fancy having something like that at the bottom of your garden?



I really don't know why I ended our relationship. It didn't make sense. I loved her. I think I decided to end it after I had spent the night with Liz at her flat. I think I met some people she knew and somehow I thought we were too different and that I could not fit in. I think it was a mistake. Liz was upset. I was stupid and would not relent.

I did stay in touch with Liz and have a collection of her letters and cards. They aren't love letters but I can't throw them away. I saw Liz twice more after I left Kent to go to work in Sutton and live in Archway. I can't begin to go into more detail but the last time I saw her she was working as a Mental Health Nurse in Bodmin, Cornwall. She was a single mum and struggling. I was overwhelmed with a sense of something I can't describe and offered to try to get a job close to her so that we could be together again. She said she didn't think it would be a good idea, she let me down very gently.

This letter that I had picked up in the Poste Restante in Katmandhu really got to me. I was practically on the roof of the World but my heart was in my boots. I was happy for Liz but felt very sorry for myself. I wrote back to Liz and told her how I had once and always felt about her.

Perhaps having just spent a couple of weeks with Claire and now being back on my own again contributed to my blues. I wallowed in it a bit.