‘Oh my god, I ha-a-ated trekking…’

Princess Paris Hilton lasted just four days. Altitude sickness, food poisoning, fatigue, near-death by car, sherpa and local tour company led to her subsequent delivery to the Hotel Courtyard. Dale dragged his trekking dreams and her dresses into the foyer.

‘Can I help you?’ said the owner.

‘I hope so,’ sighed Dale, ‘look at her.’

Samina was in a terrible state.

‘What do you need?’ asked the host in that soothing Nepali way.

‘A steak!’ she gasped and fell, sobbing, onto a couch.

They arrived in their Goa flip-flops and six weeks later, had neither left the compound nor bought warm clothes, socks or shoes. They woke up and stumbled down to breakfast around lunchtime, then retired to the Courtyard Home Cinema, dedicated to their task of watching every one of the giant pile of DVD’s that towered over the guests in the library. They busily watched movies all day, pausing for a late lunch in the hotel restaurant, only venturing out for dinner with the other guests, always dressed for Goa. December slid into January, the temperature fell to zero, villagers froze to death in the hills - yet still those flip-flops stayed on.

There are a thousand shops in Thamel, all selling the same knock-off North Face items, there are ten thousand pairs of gloves and socks and stupid Peruvian woolen hats all selling for a dollar just a few feet down the street.

‘Why don’t you just buy some warm clothes and throw them away?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I hate to throw clothes away,’ she said blithely.

‘She collects them instead.’

Secretly, Dale was full of rage.

‘Who carries the forty-two dresses?’ I asked.

‘He’s the man,’ she purred and stroked his arm.

That'll give you something to read while I fly. Since writing the above, I’ve found Rommy's website:

http://tuktukgoose.com/the-story-of-...pal-and-india/

http://tuktukgoose.com/the-visa-saga-finale/

He made it.

A very, very interesting man walked into the Hotel Courtyard; he was on a mission. It was not something monumental like to circumambulate Mt. Kailash or climb Mt. Everest or to prostrate his way to Muktinath…but it was his mission; just an idea that occurred to him after he had paid a visit to TripAdvisor looking for a hotel. This man was coming to Nepal. He had not been here in decades but the ride that he started in 1971 during a visit to Nepal had forever shaped his life. He had left Nepal years ago with his adventures (and memories?) and moved on to do bigger and better things with his life. He became a modest success in the theatre. So as he sat back happily collecting his royalties, an idea came to him. “I don’t need to work anymore so I’ll travel around the world! In fact, I’ll buy a big house, decorate it beautifully with things that I acquire in my travels and only stay there one or two months a year. Why you ask? Well because I’ll be travelling of course!” So there it was – he would travel. Again…

Back to his mission… Since he was already a proficient traveler and had visited many places, he felt it was time to return to Nepal. Perhaps it was because he was finally ready; or perhaps it was because Nepal was finally ready for him. Whichever it may be, he had visited TripAdvisor to see where he should stay. As he queried up Kathmandu hotels, who did he see ranked as No. 1? Why, non-other than the Hotel Courtyard! The Hotel Courtyard, a family run, 18 room, boutique hotel in Thamel? How could this be? How could they garner so many positive reviews and gushing guests? Well…he decided that this was to be his mission in Kathmandu. Was the Hotel Courtyard for real? Or, was there something fishy going on? He was the man for this mission and he would find out. But honestly, did he really know what he was in for?

Dr Who or The Who as in the music group from the 70s? Dogster in the theatre business? An actor or a playwriter?

Interesting... Is dogster getting ready to out himself for those who haven't figured it out yet, or is one of his fellow Courtyard guests cooking sauce for the gander? I think I'd be rather nervous about staying in the same hotel.

OK now i am confused!

I think 'The Who' as in the co-owner of the Hotel Courtyard! lol lol lol. I knew you'd appear, Michelle.

A few of her facts are a bit skew-whiff - but no matter, I reckon the right of reply is allowed - welcomed, in fact. Once I was sprung I knew there'd be a price to pay. lol lol lol. Fair 'nuff. We are all graced with such a clever response.

Actually my only mission was to smoke as much charas as I possibly could. Detective Dogster was a disguise.

I've been to Nepal half-a-dozen times in the last five years, but sometimes it seems like I'm still in the Inn Eden, lost in my hashish grilled cheese slices. What happened to that young man? What happened to those grilled-cheese-slicey dreams? What made him into the grizzled, pathetic old mongrel who appears in Fodors?

It's a dog's life.

A 'modest success'? I've never been a modest success at anything. I can't chew gum and walk at the same time. Theatre? Show-biz? lol. I don't anything about the theatre - only the constant spectacle of the Hotel Courtyard. That's all the performance I need. What a show!

I'm in Bangkok now.

I'll finish this first Kathmandu episode soon. I know it doesn't remotely resemble a proper trip report - but, if you stop to think about it, it's a report of what happened on my trip, so... lol. In the second epistle, if we get to that, there may even be a little bit of sight-seeing.

Dogster wrote: [There'll be a secret lurker looking in, too. The management of Hotel Courtyard worked out I was the fabulous dogster within hours of my arrival - so much for anonymity.]

And I thought that you are some kind of stage actor like the Phantom from the Phantom of the Opera(Michael Crawford of course)

Now that the Courtyard Cat is out of the bag, in case we get diverted - here's the last part of the first part.

January in Kathmandu is bitterly cold. Only the vampire prickles of Thamel bother with the tourists, rearing out of the damp like half-dead wraiths; hooded, shriveled, petrol-sniffing children; junkie youths hissing ‘smoke?’ ‘we-e-e-eed?’ ‘what you want?’, incanting the same carnivorous Om-m-m-m to indulgence as their long-dead, frozen forefathers did forty years ago.

January days are crisp, warm and clear. There’s a window of opportunity during the daylight hours. All fine, provided you wake up before 1.00 p.m., something Dogster consistently failed to do for the entire time he was there. He slept like a dead log, encased in a burrow of squash-you-flat doonas, suddenly in winter hibernation.

My window of opportunity became rather small. Dogster never made it out of the hotel before two - by five p.m. it’s damn cold and when the last rays of the sun disappear the temperature plummets; by six it’s bitter, by seven I’m either somewhere warm or dead.

Better eat dinner early. Even on a weekend the restaurants in Thamel are shuttered by ten, the streets empty by ten-fifteen, just the last drunk tourist shouting their last drunk goodbyes. By ten-thirty Thamel is virtually deserted, only glue babies left shivering in the dark.

Even in arctic January, rust never sleeps in Nepal.

[b-awN-dh] adj.:
Bandh, also a Nepali word meaning 'closed', is a form of protest. While often means the closing down of markets of a city for the day, but there have been instances of the entire nation coming to a standstill.

Don’t make a stand in a bandh - you’ll get your nose chopped off.

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/pr...?news_id=13863

BANDH DISRUPTS LIFE IN KATHMANDU

‘…In Nepal, normal life remained disrupted in Kathmandu valley today following a day-long bandh called by Rashtriya Janmorcha protesting against federalism. Major shops and business establishments remained closed and public transport were off the roads, affecting road communication between Kathmandu valley and other parts of the country. Cadres of RJN vandalised half a dozen vehicles including taxis, motorbikes and buses in Bhaktapur, Chabahil and Gongabu, New Bus Park and Putalisadak for defying the bandh call. Police have made tight security arrangements to maintain law and order…’.

Kathmandu Jan 10

As bandhs go, Sunday’s was very calm. Somehow, I missed the cadres of RJN youth vandalizing cars. The media certainly didn’t – you’d think the whole of Nepal was ablaze. Quite the reverse – except for the missing nose, it was all rather dull.

You can always tell when there’s a bandh, you wake up late to something missing; the hum, that buzz of business – all gone. Look out the window - nobody. Information for a non-Nepali speaking tourist? None.

You can always check your diary:
www.nepalbandh.com
which will tell you what happened yesterday.

Actually, nobody wants to tell you that you’re stuffed - because if you want to go anywhere, you are. A pre-dawn dash out of the capital has been known to work; backpackers recently reported colorful scenes hiking overland through the deserted streets to the airport - the wise tourist just changes plans, gives up and moves to Thamel.

Thamel has an invisible cordon around it, rarely broken even at the worst of times. Even an enraged Nepali Maoist knows not to bite the hand that indirectly feeds him – be it criminal or tourist. Layers of Nepali sub-Mafia run Thamel – no matter what the politics, business will out. In a way, it’s probably the best place to be in a bandh.

There was a small green sign on a large blue bus parked on the edge of Thamel. It read:

TOURST SUTTELE BUS
ONLY for TOURIST

Then it said the same thing again, hopefully in Nepali.

The 'suttele' bus was straining with locals, intent on a lift out of town. How real tourists suttele to the airport during a bandh remains a mystery. There is no transport. Cycle rickshaws work in the Thamel area with trepidation, motorbikes zoom through, a rare, rare taxi cruises by – but that’s all. The shops are shuttered, every door, every window – not a chai, not a coffee, not a scrambled egg to be had. Some find it refreshing. I was hungry.

Generally, bandhs are most ferocious in the morning when the RJN cadres are fresh, enthusiastic, all primed to beat the bejeezus out of any errant shopkeeper, any greedy taxi-driver they see. They get a bit tired by mid-afternoon.

Everybody else just stands around, waiting for something to happen. I saw many bored policemen; they are just sick of it - a bandh is a bandh is a bandh in Kathmandu. As the day wears on the marauding cadres get too tired or drunk to continue, the shutters slither open, renegade chai appears in the street; by three p.m. you can buy bananas or hashish, by four a sticky bun. The Latest, Greatest Bandh of Kathmandu passed with barely a whimper.

It was a dangerous silence, just the same.

Aunty Esme’s hair carried her across the courtyard. Two men laden with boxes followed. She’d slept in a warm bed for two nights with a heater and a television that worked, talked in English with strangers, bathed in a hot shower; Esme had even been to the Charm Beauty Parlour [Ladies Only] – she was glowing. Her hair was clean for the first time in four months and had taken on a life of its own. It swept out either side of her face like two grey wings ready to lift her back to the lonely place on the border that starts with a ‘B’.

She stopped for a moment, stared at me with those crinkled, gentle eyes and sighed.

‘Oh well,’ she said wistfully, ‘back to the real world…’

Me too.

The multiple characters of the hotel were so gripping I had to force my own way out the door. I was living in an endless Andy Warhol movie with no plot, set nowhere, achieving nothing; engrossed in the Big Brother house with a rotating cast of Fabulous Nobodies – including, most definitely, me.

The Courtyard Cabaret will never close; the show will run forever. For the Diva Dog, it was time to go. I'd had my time on the slippery silver stage. It’s always best to leave before you’re voted out.

Done. More in a few days if you want it.

YES PLEASE BRAVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Man, Dogster...you sure can write! If you are not a professional writer already...you should be! Despite sounding at times like you are sampling something strange your descriptions of people are sheer poetry! Impressive report.

Dogster... I have missed so much by mainly reading the European Forum! I have just been reading your fantastic cruise ship tale. I gather you are Australian? Explains a lot if you are as they, myself included,have the best sense of humour!Beats that colourless stuff that passes for comedy in most other places.
I read how many people are urging you to write a book.... You should! Do you have a web site with other writing on it? Let us all know if you do.
Brilliant stuff!

fabulous, fabulous! can't wait for more!

Ms.Michelle-- The Who-- do tell us more, please! It's not often we get independent information about Dogster's observations. Did YOU see any of those people or were they only crawling around in Dogster's head? Enquiring Fodor's readers need to know...

lol lol lol Marija - ever the detective. How could you doubt the Dog? I'd imagine Michelle and the ladies of the Courtyard have the right of reply. I'll just go sit in my bomb-shelter.

I will have to catch up after my own adventure but please keep on!

I'm here and reading, Dog. Keep going.

BC

Sorry Marija: I'm reliably informed that our newest mystery member - TheWho - is NOT Ms. Michelle, esteemed co-owner of the Hotel Courtyard.

O.K. I'll come out of the bomb shelter, then.

I must say that this piece was incredibly difficult to write, knowing in advance that some of the people involved were going to be reading it - how to say what you need to without being mean and cruel. I tried to write it with affection. It's a fine line between pleasure and pain.

By the way, for anybody wondering - these trip reports of what is now nearly three months on the road will appear in reverse order. Kathmandu first, then a rewritten Tamil Nadu, then some more Mumbai and last, if I can bear to write it, the ordeal by Pandaw.

Which was about as horrible an experience as you can imagine.

But first, maybe, some more Kathmandu. I'm a bit 'in-transit' at the moment so words come easily - or not at all. Can't control 'em, they come when they want to.

This is too good not to continue. Am waiting with bated breath.

Ms.Michelle, do come join us! There always room for another Who and whatever information you can bring about the mysterious capers in Kathmandu. And a challenge to The original Who-- Don't paraphase or google background info for the tale, tell us something to show that you really were there...

Woof Woof, come on Doggie it's absorbing and I'm listening......Pauline

I have it from a reliable source that dogster is eccentric and lovable. =D

Sorry, trav, good old Bruno is not an objective source. Those dogs stick together...

‘Yesterday upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there…
He wasn't there again today,
Oh, how I wish he'd go away…’

Hughes Mearns: "Antigonish"

He’s sitting there, pallid and thin, staring out vacantly at Durbar Square. He’s wasted. He looked over at me and smiled. It was that same brainless smile I’ve seen for decades. I’m a bit sick of it now; the vacuity, the Woodstockian mindlessness of it all. I lived through the Seventies; I had to tolerate every loony-tune fruit-loop loser in the spirit of the times - now I just want to beat them to a pulp.

The kid was staying just round the corner, at some dive with a stupid hippie name. He’d only just arrived but had already found what he was looking for. He’ll stay in his fatal nexus of guest house, coffee shop and street. He’ll catch a glimpse of a historical site, a temple, a cow, stumble stoned through Durbar Square, plonk his skinny arse on a stool in the nearest tea shop and sit and smoke dope and crash out and say ‘I’ve been to Kathmandu…’

No, he hadn’t.

For this young man the mere act of getting here was sufficient. He’d done it, ticked it off on his list. Countries I have been to. Places I have seen. A couple of days here, a couple there, hurtling round at the speed of light; I’ve been there, tick, I’ve done that, tick, I’ve done it all – I’m so wise, I’m twenty-one, I’m a grown up, I’ve been to Kathmandu…

No, he hadn’t.

Not yet.

Now, I’m older than Thamel – but then, I’m older than almost everybody in Kathmandu. For that matter, I’m older than practically everybody in Nepal. Average life expectancy hovers at sixty-three years. I was truly a very senior citizen.

Which didn’t stop the latest Jimmy catching my eye - he knew an old hippy when he saw one. A raised eyebrow, the slightest wiggle of his head, a hurried conversation and I was following him down the street. Jimmy was pretty out of it but benign. He was a regular. He reached into his pocket as we were walking down the street and pulled out a lump of hashish that made me stop dead in my tracks.

‘No-o-o-o, way too much. Lordy, put it away, it’s huge!’

The block of hashish in question was the size of two cigarette packets side by side. It was a brick of golden brown, bigger than the hand that held it, easily the biggest block of hash I’d seen in my life. People pushed past us as we stopped near the taxi rank, dead centre of the main street.

‘It’s O.K.,’ Jimmy said, I’ll break some off for you.’

He rotated it for my inspection, completely unconcerned, then tore off a chunk from one corner and palmed it to me with a handshake. With rain starting to pour around us I returned too many Nepali rupees, said a hurried goodbye, threaded my way back through Thamel dodging junkies and motor bikes, cars and a particularly enthusiastic demonstration of screaming women who firmly believed that their shouting would remove China from Tibet. I settled into my new hotel doing what you do to the corner of a giant block of Nepali charas.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Hotel Courtyard was exchanged for the Arcadia Apartment Hotel, booked on a whim after dinner at the restaurant directly opposite. It was a hotel with considerable lack of style, perfectly located with a huge room peeking over the Thamel rooftops complete with kitchen, a hard bed and two squash-me-flat-doonas that I could barely lift off in the morning.

I was content. I needed solitude.

The only things it lacked were heating - and any service at all. The key was handed over – three days later the key was handed back. That was it. Two sweet Nepali women visited me once in the meantime, to make the bed and check I wasn’t dead.

As it turns out, there was a good reason. I quote:

‘… just incase any of you see anything perhaps in the papers or news in the next couple of days about a european tourist being found dead in arcadia apartments in kathmandu dont worry im okay. it was the guy who lived 3 doors down from me. its been an afternoon of police and army people outside the door and stuff like that. i had to stay in the apartment for a couple of hours while they checked his apt and this was the tragic outcome.

i was originally going to write a bit just about all my amazing travels so far and how fantastic its been but under the circumstances i think ill just put it on hold for another day. and i guess instead …id ask you to spare a thought for the poor guy down the hall and his family & friends, and to just be glad that im safe and well in Kathmandu…’

I hope ‘Nikkiviper’ won’t mind my steal from her blog in travelpod. With great difficulty I resisted the urge to add punctuation and capital letters. There’s something kinda nice about her gentle style.

Dogster didn’t last all that long at the Arcadia. He kept thinking he was in the same room.

I'm following along on this journey, enjoying glimpses of Kathmandu through a dog's eyes.

I'm sorry about all the druggie stuff. I think it's apropos. Dog endures it all for the common good. Just say 'no'.

Good morning, dog. Just got home late last night from a week in Vegas. Catching up on my reading. How's Bangkok? Pls go say hi to Maeng, and wish her a belated happy 50th birthday for me!
Carol

O.K. so Thamel is not REAL Kathmandu, although I have not met any humans who ever said it was some exclusive domain. So where is the REAL Kathmandu? The inexorable conclusion must also be that Kathmandu is not REAL Nepal, so what is real? Just start with what the All-knowing regard as Kathmandu? Oh, and why does the All-knowing go there in the most uncomfortable season?

Boudhanath hits you like a golden gong.

If you have ears to hear and a heart to feel, the reverberations stay with you for hours. Go at sunset. Walk in, stop for a minute and look straight ahead. Framed, like a giant Breughel painting, is a scene you won’t forget - a flood of people walking in a circle, a solid wall of pilgrims, locals, monks, monks and more monks heading clockwise with great determination.

For the stupafied I’d better explain.

‘…Boudhanath is one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Kathmandu, Nepal. Located about 11 km from the center and northeastern outskirts of Kathmandu, the stupa's massive mandala makes it one of the largest spherical stupas in Nepal. The Buddhist stupa dominates the skyline. The ancient Stupa is one of the largest in the world. The influx of large populations of Tibetan refugees from China has seen the construction of over 50 Tibetan Gompas (Monasteries) around Boudhanath. As of 1979, Boudhanath is a UNESCO World Heritage Site…’

Wikipedia