Nepal - Kathmandu - Day 2
Today was very slow to start and then turned into a whirlwind of doing stuff.
My dear friend from Bangladesh, Ayreen, has travelled to Nepal to meet with me and to show me around Nepal. She is a frequent visitor and has many friends (Nepali and ex-pat) here, indeed, she is staying in Nepal for a further two weeks after I leave. Ayreen and I met when I first visited Bangladesh on the e-government project that was being run by my former student and academic colleague, Ahmed Imran. Ayreen is an extraordinary woman – artist, child abuse and displaced persons advocate, some time academic, freelance researcher, and TV, radio, and print journalist (all achieved since I met her and certainly not because of it). We haven’t seen each other for over 15 years though we have remained in touch online over that time and the opportunity to catch up with her in person on this trip was too good to pass up.
So, today was the day that we were scheduled to meet. Ayreen arranged to meet me at my hotel as she is more familiar with moving around Kathmandu than I am. Even though she was more familiar, it was almost noon by the time we met.
We headed off directly on a walk that I had planned to visit a ‘Western-style’ shopping mall where I hoped to get a stamp, some tissues, and other little necessaries from familiar shops. Especially in Patan, the shops are all tourist and artisan stores, or coffee houses and restaurants. After about 20 minutes of walking, talking incessantly to try to bridge the 15 years of life that had unfolded for each of us, we checked to see where the mall was. Asking a storekeeper, I discovered that we’d walked off in the wrong direction and so were essentially on the opposite side of Patan to the mall!
Ayreen suggested perhaps a taxi, but I didn’t have any confidence in dealing with taxis in Kathmandu and thought that walking would be practically as quick given the traffic on the one big road we needed to walk down to get the the mall. Ayreen agreed to the walk and we went back the way we came (more quickly) and then pressed on to the mall. I would stop occasionally and photograph something that was new to me about the city on the journey.
Patan is littered with temples and shrines for devotions.
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We had coffee and cake at the mall before discovering that it was strictly a commercial retail outlets mall (no services like a PO or convenience stores). We were also looking for a SIM card, so we asked directions from the coffee shop guy and were sent off in another direction. Getting a SIM card proved to be unbearable – we needed a photocopy of the passport and a photocopy of the visa! So, after discovering these things one at a time (i.e. after one trip to find somewhere that would photocopy the passport) we abandoned the first effort to acquire a SIM.
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Ayreen suggested that we visit the cafe where the friend she is staying with works as a chef for lunch. We got a taxi – Ayreen (who knows several languages uses what she calls ‘Bollywood Hindi’ to communicate in Nepal) hailed one quickly and then knew to negotiate the fee before even opening the door; a key trick I didn’t know – and were relatively speedily delivered to the Blue Note cafe.
The Blue Note is a very nice cafe/restaurant/bar on at least three levels in a narrow building. We were met there by John – Ayreen’s friend and host – and he prepared us our lunch. As we finished lunch, John came down to check on us again. He introduced us to the owner – Sudesh – who was giving all the vibes of a club owner, including being accompanied by 4 or 5 women friends. Sudesh is a lovely guy, a bit of a self-made man of some substance and he entertained us generously for some time.
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Eventually the party had to end as Ayreen and I were still to achieve to important goals – acquire a SIM to allow travel connectivity in Nepal, and book a trip to Chitawan for the next day. Just down the road from the Blue Note was a tour operator – Signature Tours – who also sold SIM cards. We bought a SIM card (having made a photocopy of Ayreen’s visa at Blue Note and she conveniently had a passport photo to offer) and started discussions with the tour operator about possible jaunts to Chitawan. While Ayreen has visited Nepal nearly 25 times, she’s never been to Chitawan, so we were both novices. There were several attractive options but as we were trying to decide, Ayreen received a message from another very good friend of hers who insisted on telling Ayreen all about the best places to visit in Chitawan; she was heading to the Blue Note to meet us. We put the purchase on hold and told the tour guy that we’d be back in an hour or so with decisions.
The Blue Note is on Radisson Road – a small hotel district
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Shreeti – Ayreen’s friend with Chitawan tourism views – is a bit of a force of nature, a (very) young woman just finishing her undergraduate studies but a powerhouse intellect full of raw energy and a deep devotion to Ayreen (who was previously her lecturer). Ultimately, Shreeti’s Chitawan tourist advice largely supported what we’d already been considering. After spending some time with Shreeti at the Blue Note, we went back to the tour operator and finalised the tour for the next day. (I’ll spare you the details of the negotiations as a couple of options couldn’t take us on that schedule, then there were alternate transport arrangements, possible add-ons, etc.)
Having secured our two-night three day tour to Chitawan, we headed off on foot to the Thamel district to have dinner at Sudesh’s other establishment, New Orleans. It was another fairly long walk, this time in the dark, but we got there safely. The Thamel district is an entertainment district with many restaurants, bars, night clubs, strip clubs, and other entertainment venues. Ayreen showed me the Kathmandu Guest House, where she recommended that I stay when we returned from Chitawan. It’s a ‘grand hotel’ in the garden pavilion style (a little like the Canberra Hyatt, actually) and as a standard room in this clearly plush hotel was $50USD a night, I made a reservation on the spot.
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We went across the road to New Orleans (literally across the road from the hotel) and had dinner. Sudesh and then John joined us as we were finishing and much chatting and quiet drinking of wine went on. Eventually, John called me a cab on an app, which guaranteed the fare. We walked out of the restaurant and the cab was there. I left the crew at New Orleans and headed home. I had to be ready to be collected by our driver to Chitawan at 7:30am!
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