On Buffalo Meat and Buddhism (Nepal)

 

From Canada it was a 30+ hour journey all the way around the world to Nepal, via Finland and India. The final of the three flights was an Air India flight with about 12 people on board. It had the world’s most disinterested flight attendants and a safety video that looked like it had been filmed in the 70’s. I was pretty exhausted/ insanely bored by this time but as we flew into Nepal I saw out my window the Himalayas rising up out of the clouds. For a while we seemed to be flying parallel to them.

Arriving in Kathmandu with bloodshot eyes and a serious sleep debt my airport pick up was nowhere to be seen so I was subject to the usual rip off taxi ride into town.

At first Kathmandu was confronting, especially in contrast to Canada. Lots of people, lots of poverty, crazy traffic, strange smells, strange sights (all the exciting stuff). But it didn’t take me too long to get comfortable and confirm that Asia is truly my home away from home.

I was interested to learn that international aid is a big part of this country’s economy, and at the airport our plane rolled up and parked next to a UN plane. Nepal is a much poorer country than I had thought.

This means things are cheap, like my $5.50 per night guesthouse room, which came complete with a cockroach infestation that had me up at regular intervals of the first few nights doing ‘sweeps’ of the room (I eventually came to terms with them crawling over me as I slept). I was the only guest for the first 5 nights, and there were rolling black outs throughout the whole duration of my stay.

I had to bunker down in Kathmandu in order to sort out an Indian Visa. It took me lots of paperwork, 50 bucks, three visits to the consulate, and 8 days to get it sorted.

Kathmandu is a cool place. It feels like a small city despite having a couple of million people. The area I stayed, Thamil, is a major backpacker and hippy hangout, with maybe more dreadlocks, second hand book stores, and tie die clothes per capita than anywhere else in the world.

This cities appeal is the fact it is a stronghold of Tibetan Buddhism, and it was once thought to be something of a fabled and inaccessible Shangri La.

Exploring the city I found stupas in small public squares, prayer flags flying high in the air, watched cows wander about the streets like they owned them, noticed everyone from school kids to the elderly stop in and pray at the Buddhist or Hindu temples that are scattered throughout the city, and expected to be clipped by a passing motorbike or car as I walked on the road (no footpaths).

I spent most evenings sitting up the top of one of the Pagodas in Durber Square, watching the people go about their business, watching motorbikes weave amongst the pedestrians, watching the women sitting on the concrete selling vegetables, watching orphans beg and poor children sell water and fairy floss, and watching all the other people sitting around, hanging out. This was the heart of the city.

Almost every day that I came here I was approached by a local. I would be reading or listening to my ipod or just staring down at the vegetable sellers when they would come up to me and ask me where I was from. I’m not sure if it was because they wanted to practice their English (which is most cases was pretty bad, and having a conversation took a lot of concentration from the both of us), or whether they were just friendly and curious, but I met and spoke with some nice people, learning all sorts of things about Nepal and the Nepalese.

I’ve said this before but this time it is for certain; Kathmandu is the best food town in all my travels, ever. The food in Nepal is a great mix of unique dishes (Momo dumplings, Thali set including dal fry, curry, pickles, curd, papad, rice) and stuff that has wafted across from over its borders with China to the North and India to the south. Its curry, noodle, rice and spice galore! And interestingly, Buffalo is the most common meat here. I had it every day either in a curry, a momo, as sausage, in a chilli sauce or in dried out jerky form.

And it’s all so dirt cheap. I would have fried noodles for breakfast – 50 cents, then Momo for lunch  -  $1.50, then a Thali Set for dinner - $2.20. All in all I was living off 10 – 15 dollars per day.

From Kathmandu I took a bus to a town called Pokhara. The 201 km trip ended up taking 9.5 hours, in what I can say is a perfect example of how Nepal doesn’t have its shit together whatsoever.

Pokhara is a nice town right on a lake with views of the Himalayas rising above the surrounding landscape. Here is spent a few days wandering around, eating, and talking to locals who would approach me to practice their English. One guy, 17 he said he was, asked me the following three things;

1) Do I know Bradley (which would take me a while to interpret as Brett Lee)?

2) Can I take him back to Australia with me (and if so, give him a job), and

3) Have I ever touched my girlfriend’s breast?

Back to Kathmandu for a few days, sit at the pagodas, see some stupa’s, meet up with some of the guys I had previously met, meet new people I would be travelling along with, and say goodbye to a city that fed me well.

From there we travelled along a sketchy mountain road to the town of Sauraha. It didn’t take me long at the start of the trip to realise that my biggest risk is a road accident - way more likely than a terrorist attack or street violence. It’s the way a lot of people die in these parts of the world. And the road that day had my heart beating – we were so close to the edge of the cliff and still our driver insisted on overtaking on the single lane. We saw below that a couple of trucks had fallen off the road.

In Sauraha we took bikes to go and explore the small villages and rice fields. We passed many villagers who waved from the front of their mud brick homes, saw buffalo grazing on grass and rubbish (one day to become a thousand momo’s), and watch the locals fish with little nets and pick river grass out of the small streams. The rickety bridges, the way the children called out hello and chased our bikes, the waterlogged and squared rice patties – it all reminded me of cycling around different towns and villages of Asia back when I was a teenager.

Nepal is a tiny country surrounded by two behemoths, but it manages to squeeze the world’s highest mountain range in not too far away from filled sub-tropical jungle.

We left Sauraha by long boat, and paddled off into the Chitwan National Park, an expanse of area that stretches over the Indian border and is home to some of the world’s coolest animals, such as the Tiger. We spent the day cruising down the river, passing big clumps of water orchids caught in the stream, and roaming the jungle on the back of a safari jeep. Of course, we didn’t see a tiger, but we did see lots of crocodiles (narrow nosed but very big), lots of huge birds (including the ‘purple stork’), some spotted deer and wild boars, and most interestingly, Rhino.

The first Rhino we saw was cooling off in the river and we got very close. I knew these were big animals but I was shocked at how huge they were. Our guide was nervous because these beasts can move fast in shallow water and a ranger had been killed by a Rhino just a few months back, so (without saying anything at the time) we took the only course we could, and paddled down the river past the Rhino without making any noise.

We saw another two later that day as we drove around the trails in the elephant grass plains.

As for elephants, we didn’t see any wild ones, but saw some being ridden around by villagers, and being bathed in the river in the morning.

That night we stayed in some basic lodging at the edge of the park, and in the mud brick house with no electricity for most of the night, in the intense summer heat and jungle humidity, I had one of the most uncomfortable and sweat drenched nights of my life.

The final stop in Nepal was Lumbini, which is a pilgrimage place for Buddhist all over the world because it was the birth place of Buddha. We saw the exact place at which Buddha was born, walked around a garden filled with monks and prayer flags, and saw the many monasteries the different Buddhist associations of Korea, Japan, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, etc. have built to house for free any nationals that pass on the pilgrimage route.

It is interesting to note that while Buddha was born in Nepal and spent most of his life roaming India, Buddhism in a minor religion in both these countries, and is much more popular in east Asia. (though it’s also interesting to note that Buddha was granted status as one of the 33 million Hindu gods). Buddhism is the biggest cultural export of this part of the world,

In Nepal I spent a lot of time thinking about the end of my trip, and how the thing that had consumed my thoughts and plans for the last 2 years + would soon be behind me. Some days I wished I was at home more than ever, others I was terrified of the prospect of going back to a routine and static life.
 

And so my time in Nepal came to a close. I ate my last momo’s and prepared for what would be my final land border crossing...