"The one in Nepal?"
--The response of two different friends who heard that I was going to Kathmandu
1
While drinking my morning coffee on Thursday, I received a phone call asking if I could be in Kathmandu by Monday night. A guide with the surname "Sherpa" would meet me at the airport.
Yeah. I know. It sounds like the plot of a bad movie or a Tintin adventure. There were reasons to go. Also, I'd never been to Nepal, and I'd miss the production of Anne of Green Gables for which my wife had bought tickets.
It's not that I dislike Canada's favourite orphaned ginger, but I didn't feel the need to see her heartwarming story onstage once again, even if, or perhaps especially as, this was a somewhat divergent production.
My wife could go with a friend.
I had to fly to Kathmandu and I had little time to prepare.
One of our nieces had been living and working in India, near the border with Nepal. The embassy informed the family that she had turned up in Kathmandu, in medical distress, a couple of weeks ago. The hospital had deemed her medically fit to travel, but they were uncomfortable releasing her on her own and, under their law, they could hold her.
She'd been in the country because her work visa had expired, and she had to reapply from somewhere other than India. Kathmandu was a logical place to go—lots of history, familiarity with westerners, and places to stay. She had done so once before. This time, things went south, medically speaking.
Two of us who were in fair health and able to drop everything left for the Himalayas.
Sherpa is, I learned, a comparatively common surname in Nepal, especially among the Sherpa people. It otherwise designates a cultural group from the mountains, and only means guide by virtue of the fact that an outsider who climbs in the Himalayas without local assistance is either the most skilled climber ever or a tremendous fool, and almost certainly the latter.
This Mr. Sherpa would turn out to be a person of significance. He led a rescue team after the 2015 Nepal earthquake and avalanche, and he often works with westerners who have encountered difficulties. Like, say, ending up in an emergency medical situation. He proved instrumental in getting us around the city.
2
Sunrise on the way to Pearson was full red rubber ball. We arrived in plenty of time and met with our first issue. The machine that prints out boarding passes claimed that the name on my ticket differed from the one on my passport.
The machines were correct. The airline had misspelled my first name.
Cathay Pacific was unconcerned about their error and, in any case, I was clearly the person on my passport. Other than waiting in a second line to get a human being to print out the boarding pass, all was fine. The matter never came up again.
Over the next week we would fly, literally, around the world.
Outbound we headed north and west. The view outside shone clear blue like a movie scene of winter shot through a filter. Northern Ontario from air looks like thousands of islands or thousands of lakes. Windmills became grade-school projects. Landscapes swirled into artistic abstractions.
That grows old quickly. It's a small world, my ass. True from a cosmic perspective. A puny human crouched too long in coach realizes just how freakin' large it is. Still, Cathay Pacific has some amenities. All but one of the meals qualified as acceptable fare for, say, a cafeteria-style restaurant or an all-you-can-eat buffet.
We had access to CNN and BBC on the tiny eyeball-desiccating screen set in the back of the seat in front of me, and we flew over totalitarian Russia as Texas tried to arrest Democratic Representatives.
The passenger in front of us could be seen through the seats doomscrolling. The person across the aisle watched Marvel movies. I finished reading Killers of the Flower Moon and then caught Thunderbolts. A film about third-rate wannabe heroes trying to step up seemed apropos.
We stopped over at Hong Kong International Airport: vast and futuristic, intemperately sterilized and organized. Multilingual robot voices remind us to hold onto the hand rail and watch our step.
We settled into a lounge. A child ran by with pinwheels in her hair.
The next plane, the one to Kathmandu, had many empty seats. We each could take a row and recline our seats. A baby with powerful lungs challenged our exhaustion, but I fell asleep.
Upon arrival visitors must purchase a visa. The web site told us to bring along fresh passport photos. The people at the airport ignored them and took their own. One must wait in three lines at three different locations in the airport to receive an instant visa.
No one would ever look at them again.
P. Sherpa met us outside, with a driver. He placed khatas on our shoulders, scarves traditionally offered to guests, symbols of respect, purity, and good wishes.
Our hotel was near the airport. We could have walked; we appreciated the ride. Rooms were clean. The washroom was also the shower stall, a type I've encountered before while travelling but to which I will never adjust. Still, a shower.
3
We would not meet our relative until shortly before the flight out, and we spent the next day touring Kathmandu.
People overall were friendly. Beggars were persistent and aggressive, but eventually moved on when they did not receive a favorable response.
While we would encounter many monkeys, our first views of urban wildlife were the street dogs. People feed them but do not treat them as pets. In the city, they cause little trouble—most of the ones we saw were asleep. It's a different matter in the mountains and countryside, where wild dogs sometimes form packs.
A Buddhist monk texted on a cell phone outside the great Boudha Stupa, which contains, according to believers, relics of the Buddha. It may well—I cannot say. I'm nevertheless reminded of the relics in medieval Europe, which displayed enough pieces of wood from the True Cross to build Noah's Ark.
The roof—the undomed part—offers a good view of the city. I was told that I could climb that far and walk around, provided that I did not film from the front of the Stupa. A raven landed atop a statue just as I arrived, and sat there for the exact amount of time it would have taken me to get out my camera, focus, and film it cawing and then flying away.
That image remains only in my mind. You won't see it in my video.
Traffic is mostly on two wheels, electric scooters, motorcycles, bicycles. Riders weave between the outnumbered vans and cars and crowded minibuses, short-cut across sidewalks. Horns peep and peep as they do in traffic jams depicted in movies. The law allows three on a scooter or bike if at least one is a child. They sit between parents, in front of drivers, or on the back. Some passengers cling to the person in front. Others check text messages, unconcerned about the vehicles careening around them. Drivers negotiate traffic patterns that would lead to massive deaths in the west-- and, to be honest, the death toll by traffic accident, while it is lessening, remains a problem in Kathmandu. Every block appears to have a small garage for the repair of two-wheeled rides. Webs of electrical cords hang from poles like the nests of tent-caterpillars. Stoplights are rare, but traffic cops in light blue help matters along.
We also visited the ancient Pashupatinath Temple on the Bagmati River, and the Nyatapola Temple in Bhaktapur, both UNESCO heritage sites. A lot of children visit from schools, each in some kind of uniform, and we encountered many tourists from around the world, but India, in particular. Hindu festivals were underway related to the month of Shravan.
The riverbank has active pyres. Swimmers and panners search the river for gold and other valuables thrown in with the ashes.
A child hands garment from roof of a row of tiny businesses on the outskirts of the temple complex. A motorcyclist drives through the crowd of Nic Academy kids who are grouped with brightly-coloured shirts. I scale one of the climbable ancient structures and observe the kind of middle school silliness one might see anywhere, though I do not know the words here. Two girls from a group call out a boy's name. He tosses a wad of grass at them and they laugh and he laughs.
One of the street dogs is not asleep, but dead.
A couple of students who could speak some English asked us where we were from. They were, perhaps, eleven or twelve. Canada sounded as exotic to them as Kathmandu to us.
The people here are generally shorter than in the west; I'm no basketball pick but I feel tall in Nepal.
An excellent, traditional dinner for three went for the same price as a deli sandwich in downtown Toronto.
The only air-conditioned place we entered was the coffeeshop in a more affluent end of town. It looked like a trendy hipster joint anywhere on Terra 2025. The shop served trendy drinks, caffeinated and otherwise, international in flavour. Piano music flew into variations, at one point becoming "Caramelldansen." Gör som vi/ Till denna melodi.*
We learned there about our guide and liaison, a Buddhist Sherpa who attended Hindu school and spent part of his life in Tibet. In addition to his role in the 2015 rescue efforts, he also appeared in a movie about the events.
Those events took his brother's life.
He proved a generous host. पाहुना भगवान हुन्, he explained, a well-known Hindu phrase. Atithi Devo Bhava. Treat a guest as one would a god.
4
A nurse attended us to the airport, but was not needed. My niece was fine and thrilled to see us. We spent too little time in Nepal but that was not our main purpose, and our main purpose we achieved. All of us returned safely.
They flew us over Japan and the Pacific and then across Canada to return us to Pearson in Toronto so, as I stated earlier, we flew around the world.
Perhaps next week someone will want me to go to Bangkok or Angkor Wat.
Or Prince Edward Island. I could visit Green Gables!
.
*According to the translator:
हामी जे गर्छौं त्यही गर / यो धुनमा