KATHMANDU, NEPAL-Where I’m going, I don’t need roads to go back to the future.
Flying faster than 142 km/h, this not-so-great Scot lands in 2073.
A Communist woman is president. Alcohol comes in knife-shaped bottles. Streets are dusty.
The Nepalese calendar, Vikram Samvat, is 57 years ahead of our Gregorian calendar.
The president is Nepal’s Bidhya Devi Bhandari. The alcohol is Khukri Rum, named and shaped after knives carried by Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers. The copious swirling dust suggests I might have actually time-travelled to a post-apocalyptic desert city. Erratic drivers, who make New York cabbies seem docile, wear face masks like Bane from Batman. Cars flow in pelotons, ass-clenchingly close.
Nepal was a United Nations-designated “least developed country” even before the 2015 earthquake killed thousands of people, shifted Kathmandu by three metres, and moved the world’s highest mountain, Everest, a few centimetres.
Nepal is trapped between the biggest rocks and a hard place both literally, the Himalayas, and metaphorically, bordered by India on three sides and to the north, Tibet, or China by proxy.
I arrive on Nepal’s New Year’s Day in October, 24 hours before India’s political leaders visit. Some poor souls are desperately power washing the relentless dust off streets near the airport.
It’s not New Year’s Day by the 2073 calendar. It’s the start of the lunar calendar, Nepal Sambat, 879 years behind 2016. I’m now in 1137.
The Sambat New Year’s Day is celebrated on the fourth day of a festival known as Tihar, or Swanti, the festival of lights, and more commonly in the west, Diwali.
Every building is draped in twinkling red, orange and yellow Christmas lights.
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Even the assortment of tourist-trap stores in the Thamel neighbourhood dazzle by the bright bulbs. Shops sell pashmina, Buddhist and Hindu statues, Gurkha knives and occasionally, those elaborate Khukri bottles.
Most of all, they sell hiking equipment, since this is the gateway to the world’s tallest mountains. On the flight in, I looked over an ocean of cresting ridges fading to the horizon.
“My life is in Kathmandu, my office is in the mountains,” says World Expeditions guide Romi Tamang, who would soon take me on the Ultimate Annapurna Dhaulagiri trek. Towards the trek’s end, a general strike is called.
Like the Gurkha, Tamang remains calm and resilient.
When he was a child in second grade, bigger kids beat him. His parents excluded him from school.
“The following year, I went back, and this time, the teacher asked me to hold pupils’ hands to show them how to write the alphabet,” he says, elongating vowels elegantly.
Tamang still guides students, teaching me Nepalese culture and history, his white teeth beaming, distinct against his skin like snow on mountains.
When the earthquake hit, he was trekking Everest. The roof of a lodge collapsed seconds after his clients evacuated.
“The ground shook. Rocks were falling,” he says.
“I passed an old man listening to a radio and heard Kathmandu had collapsed.”
For a month, Tamang lived in a tent. The earthquake continues to cripple families, millions left homeless, who rely on foreign visitors.
“Tourism is our backbone,” Tamang says.
“The earthquake silenced the economy. Trekkers fell by 40 per cent. When people are grieving, they are not motivated to work.”
Lead by guide Samde Sherpa on a city tour, we pass a mass of tarpaulin, originally temporary accommodation, where displaced people still live.
Sherpa speaks six languages and is still struggling. He says tourism is down 50 per cent.
We visit UNESCO World Heritage Site Pashupatinath Temple, that looks like King Louie’s temple from Disney’s The Jungle Book.
Monkeys roam freely. They’re more aggressive than salespeople flogging trinkets.
About to photograph one monkey, a camera flashes. Furious George, a look in his eyes I recognized from Saturday nights in Glasgow, punched the arm of the photographer next to me. Quite right.
This Hindu site dates to the sixth century. The main pagoda, revamped 200 years ago, suffered little damage in the earthquake.
We watch a funeral. A dead man’s feet and face stick out the orange shroud, ready for cleaning in the river prior to public cremation.
There are two types of “holy men,” Sherpa says.One for the worshippers, one “commercial,” for tourists. Dreadlocked, faces painted, they wait to become subjects of selfies for a few rupees.
Alone, I walk to Durbar Square to see former Nepalese royal palaces.
It’s another UNESCO landmark. Depending on the definition, Kathmandu may have the most World Heritage monuments of any city.
Solemn like the funeral procession, I look at bricks shattered by the earthquake.
Work has started to restore the crafted woodwork for future generations.
Yet I’m left wishing I could hop in the gull-wing doors of a DeLorean and time travel to see the square’s former majesty.
David Bateman was hosted by World Expeditions, which did not approve or review this story.
David Bateman was hosted by World Expeditions, which did not approve or review this story.
When you go
Do this trip:World Expeditions’ Ultimate Annapurna Dhaulagiri trek (and others in the country) can involve a few days either side in Kathmandu, depending on your flights. Prices start at $2,899 (U.S.)
Get there: Connecting flights from Toronto Pearson to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport start from about $1,200 (Canadian). Most cheaper flights include two stops. Flights with one stop, generally in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.; Mumbai, India; or New Delhi, cost a few hundred dollars more.
Get around: As part of the trek, World Expeditions organizes a half-day tour of Kathmandu. Cabs are reasonably priced. Walking to some sights is an option, depending on the location of your accommodation.
Stay: The Radisson Hotel Kathmandu is a short walk from Thamel and just within walking distance of Durbar Square. It’s comfortable and welcoming, has plenty of restaurants, a reasonable hotel gym and a casino.
Eat: A Radisson Hotel Kathmandu restaurant is a safe option. Only a short walk away is Nepali Chulo, where traditional dancers take the stage and waiters pirouette between tables, quickly dishing bowls of chicken curry, lentils, rice and fresh vegetables for around $20 (U.S.) a meal.
Do your research:welcomenepal.com
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