The Nepali Way

My Grandma always says that in her next life, she wants to come back as one of my cats. Well, if you remember from one of my early blog posts, I decided that in my next life I want to come back as a Mongolian warrior. But after that life, which will probably not be too long because Mongolian warriors probably don't live to old ages because they fight a lot, I want to come back a Nepali sherpa or shopkeeper.
Nepal has to be one of the greatest places on earth. The tourists are trekkers, and rather than stores selling t-shirts, they sell good North Face and Arcteryx knockoffs. But before I talk about my first few days in Nepal, I'll give you a quick recap of what i was doing in Bangkok: shitting and feeling feverish.
That's right; I thought I had traveler's diarrhea several weeks ago, and it turns out, I probably did. But I never really got rid of it, and the 2 days I spent in Bangkok before flying to Kathmandu were miserable. We wandered aimlessly around Bangkok, going to one of the largest malls in Southeast Asia, and walking up and down the infamous Khao San Road, where fake IDs are sold on the street and drivers offer to take you to "ping pong show" (not table tennis) every step of the way, the whole time feeling more and more like I wanted to die. So I decided to throw in the towel; managing to make it back to my hotel before pulling a Sam. I slept a lot and starting taking my antibiotics, and although I was dreading my 4 hour flight the next day, everything turned out to be OK.
We arrived in Kathmandu the evening of the 11th. Sam and I decided against buying a Lonely Planet just for Nepal, so we had no idea of places to go except for what we heard was the backpacker's area, Thamel. As we exited airport security, we could hear the mobs of taxi drivers outside. More hassles just like Vietnam, I thought, as Sam and I prepared to fight off the swarms and find a non threatening yet non retarded looking driver. It was then that we were spotted by an airport taxi driver, a driver who is allowed into the airport to pull clients. We usually never go with these types of drivers out of principle, as they usually mark up their prices double because they are "official." But this driver was different- he was a comedic and sales genius. He lured us in with the most incredible persuasion skills, using excellent timing and rhetoric, knowing when to ease off, and appealing to our every emotion throughout the conversation. It was truly remarkable. We asked our new friend to take us to his company's hotel, something we would never do wilingly or unwillingly, also out of principle. But we wanted our new friend to recieve the commision, as he had accompanied us in our taxi with someone else driving. The whole time he told us funny stories about his life in Nepal, his claimed visits to Bangkok, his multiple girlfriends, his former job as a sherpa, his survival of yellow fever, and his part time job as a moderately succesful actor in Kathmandu (his day was spent shooting a sitcom, playing a playboy on a motorcycle). All these things may or may not be true, however, I have no doubts about his acting skills.
And this is the story of mostly everyone we came across in Kathmandu. Energetic, enthusiastic, outgoing, and very friendly. We stumbled across a shop selling yak wool coats, bought one each, and then struck up a conversation with the owner talking about yoga. The next morning, he picked us up at our hostel at 430 AM and took us to a 3 hour yoga class. The class was nothing like the Yoga I do at home; it was with mainly older people, and was a mix of light aerobics, stretching, breathing, and meditation exercises. It was excellent none the less, and at the end, we thanked our host and said farewell to a stranger, who for no reasons other than his good heart took us in and treated us like old friends.
Which brings me to the next reason behind my extreme admiration for the Nepalese, their hosting ability. Sam has a close family friend in Seattle who has an uncle or a cousin or something who lives with his family in Kathmandu. We decided to call up the friend, who we had been told would take us around. On the phone, Dixit sounded very friendly, and told us he would pick us up at 5 PM.
We didn't really know what to expect; who he was, his age, what to wear, so we did what we have been doing every night for the last several weeks; Sam wore jeans and a button down he bought in Vietnam, and I wore one of the t-shirts I bought (it happened to be Goodmorning Vietnam night) and a pair of cooler (in temperature) pants. 5 o'clock came and Dixit entered the lobby and spotted us, greeting us with a huge Nepali smile on his face. He wore jeans and a nicer shirt, and was in his 40's. We followed him out of the hotel, and walked several blocks away from the busy traffic of Thamel to where his car was. Dixit introduced us to his wife, his driver, and two daughters, ages 14 and 12. He then proceeded to take us to the nicest hotel in all of Kathmandu for a buffet dinner. All of this would have been amazing, except for the fact that I was still suffering from the stomach ailments I described above, and have been describing for the last several blog posts. What I have learned about Nepali hosts is that while they are very generous, they virtually insist that you take them up on their offers. This was a bit troubling to me, as we arrived at an incredible buffett with over 50 dishes. This probably meant that the meal had no definite ending, which was even more troubling to me. And even more troubling than that was the fact that we were eating Indian food; not light French or Italian food, but rich, heavy, spicy, Indian food. I was screwed. I sat down, and was ordered a beer. I drank my beer, and then followed suit and approached the buffet. How do I do this without getting sick, I thought. I began the meal with light vegetables, crackers, and a light pasta dish, already consuming more than I had eaten in the last 3 days combined. I finished my food, but detected disappointment in the amount of food I had eaten relative to my size. "My daughter eats more than you!" Dixit said. I looked down at my stomach, looked at my hosts who seemed to be nodding their heads in encouragement yes, looked back down at my stomach and frowned, and then embarked on my oddysey of excessive glutony. I stuffed my plate with the thickest stews, oiliest meats, milkiest cheeses, and 18 pieces of naan, an Indian flat bread. If I was going to shit my pants, I might as well do it with a good meal, I thought. So I ate, and ate, and ate, helping after helping of undescribably delicous food. And then I ate some more. And I sat in my chair, seeming to be a ticking time bomb of shit waiting to explode. I thought about how terrible it would be if I spent 45 minutes in the bathroom while my hosts waited, or worse, if I couldn't even make it to the bathroom. The meal went on, and we talked and laughed... and the urge to go never came. And so dessert time arrived, and I ate 4 creme puffs, several pieces of flan, and lots of fruit...and it never came. And after dessert, I felt great! I was liberated from my submission to shitting that had held me captive for days! I was so relieved. I told my hosts about my past stomach problems and laughed as we walked around the beautiful hotel garden and former palace of the Nepali kingdom, now an annex to the hotel. The whole dinner, the food, meeting Dixit and his family, the hotel, was the best dining experience I have had in Asia. It was an unforgetable night.
We arrived back at the hotel just after 8, right in time for the planned skype conference call I had with my parents and brother to talk about my sister's bat mitzvah. When I arrived, however, I realized that there would be no skype call, because there was no power in Thamel. See, everyday, for a total of 6 hours a day, the Nepali government shuts down the electricity throughout the country beacuse they simply don't have enough. Which is the first of two weird things about Nepal, the second being that their clocks are 15 minutes behind the time zone where the country is located (it took me so long to figure this one out).
So, now I am in Pokhara, getting ready to go on a 10 day trek tomorrow to the Annapurna Base Camp. It should be an amazing trek, and I am really looking forward to it. So next time we speak, I'll probably be in India!

Here are some pictures of Sam and I with the actor, at dinner with Dixit and his family, with some Japanese friends we met throwing up a hi-hi, and me playing soccer with a few little Nepalese kids at a lunch bus stop today. We started out playing with the ball in our hands, but then the enormous globs of snot on their upper lips started leaking onto the ball, and it was just a huge mess, so I decided soccer would be best. At one point, the bamboo ball we were playing with (I bought it in Thailand) rolled under the van pictured, and a small boy, eager to touch the ball, chased the ball with his head down, and not seeing the parked van, slammed right into its' side. It made such a loud thump! In the US there probably would have been a lawsuit, but in Nepal, everyone just laughed, including the boy, and we kept playing. That's the Nepali way!















Looks like I can't upload the pictures (I think I'm on a dial up connection). Will try again later