Chapter Seven: The Hostel - Kathmandu, Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal
Where I stayed
The Hostel, Kalanki, Kathmandu, Nepal
What I did
Monkey Temple (Swayambunath Stupa) Kathmandu
Nepal
Kathmandu
Shree Boudhanath
Swayambhunath
Pashupatinath Temple
Bagmati River
"It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright."
-Stephen King, 2003
"If a man walks hundreds of miles the moon goes with him. To him the moon seems to change, but the moon does not change."
- Attributed to Buddah
August 11 - 17, Kathmandu, Nepal
My first fifteen or so days in Nepal were smothered heavily with the irresponsible romanticism that I assume follows anyone to a new country, carelessly marinating the brain with chemicals that paint new experiences with colors a little too bright and a tad too vivid to be real. During these precious few weeks it seemed that every person I met was the most interesting person in the world; every place I visited was a paradise on earth. Each fresh moment was filled with the profundity of a thousand revealed mysteries; there was extreme significance in all things. I would later learn that this sense of star-struck awe is a very common response to the first phase of a long-term travel program, and that the highs associated are leveled out in the months to follow in the form of culture shock, depression and homesickness. It is perhaps the understanding of this contrast that lay somewhere behind the veil of my perception which allowed these new experiences to shine so brightly for those first few weeks. I knew that things would eventually get tough, and so I allowed myself to surrender to the throes of that careless but sublime romanticism. It was indeed during these first two weeks that I took a crash-course of sorts in Nepali culture, religion, ethics, language and politics, so it made perfect sense for my mind to assume the texture of a willing sponge in order to soak up as much as possible while the high was still going strong.
My volunteer project was called "Light for Nepal's Children," an orphanage located in a remote village about twenty or so miles from the tourist depot known as Thamel. This orphanage is where I would end up living and working, but first it was necessary for me to learn the basics of how to survive in Nepal. Since I had paid a pretty penny for this volunteer trip (and we'll get into that later), I was provided with a week of daily classes and meals at a hostel located in Kalanki, Kathmandu. The Hostel would become my home base of sorts, always open with a bed available in the chance that I might need a place to stay at any point during my ten-month program. Of course I would spend the majority of my days and nights living at the orphanage project assigned to me, but there was always the possibility of being stuck somewhere in Nepal late at night or having to run certain errands that didn't allow me to return to my project for a few days (such as the monthly chore of renewing my visa in the hell-hole they call The Department of Immigration). In these cases I could call one of the many staff members who live and work at The Hostel to come pick me up, and I could stay at The Hostel for as long as was necessary. This was a great option that would not have been available to me if I hadn't chosen to go through a reputable volunteer organization such as United Planet; I was always comforted by the fact that I had a place to sleep and food to eat, no matter what happened. Every time I went back to The Hostel for one reason or another, it always felt like I was returning home, and I was always greeted by the familiar, smiling faces of the people who work there, people of whom I became very much attached to. And of course, because of the nature of a hostel, there were always new travelers and volunteers there, some coming and some going. These were folks from all over the world, and so anytime I happened to spend a few days at The Hostel, there was no shortage of new and interesting people to exchange ideas with. I made a great many friends there.
For the first week at The Hostel, there was an intensive Nepali language course I took with six other volunteers who arrived the same week as me. This group would become close-knit and spend virtually every waking moment together during the two weeks of our introduction to Nepal. The only other volunteer from the USA was Elise, who I had already met during the weekend pre-departure training way back in New Hampshire at the beginning of my road trip. Elise and I became very close in the way of siblings who hate each other but secretly love each other. We were immediately at odds with one another as soon as we met in New Hampshire. We spent a good deal of time bickering, arguing and otherwise irritating those around us with the inevitable conflicts of our quite similar personalities. We are both stubborn, loud, opinionated and headstrong, and these shared character traits caused a great many unnecessary fights which thinly veiled the fact that our similarities were actualized as a sort of twisted sibling-hood. At the end of the day, we were best friends, each wishing the other would just shut up and go away. The remaining two long-term volunteers (staying for ten months, same as Elise and I) were Mikael from Finland and Lex from New Zealand. Mikeal was a very quiet soul who seemed to relish in the act of observation and rarely actually said anything, but his presence as a casual observer was sufficient inclusion in any conversation. He was like the great sage of our group; he didn't say much, but in those rare moments that saw him speaking, his words were either genuinely profound or absolutely hilarious. He chose his words carefully, and his thich Finnish accent gave extra weight to anything that came out of his mouth. In many cases he was so funny that Elise and I would be literally rolling on the ground, unable to stop laughing. Then there was Lex, who was perhaps the most reserved and definitely the most prepared member of our group. He kept his valuables, such as his cash and passport, in a fanny pack that was attached to his body at all times, including when he slept. It became kind of a running joke in our group, and some of us even went so far as to try and create an opportunity to covertly obtain and hide his precious fanny pack, but the opportunity never came. He watched that thing like a hawk, and I assume that he still wears it to this day. He packed in his suitcase anything and everything imaginable when it came to emergency supplies, and when I was sick he offered me a selection of medicine from his vast pharmacopeia. Lex was always eager to be of assistance and took great pains to carry his compassion with him wherever he went. He was an avid reader and enjoyed discussing philosophy, particularly on the subject of the brain and neuroplasticity. Hailing from Germany were Rebekah and Johanna, both staying in Nepal for two months. Rebekah, Johanna and I stayed up late on a few occasions swapping music from our iPods and drinking Everest beer. We talked about concerts we had seen, and compared and discussed the differences between English and German music. Michaela stayed for a month, I believe, and was from Australia. It was Michaela that I felt the most comfortable with, because she had a lot to say and was intelligent far beyond her years. While the relationship that was shared among everyone in our group was generally lighthearted and jovial, Michaela and I usually talked about deeper and more serious matters such as comparative religion and politics. She was an exceptionally good listener who never had a judgmental attitude and was able to consider the opinions of others with a willingness of consideration that is lacking in most people. And so that was our group of seven. Me (Richard), Elise, Mikael, Lex, Johanna, Rebekah and Michaela, we were all in the same situation and we were in it together, for better or worse. There were others who sometimes joined us in our adventures, but The Seven was an entity, in and of itself.
Our schedule during the first week was laid out for us a few days after we all arrived and had settled in: Breakfast was at 8:00 in the morning and typically consisted of some sort of vegetables and curry. These early morning meals would sometimes include amazing entries such as pancakes and jelly, eggs and potatoes or oatmeal and soup. They always offered up toast, milk tea and rice. ALWAYS rice. I would come to love and loathe rice, but that is a subject for another blog entry. It was here at The Hostel that I learned how to eat food the Nepali way: by hand. I was clumsy at first, but after watching the staff eating in this manner, I quickly developed a style that suited me and have never looked back. Eating food with my hands became like second nature. After breakfast we had about a half-hour to burn and then our daily language/culture classes started at 10 am (give or take a few hours - Nepali time is quite different from American time). These classes were taught by Saman, one of the head honchos for RCPD (the volunteer exchange organization which managed The Hostel). Saman was an easy-going instructor who was also our guide and mentor way beyond the scope of our stay at The Hostel. He laughed quite a bit and didn't take his job as a language instructor as seriously as he took his role as our guru for all things Nepali, and for that I am thankful. He was patient, kind and never too serious. Never really very serious at all. I struggled very much with trying to learn the Nepali language, and Saman never made me feel stupid or slow. He took the time to answer questions, went out of his way to cater to everybody's needs, and would even cancel the class on a day that didn't seem to be going well for someone, or if one of us was sick (but maybe he just wanted an excuse to take the day off). Our class with him normally lasted three or four hours, and then we were free to explore Kathmandu in the afternoon. Sometimes we would go out into the city as a complete group of seven and sometimes we broke off into smaller groups and went to different places, but I never travelled alone during my time there (that would come later). There was always at least one or two others from our group, or from The Hostel. Many times Saman would come with us and show us around, which was a great advantage because he was able to haggle down marketplace prices when any one of us wanted to purchase something without getting royally ripped off by some unscrupulous vendor. All in all, the majority of my time during those first few weeks was spent exploring Kathmandu with my new group of friends and getting a feel for the rich and varied culture and traditions of Nepal and its people. It was an amazing and vital experience that brought The Seven closer together, and for me it helped to lessen the blow of the storms that were to follow.
The Hostel was a fairly large four-story facility hidden behind a colorful row of other vertically stacked brick houses sporadically built into a somewhat chaotic half-spiral that rolled down a steep dirt road which, turning in the opposite direction lead upward to the Kalanki temple, a place that I would tell the taxi drivers to take me if I got lost and couldn't find a micro-bus back to The Hostel. The first floor was where the volunteers and other travelers stayed: there were four rooms with two-to-four beds per room. If these rooms were filled to capacity (and sometimes they were), then a visitor might have to stay either on the floor or share a room (and possibly a bed) with a member of staff, most of whom also lived at The Hostel. The classrooms and staff bedrooms were all located on this first floor. I was told that there was enough room to house twenty-five visitors, but I'm not sure how that's possible. The second and third floor were used as offices, and were typically frequented by a variety of people who I didn't recognize. These were the office staff, I assume, and probably did most of RCDP's administrative work. The fourth floor and rooftop served as the kitchen and eating area, where a good deal of socialization was done over tea before, during and after meals. You could climb up a set of twisting rusted metal stairs and go even further up to the very top of the house, where you would find a gigantic black plastic container of water (many bigger houses in Nepal have some variation of this, which supplies their tap) and an area in which to do laundry: a faucet, a bag of powdered detergent, a scrub-brush and a few buckets. It was here on this rooftop overlooking the Kathmandu valley that I learned how to wash clothes by hand, a chore I had never in my life attempted. Since washing machines are practically non-existent in Nepal, this was a life-lesson that I needed to know in order to prevent walking around smelling like a wet dog for ten months. Doing laundry in this way is a very time-consuming and labor-intensive activity, and the first few times I did this, I marveled to myself at how ridiculous it was that I used to hate doing laundry so much, considering how easy it is in the USA by comparison. Washing and drying a normal-sized load of clothes would take roughly ten minutes of labor with machines, but maybe two hours or more by hand, and that isn't including how long you must wait for the clothes to dry. My first load of hand-washed laundry dried out as stiff as if some misshapen invisible person were inhabiting the clothes, and Elise told me this was due to the fact that I washed them with soap, but didn't bother to wash the soap out before I hung them out to dry. Who knew?
There were two kids who lived at The Hostel, and Mikael and I spent a good deal of time with them during our two week stay. This experience was a good opportunity to find out a little bit about how children in Nepal behaved, and this would prove to be indispensable for the both of us. I learned that little boys are called "babu" and little girls "nani." For a few days I just assumed that these were the kid's names, but then I realized after spending some time outside in the valley that all children under the age of thirteen or so are called this. I learned later that the boy's name was Bens, and I have since forgotten the girl's name - but we just called them Babu and Nani, so forgotten names were no big deal. The little girl was probably three or four, and was an absolutely adorable, but extremely obstinate child. She would make incognito treks into the volunteer rooms when everyone was away and go through the suitcases, leaving a trail of destruction behind her. Although she was clever enough to wait for a reasonable opportunity to commit her thefts and vandalisms, she made no attempt to cover up the evidence of these excursions. She took what she wanted to keep (bracelets, bags of chips, anything that could be used as a toy and/or consumed or destroyed) and left the mess of personal items and clothes she had scavenged through with the empty suitcases piled carelessly over the top. Not only was she a kleptomaniac, but she was also well-known to grab people's sunglasses, bags, phones and hats (right out from under them, or right off their bodies) and toss them off the balcony from the top of the house (the kitchen table was located on the roof). She threw knives, forks and spoons at people while they were eating, screamed incessantly when she wanted attention, and pulled down her pants to pee whenever and wherever she felt compelled to do so. Despite all of this terrible behavior, I never once saw a single person so much as raise their voice at her, and I think this would not have been the case if she wasn't so cute. When she wasn't raising hell, she was a highly sociable kid and would interact and play gleefully with anyone who would give her attention, but if you ****** this girl off, she would come at you with both hands balled up into tiny little fists of fury, her face red and vocals cords vibrating with the kind of unearthly screams you might expect from a very agitated and possibly rabid hyena. The boy who lived at The Hostel, Bens, was much more calm and subdued. He liked to play ball, show off his gymnastics abilities and have races up and down the muddy path leading to the house. He was probably seven or eight years old and went to a private school a quarter mile from The Hostel. He was very bright and very clever, and had a knack for getting people to play with him, despite them being worn out and totally exhausted at the end of a hot Nepali day. He had lived there most of his life, and was used to having an endless supply of new and interesting tourists and volunteers coming in and out of his home, and he knew very well how to manipulate them into playing with him - and if he couldn't accomplish that, then he would convince them to buy him candy or ice cream from one of the many small storefronts scattered about the roads near The Hostel. He spoke pretty good English, was smarter than he should have been at his age and quite comfortable around new people. He spent most of his time at home sitting with whatever group of volunteers had congregated and participating in conversation. Bens and Nani were not related, but they called each other brother/sister and acted exactly like siblings - they looked out for each other, but also beat the **** out of each other if it became necessary. They were constantly competing for the attention of visitors. These two kids were basically the most dependable and lively source of entertainment at The Hostel, and they prepared me for what lay ahead at my orphanage project.
When we weren't hanging out with the kids at The Hostel, our group of seven would go on impromptu sightseeing adventures. The game went like this: walk up to the Kalanki Temple and get on a random micro-bus. Go where it takes you. This is how some of us got to know Nepal, and it was probably the best way to do so because it gave us the opportunity to explore parts of Kathmandu that weren't very 'touristy.' Most of the time we would just end up wandering around unknown streets and striking up conversations with locals, but we sometimes ended up going to popular tourist locations such as Shree Boudhanath (which a few of us had visited before), Swayambhunath (popularly known as the Monkey Temple because the place is inhabited - swarmed - INFESTED with monkeys of a rather unpleasant temperament), and the Bagmati River (where bodies are burned and sometimes submerged). It was at the Monkey Temple that for a brief moment during an attempted attack by a deranged monkey I regretted not getting a Rabies vaccine. I had been trying to take his picture, and I guess I got too close to him, and he lunged at me with his mouth open and teeth bared. I jumped out of the way and came very close to falling over backwards into the filthy body of water that was marked with a sign reading "swimming pool for monkey." I probably would have been lunch. After several of the vendors and tourists were finished laughing at me, I was informed that if the monkey had been successful in his attack, he would probably have taken my camera and retreated up into one of the many trees that grow in the Swayambhunath, because apparently these monkeys are not only thugs, but thieves to boot. After this incident I was much more cautious about approaching a monkey because, trust me, they are not nearly as cuddly and lovable as they look. 'Boots' from Dora The Explorer is not an accurate representation of the average simian is what I mean.
On the day of my near-attack, after The Seven had experienced every nook and cranny of the Monkey Temple and its incredible, nearly aerial panoramic view of mile upon mile of rolling hills that make up the Kathmandu valley, we finished our adventures by visiting the Bagmati River. This particular place had a much more somber feel to it, the air surrounding the river filled with a menacing dark gray smoke rising from burning human bodies. It was here that funerals were held, and as we walked the bridge that overlooked the Bagmati, we were collectively humbled and equally shocked by the fact that, to the right of us, the bodies of the recently dead were on fire and burning, and to the left of us a single adult body was wrapped tightly in white and orange-patterned cloths and placed on a makeshift gurney/coffin waiting to be cast into the river. Saman told us that it was mostly only the bodies of children that were put in the river, but also adults who were poor and couldn't afford a cremation. The majority of the dead were the bodies of adults, and most of them were put into an open crematory right next to the river and burned to ashes in the clear view of anyone and everyone within a half-mile radius. Near the Bagmati River, at the top of several sets of ancient stone stairwells is the Pashupatinath Temple, one of the most revered Hindu shrines in the world. This 23.6 meter-high structure is situated in the middle of a massive and heavily populated courtyard and features four huge silver and gold-plated gates carved with intricate images of a variety of Hindu gods and goddesses. The main idol greets visitors as they first venture into the temple itself (only Hindus are allowed to enter, so we didn't get to see this from the inside), a bull statue called 'Mukhalingam'. This sacro sanctum was built during the Christian era, is one meter high and has faces carved in the four cardinal directions, so no matter where you might be located in the temple, it always appears to be watching you. Since we couldn't get in for a closer view of this statue, we decided to go and sit on the steep stone cliff which overlooks the riverbanks of the Bagmati and watch the funeral procession that was taking place. It was here on this cliff, with my feet dangling down toward the vertigo of an unthinkable drop that I came to realize how connected the people of Nepal truly are. The smell of dark gray corpse smoke was twirling around my head and filling up my lungs, and the sight of dead bodies was an unfiltered reality that raped my field of vision. Two young boys were bathing in the river not three feet from a body being prepared for submersion into the same waters, waters which were certainly filled with thousands of corpses from thousands of years of death and decay. In life, Nepali people are connected to one another by their familial ties and by the necessity brought forth by poverty and circumstance, but in death that emotional connection is manifested in a physical way, for when the bodies of loved ones are burned while their families and friends gather together around the fires, that gray death which arises from the flames in seen, the warmth is felt, the ashes scattered into the wind and the smoke inhaled into the bodies of the living. In some strange and morbid way, the physical parts of the deceased will then live forever in the bodies and the minds of those who still remain. There is nothing fancy or elegant about these precessions; there is no makeup on the cadavers. Death is not hidden or disguised, but rather recognized for what it is: objective reality. The bodies are burned or put into the river, and all that remains is a memory of the person's life and a reminder of the inevitability of death. In many ways, the funerals conducted in Nepal serve to strengthen the bonds of the community as well as to tighten the ropes of finality. I believe that when people get up from the banks of the Bagmati River and go home after a funeral, the feelings of closure are much more pronounced than what a person in the USA experiences upon walking away from a thousand-dollar tombstone hanging over a freshly-filled, rose-decorated grave. The Nepali funeral rites hide nothing and do not allow one to pretend.
It was that particular day at the river that I first saw the reality of life and death in Nepal, and I came to a slow realization that my initial romanticism was more imaginary than I wanted to admit. Many folks in this country have seen constant death, sickness and morbidity in their communities and homes, and as a necessary result have come to terms with them. In the United States, we go to extreme lengths to avoid talking or thinking about death, even to the point of sterilizing and masking the funeral ritual to make it feel more pleasant, or putting our elderly into homes and letting someone else take care of the transition. But these practices only work to further our national disconnect from the organic process of life, and as a consequence pull us further away from one another through fear. In Nepal when a loved one becomes terminally ill, they are usually taken care of by their extended family in their homes, and rarely die on a hospital bed in some eggshell-white hospice room with tubes connecting them to beeping, blinking opiate-dispensing machines. Because of this, Nepali people see death and sickness from an early age, they become intimately familiar with it and are able to accept dying as simply the other side of being born. And so as that body wrapped in white and orange sheets was gently placed into the Bagmati River and allowed to flow with the current downstream until it was swept underneath the water, his or her loved ones can rest assured that someday soon, the spirit of their beloved will rise up and ascend from the primordial waters, taking on a new form and continuing their eternal existence.
Because death is not really death, and the dead are never truly dead.
-Richard Vaughn
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