I'm starting this post from Ace Cafe, a small cafe underneath my hostel where the waiter speaks excellent English, the chai is good and the internet doesn't crap out every two minutes. Which is something it does upstairs, in my hostel.
Bikers, cars, pedestrians, dogs, cats, dogs with monkeys clinging to their backs all whiz by in a colorful, cacophonous parade. Dust masks are worn by a large percentage of the people, and I'm sure the dogs, cats and monkey would appreciate them too. The dust, car exhaust and smoke from fires that are indiscriminate as to what they burn make the air noxious to breathe.
Welcome to Asia, Bourget.
After saying goodbye to Misho, I quickly found my gate and then settled down with some dubious looking lemonade and began to write. Which I continued to do successfully for about five minutes, and then unsuccessfully for another two hours.
My flight to Istanbul was short and easy. So short and easy that for a moment, I didn't feel like a complete clod for not booking a bus from Plovdiv to Istanbul and then flying from there to Kathmandu. When Boy and I were researching how to get me cheaply from Eastern Europe to Kathmandu back in September, we didn't think outside the box. We only looked at flights. The cheapest flight to Kathmandu from Eastern Europe was from Sofia, so we booked it. We didn't bother looking up how much a bus from Sofia/Plovdiv to Istanbul would cost.
Turns out, it would have cost about 30 bucks.
But I'm glad this is the way it happened. I'm glad my last night in Europe for a while was with Misho and Yana. And with that Bourguignon. Oh, that Bourguignon... I could write love songs to it. In fact, I probably will write love songs to it.
But still. In the future. Here is what my thinking will look like:
I had a two hour layover in Istanbul. Where I didn't even try to write and ended up listening to a brutal podcast by This American Life. WHich is a far cry from the soothing Jack Johnson I normally listen to in airports...
My flight to Kathmandu was long and tiring. I may have slept for about thirty minutes at one point, but my body was otherwise stubborn and refused to let me drift off into a much needed slumber.
The plane landed in Tribhuvan International Airport at about 11:45 on the 16th of December. I rubbed the sludge out of my eyes, cracked my back (it sounded like a drum solo) and headed, with dread, into the terminal.
First visa application, here I come.
The process is not horribly complicated, but neither is it horribly fast. First, I approached a machine that asked me questions about where I was staying, how long I was staying, where I was from and what I did where I was from. Then it snapped my photo and printed out a receipt. Then I had to enter another line, where I paid for a 90 visa, even though my plan is to stay for 40 days.
Again, lack of research. I had thought if there was a 30 day visa for 40 dollars, there would be a 60 day visa for a bit more. But no. It jumps from 30 days to 90 days and from 40 dollars to 100 dollars. Woohoo! Those last ten days had better be freaking awesome.
I paid the man and expected to receive my visa, but that would have been far too simple. I had to hightail it to yet another line and explain everything I'd written on my application to another fellow behind another desk.
Blurgh.
The final fellow flipped through my passport, astonished by all the stamps I've accumulated through the years.
"I think I've got a blank page in there somewhere," I leaned over to look.
"Where is this?" he pointed suspiciously at a stamp from some country in Eastern Europe.
"Umm... you know, I'm really not sure," I mumbled. "It's from Eastern Europe somewhere. I travel there a lot and they're always stamping my passport. And sometimes the stamps are in Cyrillic, so I can't read them."
The man said something to his colleague in Nepali, showed him my passport photo, then looked at me.
"I know!" I laughed. "I know the picture doesn't look like me."
My acknowledgement of the lack of resemblance seemed to appease the official, and he finally stuck a 90 day visa to one of my few remaining pages.
"Thanks!" I hurried to the baggage belt, sure that Ellie had been waiting for me for ages.
Ellie had not been waiting for me for ages. In fact, I had to wait at the belt for nearly an hour before Ellie finally would her way past me.
Okay. Got my bag. Got my visa. Now all I need is money.
I found the one ATM outside of the airport, and noticed that it was under maintenance.
Of course.
"Ten minutes," the ATM man told me.
"Ten minutes? That's great!" I sat down beside the ATM and wondered what ten minutes would mean in Nepali time.
"It's okay now," ATM man told me about twenty minutes later.
Mmm... not bad.
One dollar is about a hundred Nepalese rupees, so I withdrew ten thousand rupees. Which felt a little terrifying.
I have TEN THOUSAND OF SOMETHING IN MY HANDS RIGHT NOW.
I'd read a blog that had said it was possible to catch a bus to Ratna Park and then walk ten minutes to Thamel, so instead of spending a paltry five dollars on a taxi, I hopped on a green bus that appeared to be heading in the direction I wanted to go.
Way to be a badass, Bourget. But... you know... when you're operating on such a tiny amount of sleep, you should probably feel free to spend five bucks on a taxi. Just sayin'. Save the badassery for when you have enough energy to support it.
I disembarked at a place that seemed promising, stared blearily at the chaos of Kathmandu, and then escaped into a bookstore.
Bookstore people should speak English...
"I'm sorry, I'm lost," I told the lady at the desk. "Can you help me? I need to get to Thamel."
"Yes, walk down this street and then turn left in a few blocks."
"Super! Thanks so much," I smiled and then stumbled back into the honking mayhem.
I discovered Thamel (it's kind of hard to miss...), but still couldn't find my hostel (not hard to miss), so I popped into a cafe that claimed to have Wi-Fi and ordered... my very first cup of chai in Nepal.
Then I found my current location on Google Maps and routed my way to Hostel One96.
Here we go. Almost there. Holy cow.
I'm pooped.
A friendly New Zealand lady met me at reception, told me to just settle in and that I could pay my bill when I left the hostel.
I love easy-going places like this.
But instead of settling in, I stored some of my valuables in a locker and then set out for a walk about town.
If I go to bed now, I'll be jet-lagged for infinity and beyond. And nobody likes that.
 |
| This is what it's like to look up in Kathmandu. |
I found my way back to the hostel before dark, curled up on my exceedingly firm bed and wrote yesterday's blog post. Then moseyed to the rooftop, where the rest of the guests were having a barbecue, a fire and a jam session.
This is when hostel life can be magical.
I'd hoped that staying up all day would conquer my jet lag and that I'd sleep like a pineapple, but unfortunately, I tossed and turned for hours. Until I finally fell asleep long enough for Winnie the cata to pounce on my legs and scare the bejesus out of me.
I'm groggy this morning. And I'm learning that walking around whilst groggy in Kathmandu is a safety hazard.
BEEP!
I stepped onto the street and nearly got hit by a motorcycle carrying three people.
What? Umm... where's the sidewalk? Umm... No sidewalk... Of course there's no sidewalk. And even if there was, it would just be used for cars to park on. But why was he driving on the wrong side of the road? Wait.... people here drive on the left side of the road. When they choose to drive on a particular side of the road, that is. All seems a bit willy nilly to me...
I managed to flounder into Ace Cafe without getting injured, ordered a chai and sat down to write...
I'm finishing this post from the rooftop of Hostel One96. The area is dark and a bit chilly, but still very cozy. The Finnish girl sketches portraits in her notebook next to me and two of the Nepali guests chat across the room from us. Reggae music plays from the reception area, and the New Zealand lady sits behind the counter.
I've had a complicated day.
Since I'm not using couchsurfing to find homes in which to sleep, I decided I'd still like to use the website to meet up with local people. And because I'm not actually staying with them, I decided to be a bit more flexible as to who I was comfortable meeting up with. Including guys who sent me thoughtful messages but whose profiles were fairly empty.
No more of that. No more. Ever.
I should have known. I should have known as soon as I sent him a message saying, "I moved to a cafe because the wifi at my hostel stopped working," and he sent me a response that said, "Why did you move?" with an angry face emoji.
Because I needed wi-fi... like I SAID...
I nearly sent him a message right then, telling him that I'd changed my mind and would rather not hang out. But I decided to be polite rather than trust my instincts (which I do way too often) and figured that going on a walk around Kathmandu couldn't be all that bad... could it?
Manish seemed nice enough when he showed up. Friendly face, easy-going, not intimidating.
Maybe I was wrong... maybe it was just a misunderstanding because communicating emotions over facebook isn't always 100% accurate.
"You want to leave?" he asked me, noticing my empty cup of chai.
"Sure, I'm ready. Let's go for a walk?"
But we went for a motorcycle ride. Which is normally an activity I really love, but something felt a little... a little off with Manish.
We stopped to look at a few sites, and Manish was always there to tell me exactly which photos I ought to take.
"Aimee, come," Manish would say when he wanted to show me something.
Maybe it's like in Turkey... where people said "Gel" and "Git" without anything else. Not because they were being controlling -- just because their culture doesn't mess around with pleasantries, I tried to remain open to the possibility that my dislike of Manish's abruptness came purely from my own cultural biases.
We drove into an area that felt a little sketchy to me, but I didn't really know sketchy versus unsketchy when it came to Nepal.
"Do you feel scared?" Manish asked.
"No," I responded, "Should I?"
"No," he sounded slightly disappointed.
This. Is getting weird. I don't like this. What kind of person asks that question?
We stopped at a lovely restaurant for lunch, where Manish proceeded to order for both of us without so much as asking me what I felt like eating.
Why am I letting him get away with this?
Because I don't want to be rude.
Fuck.
He ordered what appeared to be a liter of traditional rice beer, served in a massive golden pitcher. Throughout the meal, I managed to quaff about a third, and protested against more by saying, "I think Kathmandu is a place where I need to be alert. I don't want to walk out into the street and get hit by a motorcycle because I wasn't paying attention.
Manish still poured me one more glass. Then ordered meat that was too spicy for me, but still pressured me to eat it after I'd told him I couldn't handle the kick.
"I love your eyes," Manish stared at me.
"They're all the colors," I said rather blankly.
"Do you think of marriage?" he asked.
"I don't really believe marriage is for me."
"I want to marry a girl like you, a girl who travels."
"I'm sure there are a lot of girls like that."
"Yes, but I can only meet them. It is difficult to marry them."
Probably because girls who travel are addicted to freedom and you seem to be the kind of fellow who wouldn't even let a woman choose what to wear.
It was an interminably long lunch. I spent most of it looking at the beautiful view and listening to the people beside me laughing and chatting in Nepalese. Finally, sitting on just less than two thirds of a liter of beer, Manish drove me around at break neck speeds through Kathmandu's winding, narrow, cluttered streets.
Okay. Now I'm scared. Happy?
We walked around a bit after lunch, and Manish advised me on which pictures to take. Then criticized my photos for being too dark. At one point, he even grabbed my camera and started taking pictures himself.
NO... Nobody does that... not with my camera. One of the few objects in this world to which I have a strong emotional attachment.
"Hey," I said as I gently reached to take it back, "that's my camera. And I actually don't let people mess with it."
"We go to my home, I want to pack some things because I'm moving to another apartment soon, then I can take you to another place," Manish informed me as we whizzed along.
"No," I finally insisted. "I'm getting tired. Can you please take me to my hostel?"
"Well, my home is on the way to your hostel. So we can stop there, have some tea, and then go to your hostel."
"... Okay," my will faded.
But my will returned when we got to his flat. He rolled a joint and started smoking with his roommate in an adjacent room.
I do not want to spend my afternoon sitting in a dirty apartment while some random fellow packs up his belongings and gets high. This is absurd.
"Excuse me," I asked the roommate. "Can I have the Wi-Fi password?"
"Sure," he typed it into my phone.
"Great, thanks."
I routed my way home to One96, then poked my head into the smokey room and said, "Hey, I'm gonna go ahead and walk home. I like walking and it'll only take me an hour. You guys look like you have a lot of work to do, so I think it's better for me to leave now."
"No, what?" Manish said.
"I'm going now."
"Let me drive you."
"No," I thought about the alcohol and the marijuana mixing with Kathmandu's traffic and shuddered. "No, I want to walk. Thank-you, though."
"Aimee, sit down," Manish pressed.
"No, I'm going home," I closed the door behind me, drowning out another of his protestations.
How controlling. Fuck that guy. Also, fuck being polite and fuck not listening to my instincts.
I fumed all the way home. Some of the fuming was directed towards Manish, but most was directed towards myself.
Will I NEVER learn to not wait until the last minute to stand up for myself?
Back at the hostel, I checked my couchsurfing account to see that one of the other guys who'd wanted to meet up with me had written. I told him I'd be interested in perhaps hanging out when I returned from my trip to Pokhara, but that I was too tired to meet before then. This is how the conversation ended:
Ramen: have a good travel. Will see. I'm eager to meet you in Thamel at a evening may be with a beer.
Aimee: We'll keep in touch.
Ramen: Sure, we will have a beer together in an evening after you getting back.
Aimee: I think we can make it happen.
Ramen: Hm. How long time will you remain Nepal? I see you in Facebook, you look hot and sexy. Sorry for using this.
Aimee: Hey, that language makes me a little uncomfortable and makes me not want to meet up with you. I'm not using couchsurfing as a dating site, and I've had a lot of bad experiences with people who do use it for dating. So thank-you for your time, but I think we should not meet up.
Ramen: Sorry.
And I deftly blocked him on both couchsurfing and facebook before he could explain his language away.
That felt good. That felt very good. I will be doing that more often. I will also be listening to my instincts more often. I will also forget about giving people with mostly empty Couchsurfing profiles a chance, even if it's only to meet up. I'm just too vulnerable at this point in my life.
That'll change one day. But until it changes, no more stupid chances, Bourget. No more stupid chances.
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