During my time in Bhaktapur, I stayed with a guest family who lived across town from where the office was located. Thus every morning and afternoon I walked from one side of town to the other, past temples, shops and craftsmen. There is more than one route to take and I’ve cut together impressions from the two I took most often.

One bed, a wardrobe, three chairs, a small desk and a low table are a lot of furniture for a room of approximately 16sqm. Every seating surface, including the bed, is occupied and in total there is nine of us in the place. Shiva’s picture is hanging on the wall and a Nepali flag flies on the desk. All this could well be a scene in my favourite Asian country, but instead we are in a residential neighbourhood of Lisbon, some five minutes walking from Intendente metro stop.

Kathmandu’s international airport has been described with many words. Efficiency, speed or cleanliness are never among them. My flight is scheduled for 7:40 and I wanted to be at the airport at least two hours prior to that. Asking at my guest house about transportation, the first guy told me the airport wouldn’t open before 6:00. Another source said it would be open around the clock. The airport’s website didn’t make any statement at all.

The old lady horks forcefully and then spits a ball of phlegm unerringly into the gutter a few steps away. It is one of the many sights and sounds I had to get used to in Nepal, the country of mountains and endless dust. Life in Nepal is not comfortable, it is a developing country. And even among those, it ranks low. Electricity is only available for a few hours each day, and mains water supply comes once a week for half an hour.

It’s harvest season in Nepal. Some go for grains… while others prey on the gullible. Monsoon is approaching, time to pack my bags.

Impressions from an afternoon walk in an area that is mixed agricultural and early industrial.

For a couple of days, we were working together. Remember when the organisation asked me to become lead developer for the career advice project? That’s what happened and for the days following, I endeavoured to assess my coworkers abilities. I knew that they had some deficits, but looking at the total work done by 2-3 people over the course of a year and a half, it’s hard to tell who can or can not do what.

Blood is running in the streets and the air is filled with biting smoke. Fortunately it’s not a return of the Maoist insurgency but merely another religious event. This time every family worships its cast’s deity by means of a goat sacrifice. Right in front of their houses. Sadly the meat is only shared with members of the same cast, which puts me as an atheist a long shot away from getting any piece of the barbecue.

Bhaktapur has a Jatra and it has a chariot. Both are huge. But Bhaktapur is not the only city in the valley that sports these kind of things. I had heard marvellous stories about the Bunga Dyah Jatra in Lalitput, supposedly featuring a 20 metres high chariot. I couldn’t believe that and put it off as a conversion error, surely they meant 20 feet, right? Boy was I wrong. But all in due time.

It has been more than twelve years since I began to make a living with developing software. From the beginning I took to it like a duck to water, which wasn’t much of a surprise, given that I had spent most of my teenage years in front of a computer. There were times when I doubted my career choice. Spending every day in front of a computer is not a healthy thing to do, neither for the body nor the mind.

Since my arrival in Nepal, there have been three earthquakes. The first one I slept through and the second one I didn’t notice because I was under the shower. But when the third one happened, I was sitting on the floor in my room and that one I did notice. The floor was shaking and the door, leaning at an angle, was moving back and forth. It was a light quake, just a 4.

Saturday, the Sunday of Nepal. Although most people still work seven days a week, so it’s not a proper Sunday, really. Be that as it may, I took a day off from volunteering and headed northerly out of Bhaktapur. My destination was a temple sitting atop a hill, and my aim was to get a whiff of nature after more than two weeks in the city. It would have been an option to take a bus for a part of the trip, but I decided to walk all the way.

These days I’m staying with a Newar family in a local residential neighbourhood. The other volunteer and I are about the only white faces you’ll ever see in the streets here, which is just my cup of tea. On my way to work, I come by a smith, a vegetable merchant, a carpenter, a butcher and a couple of other small businesses, who all conduct their work pretty much in the open.

It’s the last day of Bisket Jatra today. Or second to last, I lost track. In comparison to huge chariots, even bigger poles and pools of chicken blood, today was almost mundane. Devotees of the various gods and goddesses walked through the streets, visiting their favourite temples. Many of them were wearing traditional Newari dresses and most groups had a couple of musicians as well. Given that there are countless temples and even more groups of devotees roaming the streets, it’s fairly easy to see a part of the action.

Happy Nepali New Year, everybody! Around here, the first day of the new year is not greeted by littered streets and hungover masses. Instead, people flock to the holy places to bring offerings. I joined my guest family on their visit to the chariot, where they wanted to offer rice, fruits and a chicken. The latter had been sitting around the house since yesterday and the other volunteer and I simply referred to it as “tomorrow’s dinner” or just “tomorrow”.

It doesn’t get boring around here. The chariot had done it’s duty as a mobile temple/altar and was to be moved to its next destination. Before the procession started, everybody wanted to ring the bells that were dangling from the front of the construction. It did show some signs of the earlier blood orgy. As per usual, young and old had gathered plentifully and awaited the things to come. Today they were to pull on the chariot in one direction only, but that direction was uphill and hence the task was none the easier.

They have a thing here for poles. Number one in the morning was followed by a second one in the late afternoon. The crowd was massive and again hundreds of participants were pulling at the ropes to get the former tree skywards. I got the impression that efficiency is secondary and everybody is happy as long as they can shout and jump up and down. Given what they are doing and how they are doing it, it’s almost surprising that there aren’t more deaths and injuries.

It’s New Year’s eve today (in the local calendar) and as part of the celebrations, a huge pole was erected on Bhaktapur’s pottery square. The small square was jam-packed with locals and a couple of visitors. More than a hundred people were working on erecting the pole with ropes and supporting tree trunk constructions. Even with all the manpower, it took about two hours until the pole was upright. Or upright-ish.

The Newar people have a reputation for celebrating a lot. Thus it shouldn’t come as a major surprise that the New Year festivities last eight days. That and many other things I learned during a cultural introduction seminar held by the organisation I’m volunteering with. We had started the day with a prolonged walk through the city, during which our host told us about local customs. People in this area are fairly religious and bring a lot of offerings to the temples.

During my stay in Bhaktapur, I’d like to volunteer with a local organisation that needs support with their online systems. The main project coordinator wasn’t around today, but one of the staff members gave me a first briefing. It didn’t take too much time, so I had ample opportunity to roam around the old part of town. From what I’ve been told, the 2015 earthquake destroyed 6000 out of 17,000 buildings (sic!

[caption id=“attachment_4474” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Bye bye, laid back Pokhara, you lulled me in![/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4475” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Tourist bus station at 7:00[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4476” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Along roaring rivers[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4477” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Climbing up stunning mountain roads[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4478” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Changing transport by the side of the road in Kathmandu[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4479” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Hello Bhaktapur[/caption]

In other news: Mostly recovered from my recent encounter with the local gastrointestinal mob, but am not yet trusting my gut enough to sit on a bus for 8h. Booked a flight out of Nepal for late May and plan to spend a couple of weeks with the family in Germany before heading on to Canada in June.

Finding a good place to eat in developing countries can pose a bit of a challenge. Tracking down eateries that serve yummy food is obviously important, but actually poses less of a problem. Simply because if the food at a place is not to your liking, you can just write off the dollar and try your luck again next door. Slightly more crucial is the matter of food safety. No use in slurping down the best-tasting Laksa in town, if it sends you to the loo for the next three days straight (I miss you, KL).

It’s 20°C outside. Had a wee bit of a hail storm just now. Anybody drinking their scotch on the rocks?

It’s safe to say that my current lifestyle isn’t the most stressful. Just to clarify: I do work and it’s usually five days a week. I just don’t work too much. Pokhara lends itself to a more relaxed attitude. Traffic on the main road is never dense and pedestrians’ walking speed by the lake is seldom more than a stroll. They serve some really nice coffee here and usually I go for that in the morning.

When I arrived in Nepal, I had close to no clue of what there was to do in the country - as per usual. I knew there was some cool trekking to be done but the details of that eluded me. First enquiries brought a bit of a shock. A trek of 5-7 days was considered a short trek. The long ones like Annapurna Circuit go for more than 20 days.

All good things are coming to an end and that includes this trek. Having done more walking than anticipated in the previous days, the 10-day trek had turned into a 9-day one. No biggie though, I was starting to get a bit exhausted. The day started with a short walk to the old Ghandruk village, which looks like taken straight from a postcard. Upon check-out, I discovered that the guest house owner tried to charge me twice the advertised price for the room.

The next lodge after Khopra, Bayali, can be reached via an upper and a lower route. The lower route descends down to Dhan Kharka at 3000m and then climbs back up to Bayali at about 3450m. The upper route goes more or less straight, which means it is still a constant up and down but more mixed. During harsh weather, the upper route is extremely demanding and has caused more than one casualty.

Mulde Viewpoint sits on the hill rising above Dobato and it blows the popular Poon Hill out of the water. Not wanting to get out of bed too early, I suggested to leave the lodge at 6:30 and still profit from the clear morning air. And boy was that a clear morning. We spent more than half an hour up there before climbing back down for breakfast. Today the trail was going only one way and that was down.

The weather in the Himalayas usually develops from clear and sunny in the morning to cloudy at noon to very cloudy and possibly rainy in the evening. All the more reason to get up early and make the best of the day (and the weather). I had a mediocre night, constantly waking up and falling back asleep after a while. Probably another effect of the altitude. Despite that, I was out the door at six with the camera in hand.

10 hours of sleep, so good! I wake up to a view of Dhaulagiri’s snow covered top. We have a relaxed 9:00 departure and just as the day before, we walk along a narrow path through the forest. Every now and then the trees open up and give way for a view into the valley. Dhaulagiri and Annapurna are now hiding behind the ridges that line the valley we are walking up in.

The lodge is a big house with a high roof and the rooms are only separated by thin walls. I wake up at 5:30 when my neighbour opens his squeaky door to visit the crapper. Given that I was in bed before 22:00, I don’t mind the early hour, it’s getting light anyway. It still takes a moment to leave the comfort of sleeping bag and blanket. Fleece and long underpants always spend the night in bed with me, so they are nice and warm in the morning.

I’m really excited about going on this trek. I think a big reason for that is that it’s something completely new and challenging for me. I have a coffee for breakfast and order a brownie with it. Expected them to just slap it on a plate but instead they did this. Excited and on sugar rush I head back to the guest house to prepare for departure. If this was a cartoon, I’d be jumping up and down, shouting “let’s go trekking!

Right then, tomorrow is the big day (play the intro of Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger here). Heading out on the longest trek of my life. Considering that the two days back in Laos were the longest so far, it’s quite an increment. That being said, the treks around here have a reputation for being rather feasible, given a decent physical shape. Nothing for your average 400 pound US-American though.

Tourism in Pokhara and Nepal in general was badly hit by the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake and the following Indian border closure that resulted in a severe lack of gas, petrol and many other things needed during winter time. These days, parts of the main tourist area in Pokhara look like a ghost town. Restaurants able to seat a hundred guests are empty all day round and bars blast their music at a handful of patrons or none at all.

So you think your job is tough?

To get from Kathmandu to Pokhara, the adventurous traveller has several options. A short hop on a domestic airline is the fastest and most expensive. Given that this country had two plane crashes in the short time that I’ve been here, it’s not an option I’d seriously consider. Which leaves road transportation (or walking). There aren’t many things I dread as much as bus journeys in Asia. It’s not that I’m overly concerned about safety, it’s just that I’m way too tall for… well any kind of vehicle around here.

“Maha Shivaratri is a Hindu festival of Nepal and India celebrated annually in reverence of the God Shiva” (wikipedia). The guys at the house had gotten pretty excited about it, as it’s the one day were one can smoke excessive amounts of weed in the streets without being considered a lowlife. Yesterday it was that day of the year and I had considered paying the Pashupatinath temple a visit. It is one of the holiest places of Hinduism and people flock from all over Nepal and India for the festival.

So you think your public transport is crowded during rush hour?

With the expiry date of my 30 day visa closing in slowly but steadily, it was time for an extension. I had done some research and the sources I came across stated that an extension was easily done and would cost $100 for 90 days (or $40 for 30 days, etc.). Nandu Dai took me to the immigration office on his bike and we could skip the worst queue as I had already filled out the application form online.

Yesterday morning, we navigated our way through the maze of Ason and its surroundings on the way to Ratna Park bus station. With me was the Canadian couple that had taken me along to the orphanage the other day. Our trip was to bring us out of the dusty capital and its valley, and up into the mountain station of Nagarkot. The place is only about 25km way from Kathmandu but it takes around 3h to get there by bus.

Staying at the same guest house as me was a young Canadian couple whom I’ve had a couple of chats and a really cool jam session with. They mentioned they’d be visiting a local orphanage and asked whether I’d want to come along. I certainly did. They got in touch with the institution through a friend of theirs, who had also given them a bunch of goods to deliver. On top of that, they were to give the kids a lesson on hygiene and washing hands.

Over the last days I had a few chats with one of my hosts. He’s a couple of years my senior, has a family and runs his own business. One morning we were having a chat about investments and he said “if you have good karma, your business will succeed”. Quite a difference to the business plans, risk assessments, etc. that preclude pretty much any form of investment in the western world.

Ah, nothing like seeing a goat get slaughtered on the way to breakfast! Just as the previous Saturday, I joined the local volunteer organisation Green Soldiers on their way up to the monkey temple. It’s incredible and sad how fast plastic garbage amasses up there. The government employed cleaners take their job overly easy and simply swipe everything over the next edge, creating clean pathways and dirty surroundings. Before and after “work” there’s always time for tea and the monkeys don’t say no to cookies either.

[caption id=“attachment_4154” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Nandu Dai in his fabric store, 20km (sic!) of fabric in that room[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4155” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Vishnu Dai prepares tomato/coriander/chilly paste - yummy[/caption] And finally the landing in KTM, took a moment to cut that one.

On Monday, fellow couchsurfer Bibhu once more took up the challenge of being on the receiving end of my countless questions about Nepali life. We were to check out the village of Kirtipur, just outside of Kathmandu. As per usual, local public transport was a tad on the rough side and I struggled a bit to find a comfortable standing space in the jam-packed, dated Mercedes van. With a bit of squeezing around and the friendly conductor’s support, I managed to get one foot down on the door steps and that way could at least stand upright.

[caption id=“attachment_4119” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] The old man and the rubble[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4123” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Ratna Park bus station[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4131” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Camera, sun hat, dust mask and Long Black[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4132” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] If I ever need a doctor, I’m on the next plane to BKK or SIN[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4133” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Public transport[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4134” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Beans and stuff[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4136” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Dusty dusty[/caption]

This morning I joined local volunteer group “Green Soldiers” on their mission to clear the monkey temple from plastic rubbish. It’s a fair walk up there. The temple itself is, from what I’ve gathered, one of the more important ones in the country. And as the name tells, it’s full of monkeys. The way up from Thamel leads through a neighbourhood that isn’t exactly the city’s richest. In other news: Saw a moon halo for the first time in my life.

Ason Market, just south of Thamel. As chaotic as it is entertaining.

Really local and really yummy - doesn’t get much better for me. I’m at a point where I feel uncomfortable if a restaurant has table clothes…

Nepal isn’t exactly the most expensive country on the planet when it comes to everyday expenses. A basic room (no hot shower) goes for about NPR 500, the equivalent of less than five dollars US. The 20l water jug I got to avoid buying loads of bottles set me back 55. A small meal with a tea goes for 200 or less, and that’s right next to the touristy area of the capital.

Called the camera shop all morning but didn’t get anybody on the phone. Finally decided to just do the 20 minute walk down there and see what was up with my lens. [caption id=“attachment_4084” align=“aligncenter” width=“550”] Deposit slip, note the two dates![/caption] The guy behind the counter recognised me and signalled thumbs up, the lens is repaired! Asking how much it cost, he told me 5800 - the top end of the range he had quoted the previous day.

“A rolling blackout, also referred to as rotational load shedding or feeder rotation, is an intentionally engineered electrical power shutdown where electricity delivery is stopped for non-overlapping periods of time over different parts of the distribution region.” That’s what wikipedia says and what it effectively means is that all of Kathmandu has power for less than half a day only. The blackout times vary and a handy little app helps keeping track of when the power will be back on.

Yesterday at noon I made my way to the Ratna Park bus station, 15 minutes walking from where I’m staying at the moment. I was to take a bus down to Patan, to meet up with local couchsurfer Bibhu. The bus station is in a busy market area (actually most of Kathmandu seems to be) and all kinds of services are offered “while you wait”. The bus was a bit on the dated side but fortunately not too crowded.

Err 01, that’s what my 550D with the 17-55 reported when I tried to shoot anything over 20mm with the aperture stepped down. I had had the same issue with a Tokina 11-16 a while back and knew that it was most likely related to the aperture mechanism in the lens. A quick google search confirmed my suspicion and I headed to the Canon website to find a local service centre.

[caption id=“attachment_4050” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] Washing Day[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4043” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] So yummy[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_4047” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] Yep, that’s my knee[/caption]

Ended up in a small art gallery by chance today. Ok maybe not that much by chance but rather by the owner’s brother who chatted me up in the streets. Anyway, early on in the visit I had to crush their hopes of selling anything to me, as I told them I don’t have a home and no place to hang a painting either. The lady running the gallery took it easy enough though and invited me to stay for a chat.

It’s incredible, how dusty this city is. Blowing one’s nose is not a pretty sight around here. Dust masks are common in people’s faces and from what I’ve gathered so far, it’ll be a while before the next rain brings relief. Despite the dust, everything in Kathmandu is pretty colourful, especially the clothes. While the dust is annoying, the dry weather has the big advantage of being far less tiring than the moist heat of Southeast Asia.

Started the day with a walk into Thamel (after breakfast that is) to have a look for some warmer clothing. Pretty much straight after entering the touristy area, I was frequently approached by trekking guides and others, who hope to make a few dollars. One of the guys seemed nice enough and I followed him for a tour around the area. He seemed pretty knowledgeable (should be, as a trekking guide) and told me, that the number of overseas visitors had dropped from hundreds of thousands per year to less than a quarter of that after the 2015 earthquake.

Approaching Singapore by means of air transport is quite a sight. Coming in over the sea, one looks down on an endless amount of cargo ships and, if sitting on the right side of the plane, the CBD. Looks especially pretty at night. All that is nothing compared to the approach on Kathmandu though. Descending into the mountains, close-by peaks on eye-level and finally arriving in pretty much the middle of the city was the most breathtaking landing I’ve ever witnessed.