🇳🇵 Kathmandu - Celebrating Holi and Watching Cremations
What happens when an ex-rapper becomes PM
I came back to Kathmandu many times during my time in Nepal, as it seems to serve as a bit of a hub for everything. It’s a busy city with many things to do and explore. It was also a lot less intense than Indian cities. At a point, when visiting India, I just resorted to ordering groceries via delivery apps, as going outside, just to get hassled by the locals and being forced to haggle, got exhausting. In Nepal, it was easy to go and explore again.
I’ll cover some of my highlights of Kathmandu here.
Nepal’s general vibe
Nepal is a bit of a unique place, as most people come here to hike or for spiritual reasons. Given this, I got along with a lot of the backpackers, as most were here to hike or meditate, as opposed to drinking or going to high street clubs, which you get in parts of Asia.
There is another side to this, though, which I experienced when going to a few bars here. Nepal also attracts the hippy types that are quick to jump into conversations on anti-vaxxing and how the secret lizard societies are controlling us. Not my vibe, but luckily, these people were in the minority.
The food is also great here, with brilliant Indian, Nepali, and Chinese restaurants on every street corner. I’ve probably eaten my bodyweight in momos by now, and I’ve still not had enough.
Teenage tourist gouging Olympics
I had a strange interaction on the first day in Kathmandu. After leaving my hostel, two young Nepali guys on the street asked if I wanted to go to a temple, as there was some festival on. It sounded cool, but I felt particularly tired that morning, so I took one of their numbers and got on with sorting hiking supplies.
Later on, I was looking for a lunch spot on Google Maps, and a young Nepali guy donning fake Fear of God asked if he could help. He didn’t seem like a scammer, so I let him take me to a restaurant that he eats at. Admittedly, it was a good suggestion - the restaurant served good Nepali food, and only locals were there. As is customary for me in Nepal, the waitress was also photographed serving me as the food came out.
I found out a little more about the guy - his name was Abhey, he was 20, doing a 10-year (!) artist apprenticeship in a local painting school. He’s never had a formal education before that, so I thought that maybe he just wanted me to buy him food or a drink. Fine with me, although I wish he were honest from the get-go.
When we left, he helped me find a few shops that I was looking for (you can’t trust Google Maps in India or Nepal - half the places don’t exist any more). We bumped into a few other young Nepali guys who had a brief exchange with Abhey, including the ones who wanted to take me to the temple in the morning. I asked him if they were his friends, and he said that they’re scammers who take you to the temple, saying that there’s a festival every day, and then try to sell you hash. Curious.
The interaction ended with the kicker - he took me to a shop that sells his works, reciting a bit of a spiel to try and get me to buy something. I was used to this from India, and it made the whole meeting feel very disingenuous. I feigned interest and left. Admittedly, some of the works were impressive, although hardly unique - there are hundreds of shops like this in Kathmandu alone, all selling similar works.
I checked my phone, and I had a few messages from the temple guy from the morning.
It all came together - there seemed to be groups of Nepali kids walking around Kathmandu’s tourist district, getting friendly with foreigners to try and sell them something. The other guys must have gotten jealous that Abhey managed to speak with a foreigner that morning. During my stay in Nepal, I’ve talked to many other travellers who had nearly identical experiences.
Either way, I wish Abhey all the best. I truly hope that he’s not getting exploited, because if what he said is true, then spending 10 years on a course painting works that are in low demand, requiring you to guilt-trip foreigners, sounds like a questionable use of your time.
Holi festival
I lucked out and came back to Chitwan just in time for Holi. Holi is a Hindu festival celebrating spring, love, and new life. The photos of your cousin from her gap yah where she’s covered in paint were probably taken during Holi.
I didn’t know what to expect, but the hostel manager said he’d organise something for the travellers. Apparently, the government imposed some restrictions for this Holi, such as no music on the streets, due to the upcoming general election in Nepal. Amongst the candidates was a 35-year-old ex-rapper, ex-engineer, that the locals seemed to like - Balen Shah. He has some progressive ideas for Nepal, and managed to win the election in the end - it’s an exciting time for Nepal.
Holi started pretty tame, with the hostel organising a band playing some crowd-pleasers (although I’m at my limit with how many times I can hear Take Me Home Country Roads in a hostel setting). Bags of coloured powder were given out that you were meant to rub or throw on other people while saying “Happy Holi”. Even the hostel cat didn’t get let off lightly.
Once the band finished, we went to one of the more popular squares in Kathmandu. On the way, the locals threw water balloons at us, shot us with water guns, and threw buckets of water out of their balconies. It was carnage.
In the square, everyone continued to paint each other while wishing each other happy Holi. Maybe I drank the Kool-Aid a little here, but the festival felt very wholesome, with people you’ve never met before and have no relation to coming up to you to wish you well. I’ve not experienced any other festival like it.
The square quickly turned into a mosh, which my 26-year-old knees are not built for any more. We retreated through the square and got a bus to our lunch spot.
At lunch, we had a great view of the city and ate traditional Nepali food. I ate a lot of mashed rice and Nepali curry, which was washed down by a local rice wine.
I’m really glad I got to experience Holi, although I massively sympathise with the hostel’s cleaners. I’m still finding remnants of the paint in my clothes and backpack.
Blind Massage
Some backpackers told me about a massage place in Kathmandu where they employ blind masseuses. It’s called Seeing Hands. I was very curious about this, partially because I wanted a massage, and partially because it sounded like a good way to support disabled people - seeing a lot of beggars in Kathmandu, I’m unsure if the Nepali government supports them much otherwise. One of the guys I hiked with is a physical therapist, and he also got a massage there. I was further intrigued as he said that the masseuse made “no mistakes” during his massage.
I went for the sports massage, and it was incredible, aside from the fact that I felt like I had just gone through a rolling press. The masseuse managed to find some knots that I didn’t know I had and work them through effectively. I went for a 2-hour massage, which seemed excessive, but I wanted to see what a longer one would be like. Also, the massage costs £10 per hour, which is ridiculous. In the end, 2 hours didn’t feel like too long, and I made sure to give a handsome tip. I feel like I have a new back.
Cooking Class
A guy I met in my hostel recommended a cooking class from the 2 Sisters Cooking School. Having some time before my next flight, I went for it. I’ve also been loving the Nepali cuisine and wanted to learn how to make some dishes from a local.
I ended up alone in the class, which was pretty cool as I got to ask the teacher a lot of things. The class started by going to the market for the ingredients of my chosen dishes - kwati (Nepali bean soup), dal bhat, and chocolate momos.
The teacher was great, and the food ended up being delicious. Get ready for me to bring momos to every function.
Landmarks
I’m very much templed out at this point, but Kathmandu had two temples I wanted to check out, which seemed unique. The first was Swayambhunath, dubbed the monkey temple. The temple was cool, but I was more interested in the hundreds of monkeys it was home to. I’m easily entertained by seeing monkeys going about their business.
The more interesting temple to me was the Pashupatinath temple - a Hindu temple where the deceased are cremated outside around the clock. The idea of going to a temple like this seems pretty morbid, but I was curious. Indeed, people were brought out onto the riverbank in front of the public, wrapped in cloth, had their faces exposed, and got embalmed by their relatives before getting cremated in front of everyone on the riverbank.
There’s a real sense of serenity I felt visiting this temple. While being surrounded by Buddhism in Nepal and having the concept of rebirth on my mind, seeing a body get burned didn’t seem so shocking and made me placidly aware of my own mortality.
I specifically came to the temple in the evening to make the nightly ritual - the Aarti. During it, various Hindu teachings were read, and devotees performed a ritual heavily utilising candles and incense. In the dark, it had a real mesmerising energy about it.
By the way, the fire in the back on the left is someone being cremated.
Bouldering
Having not exercised my upper body since leaving London, I decided to check out the local climbing gym. After paying the entrance, boot hire, and chalk hire fee of £3, I was greeted by a humble climbing wall offering bouldering, top-roping, and lead routes.
The routes were fun, although the holds were pretty dirty, and routes using similar colours were set next to each other. Part of the challenge here was figuring out which hold is in part of which route (is the highlighter yellow route part of the Homer Simpson yellow route?). It was nice to pop in, but I wouldn’t come to Nepal for indoor bouldering.
Farewell Nepal
I loved my time in Nepal, and I’d love to be back. It’s been a while since I was genuinely impressed by a country, and honestly, I started wondering if it would happen again. Nepal managed it.
I’ve already booked my hostel in Hanoi, and I’m feeling like the next chapter of my travels will be very different to India in Nepal. The Hostelworld chats have about 20 times as many people in them as in Nepal, and many of the hostels pitch happy hours, rooftop pools, and pub crawls. I can always come back, although the only thing missing for me in Nepal was a good music scene. I’m excited for the rest of Asia to make this up for me.