Kathmandu, Nepal>, Nov 23, 2009
What would you suppose is the most hotly-contested event on the planet? The football World Cup? The Tri-Nations? Perhaps you’d even venture the American presidential elections. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Worthy contenders they may be, but surely, if such a thing exists, the stand-out contest has to be the annual Miss Nepal competition. Dark complexions, black hair, petite, and with the kind of smile you normally only ever see in toothpaste advertisements. (Whenever one of those smiles was aimed in my direction it felt like a little victory - like finding a crumpled tenner in an old pair of jeans.)Anyway. That observation aside, I like Kathmandu. Nestled in the (Kathmandu) valley it’s noticeably cooler than Delhi, a result of it’s higher elevation and more northerly latitude. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve felt cold on my trip; nighttime in Nepal. I arrived and eventually found a hotel that was a) open and b) affordable - it was six in the morning. When I stepped into the reception I felt something land on my neck, and instinctively brushed it aside. I turned to find a grasshopper (maybe it was a cricket) the size of a field mouse, and I must admit, the only coherent thought I could manage at that point was “I’m hungry”. However, I compassionately/lazily left it in peace, and went to sleep.Over the next few days, I wandered around the city browsing the billions of shops, without buying a thing. Occasionally, I met up with Zoran, the guy on my bus to Nepal, for a drink. Sitting with his friends, which meant around the table we were one Croatian, one Egyptian, two Persians (they call themselves Persians not Iranians and are in exile) an American and myself an(Indian). Which sounds like the start of a joke: Egyptian, Two Persians, Welshman, American,Croat and an Indian, walk into a bar…They were having the kind of conversation you can only have if you’re quite drunk, or otherwise intoxicated. As I was perfectly sober, I found myself longing for a lighthearted conversation about football, reaching a consensus on Marmite (love it), or the merits of the latest Miss Nepaland her main rivals on the World stage. (Venezuela for one, more on this later.) To be fair to the guys, they did have some interesting points, but it was, for the most part, way over my head. Origins of the Universe? On a Tuesday afternoon - are you sure?Later, I busied myself with a walk to Swayambhunath, the ‘Monkey Temple’ overlooking the city. The monkeys there (rhesus macaques) have a reputation for being thieving bullies, who plunder food from unsuspecting tourists. Compared to the baboons at Cape Point, I found them to be introverted wimps. (Sorry, monkeys!)After I’d booked my coach to Pokhara, I had another look around Durbar Square, and the stalls in Thamel, Kathmandu’s equivalent of Khao San Road. Apart from the usual tourist tat, the Gurkha Khukuri knives caught my attention. In varying sizes up to about a foot in length (the blade, that is) they’re quite impressive things, and beautifully made. But - how would I get one through Customs at Heathrow? And for that matter, what would I do with it for the rest of my trip?I had visions of carrying it around on my back, in a scabbard, like a poor man’s Crocodile Dundee:“That’s not a knife; this is a knife…innit?”