Last stop: Lhasa

Magic bus
Patan, Nepal

I found the dot-matrix printed homespun flyer promsing "70$ Bus trip to Lhasa." I phoned the number - they answered in local tradition with an uncertain "Hello?" rather than with the name of the business.

This means you then have to ask, "Is this the _______ office?"

By the way, no company name was listed at all on the flyer, so I had to say, "is this the bus to Lhasa?"

"No, this is E-Trek."

"Okay E-Trek, I am calling about the bus to Lhasa. Is this the right number?"

"Yes, but...

"...but?"

" that bus is not for foreigners."

Not for foreigners! Why?

"Only for Nepali and Chinese people."

but WHY?

"Because there was too much trouble with getting the foreigners' visas on that bus, with the Chinese government. " (Read: they were not making enough money that way.) "Foreigners must take a special package tour on a special bus."

"So how much is this special tour?"

"The package tour is $400 plus for 7 days, and that includes the guide, and sight-seeing, and..."

Forget it!

I said, "but I don't want a whole package guided tour. I just want to go to Lhasa. $400 is too much for a bus even both ways; I can fly there for $255!"

This really incensed me. Why should my butt take up $400 worth of room when if I were Nepali it would only take up $70 worth of room?

I insisted that I knew they could get me the "group visa" and then I could split off on my own, which, in fact, I do know because I know people who have done it. They didn't want to talk about it over the phone, and asked me to come by the office.

I happen to know where E-trek is, which is a good thing, as there is no address on the flyer and the guy neglected to tell me. It's in Thamel, sandwiched between a money-changer, embroidered t-shirt shop and store selling maps to Mount Everest and Kailash.

Of course, they have a vested interest in selling me a $400 package tour, if they can. That hardly means it's the only way in. I have been warned about this. The "group visa" thing is largely a fiction these days. All the "group visa" is, is a typewritten sheet of paper the travel agent has. There is no group visa in your passport...just an ordinary Chinese visa. If you can manage to get across the border without getting robbed blind by these agents, you can then pretty much wander off on your own.

Hmmm. No foreigners, indeed. I will go see these characters at E-trek this weekend.

The Cows Come Home

Bring out your dead!
Bhaktapur, Nepal

Our week of celebrating the coming Nepali festival season got off to a bad start. Floriane (a Belgian student here studying the outcaste women of Nepal) and I went out to Boudha to witness something of Janai Purnima (which falls on the August full moon). I was hoping to see the Jhankris, or Tamang shamen, dance around the stupa. We saw some awesome artwork at the new Nyima monastery, and emerged to find Floriane's shoes had been stolen. (Expensive Teva sandals, a present from her mother.) It must be extra rotten karma to steal from a visitor to a Buddhist monastery - and extra extra rotten on a holy day.

Maybe the guilty person will be reborn as a cow - that is, an unfortunate western cow - whose hide will be used to make shoes.

On Thursday, Floriane and I made for Bhaktapur to watch yet another quintessentially Nepali holiday (Nepaliday?)

Gai Jatra (Cow Pilgrimage) is a sort of Nepali version of the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Each family who has lost a member during the previous year constructs a "gai" of bamboo branches, cloth, paper decorations and portraits of the deceased. The belief is that a cow must lead the dead spirits into the next land, but it's rare to see a real cow involved. Instead,they construct the "thaha macha" or "false cow." Each thaha macha looms overhead like a swaying radio tower. They bamboo tower is often covered with cloths that belonged to the deceased - black for women, white for males.

The looming, swaying photos paraded unblinking through the streets reminded me of the Monty Python line - "bring out your dead!!"


The families (usually males, but sometimes women help) cart this contraption through the narrow streets on their shoulders.


We took a local bus from Ratna Park (the central bus stand inKathmandu) out to Bhaktapur. A one-hour ride: total cost, 20Rs or fifty cents (a taxi is nearly $10 US). There are two buses, though, one that makes all local stops and another that's faster - we fortunately got the faster one. In classic Asian fashion we sat on the covered gear-shift to give a proper seat a breast-feeding mom, who was as surprised as she was grateful.

Gai Jatra is also a day for transvestism, political satire, free speech, stick-dancing in the streets, and general goofiness and masking. In a sort of combination April Fool's and Halloween, "mad" comic papers of crazy news and political spoofs are printed. It was a long, hot sweaty day in the streets, but so much fun we didn't realize how dehydrated we were till it was long over (at which point I nearly keeled over and had to spend the night at Bhadgaon Guest House).


For kids, it's turned into a sort of all-purpose Halloween type holiday and I saw many plastic western-style masks. SpiderMan is especially popular with both little boys and girls.

All the guide books describe Gai Jatra as a one-day thing. In Bhaktapur (literally, "city of devotion") it's the beginning of a week-long festival. Every day sees different processions, with various street dances and costumes, till the final day of Krishna Janmashtami (Krishna's birthday).
All the guide books describe Gai Jatra as a one-day thing. In Bhaktapur (literally, "city of devotion") it's the beginning of a week-long festival. Every day sees different processions, with various street dances and costumes, till the final day of Krishna Janmashtami (Krishna's birthday).


The legend (every festival has a legend) is that a queen of long ago lost her favourite son. She was inconsolable in her grief. Finally the king had enough of it and designed this festival to show her that others had suffered the same losses during the year, so she should get over herself. It also helps the town make a light-hearted celebration of their loved ones and helps everyone get over their mourning stage.

Every generation has a role to play in Gai Jatra and even if you did not lose a member of your family, you are expected to help your friends get all the Sacred Stuff together, so it reinforces community bonds (says the anthropologist that lives in my head. Dr Wells would be proud!)





It's supposed to be a harvest time festival (like most days honouring the dead), but because it follows a lunar calendar, it gets earlier every year. In a few decades I guess they will be parading in the heat of the May sun. Maybe they adjust it every hundred years or so to avoid this.
In late afternoon, after having paraded their dead relatives all over town for a final look-see, the Cow Towers end up at the absolutely stunning Nyatapola Square, with its towering pagodas, and assemble in a moving circle, resembling some kind of huge MayDay dance.


At the parade's end well after dark, the False Cows are taken to the edge of the river, hacked apart with hand-axes and all the disposable parts - bamboo, paper cow-face decor, tinsel and straw - are tossed in the water, which ripples under the silvery full moon.


If you missed it, don't worry. In Nepal, there's always another festival next week.

Pepsi-Cide

Coke Adds Life
Kathmandu, Nepal

Coke and Pepsi are back in the Indian news. A few years ago Kerala was all up in arms about the stolen water from villages (and rightly so). Rumours about the soft drinks being full of pesticides have been flying around for ages, and have now been revived. (Of course, when you are manufacturing them with Indian tap water, which is already full of god knows what, they are bound to be pretty questionable anyway.)

The Indian papers are all full of stories warning that the Pepsi-Cide scandal will be "bad for the economy": WASHINGTON (AFP) - As Coca-Cola and Pepsico lose their fizz in India, the US government and business leaders are warning of potential fallout on investment in the booming country of a billion-plus people.

Most of the traditional, hand-painted sign boards for shoppes here have been replaced by corporate ones from the soda companies. They picture Indian film stars reverentially holding a bottle. Instead of being works of individual art, all the signs now look the same...and all are just adds for Coke and Pepsi.

I went for a short hike to a nearby hill temple and on the way back, noticed there was not *one* tea stall...all the shoppes were just serving Coke and other bottled drinks. No tea in sight! and no juice (except the horribly overpriced boxes).

I have cultural ties to Coke (it was invented in my hometown by the Chattanooga Patent Medicine Company and we grew up drinking it) so I enjoy it, but at what price to locals?

My Tamil friend who is in college in Delhi says that the phenomena of everyone drinking sodas is new. Ten years ago, everyone drank water with everything. Now, everyone "has" to have a soda or bottled drink. Sort of like paying extra money to rot your teeth.

These drinks, besides being unhealthy, are extortionately priced at 20rs. I mean, when you make 100Rs a day.... by comparison, in the US, where you make $100 a day, there is no drink on the market that is $20. They are outrageously priced for ordinary people, and the people are *bombarded* with ads for their desirability.

Drink tender coconut water! (where available...I miss it here in Nepal.)

I win! this time

Thanks for playing!
Kathmandu, Nepal

My photo taken at the Tundikhel Maoists' rally (at right) won TrekShare Picture of the Month for July. Thanks to everyone who voted, I win a free t-shirt. That and a $1.00, as they used to say, will get me on the subway.

Now, if I can win Picture of the Year I will win $200. But the competition is tough....

More good photo news: Kamat.com has asked to add one of my "Role Reversal" photos to their online India collection. This was part of the "Work" series I did with Vijay Sekuru in Andhra Pradesh this February.

I need to spruce up my Flickr.com homepage. It has about less than 1% of the photos I've taken over the years.

My Dinner With Durga

Goddess in Progress
Bhaktapur, Nepal

I am exhausted after managing to stumble into yet another one of my fairy-tale encounters with yet another fringe culture nearing extinction. After checking out the National Art Museum in Bhaktapur (some masterpieces of psychedelic tantric Buddhist and Hindu art are there), I had decided to track down the Nava Durga Dyochhen, supposedly home base for the Nava Durga dancers - ritual masked dancers who perform during the year for festivals in this most traditional of Nepali cities.

Old ladies and uniformed schoolgirls pointed me down narrow, damp, mouldy alleys; I was sure they wanted me to get lost. After passing through what felt like very intimate private spaces - enclosed courtyards with ducks, chickens and laundry in tubs - I emerged onto Nava Durga Path (being able to read the street signs really comes in handy). The Dyocchen itself looks like a haunted house, Nepali style, with fearsome brass skulls and gables all over the place. The guidebook described it as "a mysterious tantric temple open only to initiates" (most Hindu temples here are "open only to Hindus," defined as being people who look Indian regardless of whether they are Buddhist, Christian or otherwise).

I noticed that the usual spectacularly ornate carved doorway was missing something -the central figure directly over the door, goddess Durga, had been nicked. There's a book about this (The Gods Are Leaving the Country, all about Nepali art theft). Judging by the surrounding decorations, the centrepiece must have been masterful. It was sadly replaced by a hand-written paper sign in magic marker.

After being invited in by sweet, giggling Newari girls who spoke little English, I was told by the man who spoke the most English (very little as well) that the dancers were nowhere around and I could not talk to them. I stalled, though, and kept asking questions. In the back courtyard there were about 2 dozen people seated and someone addressing them through a loudspeaker.

It turned out THEY were the Nava Durga dancers themselves, and they were having a meeting! About what? About the fact that the dance company was having trouble, because all the young men (they are only male dancers) had to work jobs these days. They have not enough time for dance practice. And while they understood the need for money, the dance was having a hard time. The troupe elders felt that no one was really ready to dance. Festival season was around the corner, what to do?

Why on earth did the guy tell me the dancers were not around? and that it was "not possible" to speak to them? Did he just not understand my question?

It turned out that all the NavaDurga dancers belong to one Newari Hindu sub-caste, the flower sellers or Banamalas. Every single person there was surnamed Banamala. Bimesh Banamala, Gopal Banamala; the girl (any one of them could be models in the West; here they are a rupee a dozen) had the beautiful name ShivaKesari Banamala.

They were encouraged that an American woman was there wanting to learn about their dance, especially since the young people seemed to be losing some interest in it., and invited me to have dinner with them (traditional Newari food). Unfortunately, they spoke so little English all I could share was "yo khanna dehri mitoh cha" (Nepali for "this food is very tasty"), and so on.

Traditional Newari food was really good, and unusual, indeed. The mainstay is something called beaten paddy - flattened dried uncooked rice that is something like eating confetti. This, with soy beans, peas, big chunks of cooked ginger and roast garlic (my favourite), the ever-present Nepali potato, tomato relish and buffalo meat (which I skipped). This was topped off with Chang, a rice beer that looks just like watered-down milk and tastes just like watered-down beer. I noticed that I was the only lady present who was served Chang. It was so nice to have native food without fear of green chilis (always a problem in India).

We all sat on thick woven straw mats on the brick floor of the temple mandap (a sort of pavilion in the courtyard for gatherings) and the food was served on plates made of dried, pressed leaves. In south Asian fashion, 2 rows of people sit cross-legged opposite one another as volunteers move up and down the aisle in between with big vats of each item, ladling out more as you like. If you don't want more, you just block your leaf-plate with your hand and do the head-woggle thing (there are 2 or 3 head woggles and by now I know the one that means "no thanks" as opposed to the ones that mean "yes, " "i understand," and "I am pretending to say yes, but really will go on and do as I please."

The Newaris are a mysterious, quiet, creative, artistic and often beautiful people. Their origins are misty - they speak a language (considered one of the most difficult in the world) that is not Sanskritic based but Tibeto-Burman. It sounds like a cross between Nepali and Chinese, but is written in a Sanskritic script that looks like a fantastically ornate Hindi. "Jeen nakhateeni ghanay dhoona" means "I already had my dinner, thanks."

All the fantastical wooden carvings, stone masterpieces and brass doorways you see around the Kathmandu Valley - ALL of them - are products of the Newari culture. Newaris are both Hindu and Buddhist, with little division socially between them. Yet though they are responsible for most everything we associate with Nepali culture, they have never been the rulers of the valley, never the kings, and they comprise only a small percentage of the actual Nepali population. The entire valley is a profusion of teak gargoyles, serpentine nagas and snarling protector gods because of the tremendous creative energy of the ancient Newaris.

Anyway, I want to find out more about the Nava Durga dances - what they look like, when and where they are performed how you actually go about staging a performance, and what it means to the community involved. Every single members of the Banamalas have a role in the Nava Durga pageants. Bimesh, the "cool" modern Newari who spoke the most English, turned out to be not a dancer, but a sculptor who is working on the new crown for the temple's Durga statue. I am going to watch him work tomorrow at 10am. I had planned a nice day in the country at Changu Narayan temple, but life and ancient goddesses have a way of asserting themselves...especially in the Magic Kingdom.

I need a Nepali or Newari interpretor.