Monday 31st August: Shopping in Kathmandu

Raining again. Our last full day in Nepal. Time for a last look around the town; a last opportunity for souvenirs and photographs. I bought a couple of rice paper notebooks for my dairy. I'll write it up from these notes when I get home (I didn't, this is the first transcript after 25 years!!!!).

Still fascinated by the daily life. Wandering around more back streets I saw animals "waiting" outside the grimy butchers' shops. Did they know what was in store for them, they must be able to smell the blood and carcasses. Apparently the meat keeps only a few hours after it is slaughtered. Someone told me that any left at the end of the day is thrown away. That probably explains the many dogs; it must be a feast for them. I have never seen anywhere else with so many dogs. Fierce dogs too. At first they alarmed me; the growling, snarling, fighting, teeth; but then I realised they fought only each other or anyone foolish enough to get in the way.


Ben stopped to sketch a buffalo in a muddy lane. The streets, apart from the few paved squares, were now almost ankle deep in mud; there had been a lot of rain. Still overcast it was too dark for my slow film. Not wanting to stand idly by while Ben sketched, Jane and I went off to buy toilet rolls and shampoo, not quite so boring as it sounds. We also bought throat pastilles to fend of developing sore throats, which although unpleasant were not enough to stop us eating large pieces of apple strudel and downing large mugs of hot chocolate. Our daily visits to the "pie shops" had been a pleasure. These shops, although often drab and dingy looking from the outside with the mesh covered windows and low doorways, offered wonderful selections of cakes, pies and tarts, as well as, in many cases, less innocent produce. Many of the customers were western students and many were either trying to buy or sell drugs.

By early afternoon the rain had stopped and the sun was winning in its struggle to shining through once again. Enough light for a few more street scene photographs.

We walked towards the Monkey Temple to a shop where Jane had seen a coat she liked. She thought, at Rs140/-  it was cheap enough for her to afford but she had been told the "wrong" price and she couldn't afford the Rs250/- they were now asking. Undeterred she and Ben began to haggle and eventually bought it for Rs220/-, I think a possible victory for the storekeeper.

As we were leaving the store, Jane's camera fell out of her bag and smashed to the floor. The sunlight filter was smashed and dented so that we could not remove it. Jane panicked. She was doing a photography degree and the pictures she was taking were part of her coursework. We headed back towards the town centre looking for something that might help. We found a workshop where the owner had a collection of tools including vices and pliers. We asked if we could use his tools to try to mend the camera, but we couldn't make ourselves understood. We showed him the camera and pointed to his tools, miming . He understood. We used the pliers to straighten the bent rim of the filter and with a little effort managed to remove the broken pieces. The camera itself looked OK.

Jane and Ben must have discovered they had more money as they went off to buy a pullover. I went to a book shop. All the books were many hands old and originated from all over the world. I wondered about the travelers who had sold them to the shop owner, I wondered how much he had paid. He was charging prices higher than the original book price, but then each of these books, if they could speak, could probably have told many more stories than the one contained in their printed words. I bought "Suffer, Little Children" by Greenaway.

For tea we had enormous American style pizzas and then went for a final visit to a pie shop for pie and coffee. Our last evening in Kathmandu was drawing to a close. We returned to our hotel to pack, the electricity failed and we packed by candle light. The manager came to chat. he wanted to know about England. I think he thought it is paradise!

Taxi to the airport, only to be told there was a two and half hour delay. The airport was closed to allow for the arrival of the king (or so we were told). But the airport staff were friendly and made us welcome handing out vouchers for food to compensate for the delay. No need for the sandwiches yet then!

After sitting in the restaurant for a while we ventured out into what was now a hot sunny day to watch the comings and goings of the airport; there was much activity in the customs bay where there were many men checking freight in and out. The freight mainly appeared to be rugs and carpets en route to America and Europe. But no photographs here. Only two small aircraft took off while we watched. The airport was very quiet. Was it always like this or was today special?

At 12:00 we went to check in but had to wait another 30 minutes. But eventually we were checked in; the bags were not to heavy and we cleared through passport control, security and into the departure lounge. Time for a coffee; somewhat expensive after the prices of the pie shops, but we drank one large plastic mug full each and sat down to wait. And wait.... we ate our sandwiches. By 2:30 still nothing. No announcement; nothing.

At 2:45 we were approached by an airport official who demanded another $20 from Jane and Ben. We complained. We had bought and paid for the tickets in the official airline office; we has shown them our passports and we had been through check in and customers. Why did they think they should now pay more?  They bought their tickets the same time as I had. In fact I'd paid for them all. He went to check my ticket too. Still no explanation.

He took Jane's passport. Said something about students. Noticed that the visa was expiring and threatened us with what would happen if we didn't leave the country today. There was no chance of an apology from this guy. He denied the flight was late and said we had the wrong time on the tickets and we had to pay him more because we hadn't been charged the right price. He said we couldn't leave unless we paid. Things got nasty. The flight was being called and we saw our bags trundling across the tarmac to the small plane. We gave in and paid him in Indian rupees. It was all we had. he clearly wasn't happy as he kept demanding US dollars. He seemed to think we should have been loaded and had seen us as a money making opportunity. We wondered whether to complain to the Nepalese consul on our return. We didn't. But the experience of corruption in our last half hour in the country left a sour taste in our mouths.  The flight left just after three. We boarded with minutes to spare.

Unfortunately it was cloudy so we missed the spectacular views of the mountains, which we were leaving behind us,  but the 50 minute flight to Patna was very smooth and we could see part of the route over which we had arrived by bus the week before. The in-flight snack was brought round - we hadn't been short of food after all - and soon we were flying over the very, very flat and vast expanse of the plains of Northern India.

Vast, incredible flatness; from here it appeared featureless and endless; here and there divided into small fields; occasionally dissected by rivers and streams, much of it flooded. We must have flown over Mazafarpur. The extent of the flooding was great; it went on and on and only stopped shortly before we began our descent into Patna across the great river Ganges. Patna airport is small and there were not many people on our flight. After a short wait to clear immigration we went through into customs. We had to sit an wait. Everyone, and I mean everyone from our flight was searched. They went through all our bags and asked many questions. The customs officers were friendly and chatty. maybe to put us off our guard. Maybe they expected to find drugs.

A quick visit to the tourist advice to ask about accommodation. Apparently the railway station district offered a good selection of cheap accommodation.

Outside the airport it was very hot. After the cooler air of Kathmandu we had forgotten how stiflingly hot it had been in India. We were instantly besieged by rickshaw men. We selected two and stated our destination: the railway station. We seemed to pass over many sets of railway lines; possibly the same ones over and over. I never did quite get to trust the rickshaw drivers, and my suspicions were apparently confirmed when instead of arriving at the station we drew up in front of a hotel. We insisted on the station, the drivers looked hurt, we guessed they were losing commission, but they took us to the station.

We couldn't decide which train we needed or exactly when, and having got some idea of the timetable, we left without booking tickets. We asked the rickshaw men to take us to Hotel Park, as recommended by the tourist office. They didn't. They said that they knew a closer hotel. Hotel Park, 3Km they say, theirs only 0.5Km - but we must have been taken at least two. The hotel seemed adequate and we booked a double room between the three of us. 

During our evening meal a local tourist guide told us that Hotel Park was very close to the station but that the rickshaw drivers had taken us to the Hotel  Nilgiri because they got better commission there. As we suspected, but there was little we could do about it. Destination is not the only problem; fares can be tricky too. We try to negotiate before the journey: Driver: "Rs 5/-" we say no and walk away; Driver: "Rs 4/-; Rs 4/-"; We say yes but then at the end of the journey he still demands Rs5/-