Fill ‘er up in Dhaka

Banyan tree with a temple thing

 Now there is one. Coming into a two-year tour in Guangzhou, I had a whole slate of South, East and SE Asia that I hadn’t visited. Since I’ve been here, I’ve visited the Philippines, Mongolia, Bhutan and even Kazakhstan. My travels started in earnest about March 2014 (I can’t count Seoul – nice, but not exotic enough to make this list) in Bangladesh. And what do you know, with just one more to go – Brunei, and I’ve no idea how/when I can get there – it circled back to Bangladesh.

I’m not sure whose fault that was. The whole issue confused me during my entire three-day stay in Kathmandu. Yes, I finally got to Kathmandu! (And of course, I can’t get the dadgum song out of my head.) This had been in the works for awhile, but I was really kind of freaked about it.

Seriously, I tried to get there previously. I’d even bought tickets for Memorial Day, and then the April 25 earthquake happened, and China Southern canceled my direct flight. I opted to go to Burma instead. Oh, yeah, left that off the list. But Kathmandu remained on it, and I finally repurchased flight tickets, though not through Expedia – I’m done with that.

The thing is, China Southern either did away with or cut back on its nonstop flights, so I had to go indirect. Being from Tallahassee, where even if you crash you still have to go through Atlanta, this wasn’t such a big deal, but the only flight I could get was on Malaysian, that of the “go missing” flight.

Rubble from Kathmandu temple

So … Kathmandu on Malaysian airlines. What could possibly go wrong with that, right?

Fortunately, nothing. I just got back and had an amazing time. Granted, I’m dragging right now because my two-leg flight started at midnight and ended at 2 p.m., but I’ve done laundry, loaded up my photos and have eaten dinner. I’m trying to hold out to 8 p.m, after which I plan on melting into bed.

Anyway, after Bon Jovi for the Mid-Autumn holiday, I decide to do the rest of Golden Week – Chinese National Day – in Nepal. I knew I wouldn’t have time to do any trekking to Everest Base Camp or anything like that, but I figured even if I just wandered I’d be fine, assuming no other earthquakes hit.

And they didn’t. I hired a guide (got the name from the Kathmandu embassy and would recommend the guy) and we wandered through the valley for two and a half days. The rubble is phenomenal, but plenty remains. I have to say I am so very tired of temples, but I saw more temples. (Honestly, I don’t know or care about the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, but I do find the different art interesting.)

For Zippy. I also saw Applebee and S.U.B.way.

The religions – just don’t get. And I get those two confused all the time, but we would go to one thing and Kumar would explain that this was for the god of _____, and people would come and leave stuff. In one place – and this completely blew my mind – there was a “living god.” He went on to explain this ritual where 4-year-old girls go through the equivalent of beauty and dare contests to be chosen/nominated/voted/not sure of the right verb as a “living god.” At least until menstruation, anyway. Then they do it again. But in the meantime, she is dressed up in an outfit that makes Jon Benet Ramsey look like a redneck and kept in this courtyard, where her feet never touch the ground. She’s either walking on velvet or being carried around. I just don’t understand.

Second-floor chicken

And the kama sutra. Bhutan had penises, but Nepal had sex ed carved into the temples. Never seen this before. Apparently the child brides of the past were taken to the temple to look at pictures for a how-to guide. They still stand today. And bend over, too.

But temples are the thing to do in Nepal, at least if you’re not hiking, and I did temples. I went to 3-4 UNESCO sites and saw lots of cracks in the rubble and beams holding this or that up. They really are trying to rebuild, but how do you rebuilt something from the 17^th century.

The one temple that Kathmandu was named for was completely leveled. Others still had the little deities standing, but they were facing a pile of rubble. I also saw more rats than I have since walking home from the Jakarta Globe.

Predates the fuel shortage, I'm sure

The Kathmandu valley is just that – a valley between mountains, including the Himalaya. So we had to transport back and forth between the places. Normally, this isn’t a problem, but this time it was, and from what Kumar told me, it was all India’s fault.

Somehow, and I still don’t understand this, India and Nepal are in talks about this or that (I tried to read some article, and “diplomats disagreed” popped up over and over). As a result, there are protests and holdups. One of the holdups is that India is not getting fuel to Nepal anymore. And this is where the fuel comes from, so there are few taxis. What they have, though, are lines of taxis and buses – like 20, 30, 40 – lined up, engines off, in phantom lines for gas.

The taxis that are running are gouging riders, especially tourists, because they have no idea when they will get gas again, so they have to make it worth their while. (And let’s face it, because tourists are easy prey.)

One alternative is the city buses, which reminded me of Morocco’s. And as much as I love Morocco, the transport system is not enviable. It’s downright scary, but that’s what we took.

Loved the view

The buses are very suspect, even before you realize they’re crammed with three times the safe number of people. The count includes those extra three people sitting in a two-person seat, the guys hanging on for dear life outside the open door and the ones sitting on the roof.

This was my transport for two days. My guide kept apologizing for it but it really wasn’t that bad. Again, it reminded me of Morocco. I certainly don’t miss that part of Morocco, but I lived through that and I made it through the weekend here.

On Day Three, we could only get to one other location and just couldn’t get a bus, so that was it for the trip. Kumar wound up walking home and I wandered back to some of the places I’d visited previously and started spending money. I bought two pairs of pants and three shirts for myself, but they’re not exactly the kind I can wear to work. I have a lot of trouble splurging on myself. On one pair of pants – one I’d returned to after seeing the first day – I had to, literally, sit myself down and talk me into it. They were $5.

Kama sutra  temple. In case you thought I was lying.

I didn’t get a yak shawl, which, now, I think is a shame. I don’t wear shawls but have several; this was my reasoning in not getting one. They were 300 rp, which is about $3. I haven’t worn the one from Bhutan once, so I decided to skip it. Then I wound up with 700 rp left over. The changers wouldn’t just give me $6 – they said their fee wouldn’t be worth it to me – so I wound up spending it in the airport, on a 5-pack of Oreos, two baby canned juices (pomegranate and pineapple) and a Twix bar. That was about $7. I would have been better off with two shawls, even if I never wore them. Sigh.

The fuel crisis lingers, and it wasn’t limited to auto fuel. Tourists restaurants were running low, shuttering them, and then on the way back I got thrown for a loop at the airport. I’d gotten a notice the day I left for Nepal that the arrival of the flight to KL had been postponed by an hour. Not the departure, just the arrival, and that confused me. But hey, I can roll with that, right?

But when I checked into the airport, I got the explanation: we had to pull over in Bangladesh to get gas. There’s no airplane fuel in Nepal, either.