I've spent the past five weeks fossicking in strange, small, dark shops, getting covered in dust, getting work related bronchitis, sitting amongst dusty grimy rags and flashing my two dollar torch into hidden corners. I've batted away cobwebs and touts and plastic water pistol sellers and bought mangoes because I felt sorry for the seller. I've chatted up toothless ancients, and spunky youths, and charmed the rudruksha beads out of the sacks of collectors. I've found the fellow who sold me the Naga pieces from several years ago: I have kilos of pale green watermelon chevrons, and some agate that looks as if it was washed in the Ma Ganga for years; some fantastic carved conch mala beads, bits of mangled dark silver and even that fake amber! I've taken rickshaw rides deep into wedding alleys and burned my lips on too hot too sweet chai while the Muslim bead wallahs fix my pieces with their toes. I've seen merchants polish their beads with Almond Hair Oil and con men trying to flog concrete as turquoise. I know Thamel and Indra Chowk like the back of my hand. And I have a fistful of sadhu friends in lofty places to bless the rest of my journey.
I resisted pashminas until Luda arrived. Now I have about 40! All gorgeous, all dear human please feel me pashminas! And I landed up with 30kg of beads.
And Luda did to the GDP of Nepal in one week what I managed with great fortitude and lack of restraint to do in six.
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| The DHL crew |
Our haul of beads have been packed up and are on their way to Australia. They left this morning via DHL. The cargo dudes came up to our rooms at 9am on the dot, with their scales and packing tape and recycled boxes and a scissors that could cut a buffalo in half, sipped hot chai prepared by the hotel, and packed everything for us. Then they whistled for a sherpa and a rickshaw, carted it halfway across Thamel, including their scales, and we bade our hard slogged spoils farewell till we unpack them in Sydney in May. It was like watching the first child off to school .... a big load of our minds, but .. will we ever see them again?
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| Woman knitting, Bhaktapur |
Then Lu and I went to Bhaktapur, the ancient 7th century Unesco town I love, 1/2 hr from Kathmandu, that I've visited a few times since 1989. Walking down ancient crumbing lanes where buildings were not built with a spirit level or plumb line and look like something out of Limini Snickett and you keep expecting a film made by Director Merchant Ivory to start rolling. Erotic carvings doing astounding things to each other gaze down at you try to sip your coffee. WOW says Luda, I'll have what they were having in the 7th century. Strains of meditation music on ancient instruments waft from old shop fronts; villagers make pottery butter lamps, and men lounge on straw mats discussing the world while the the women knit hats and kids splash in old wells. The older women wear fabulous gold earrings studded like shower curtains all along their lobes; it's hard to believe this is the 21st century .. until you go into the shops and they try to charge you 21st century silver prices for something that was made 80 years ago and has been in the shop, evidenced by the dust, for 79 years.
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| I've collected my salwars from the seamstress. This time they did fit but I think they got a chai wallah to sew them as they are already falling apart at the seams. I really don't want another banana lassi. And my hair has grown long enough, and I've put some weight back on, so that I no longer look as if I've just come down from Tibet on the back of a yak. |
Luda and I feel dirty, grimy, and tired of the dust. We're spending tomorrow morning packing what is left of our things. I've given most of mine away as after six weeks wearing them, I never want to see them again, and we're treating ourselves to a "special golden glow" facial and manicure and hair wash (ah real hot water) all of which has to happen before the power goes off at 3 tomorrow -at the Tranquillity Spa, guaranteed not to give me brain glow.
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| Hookah smokers, Bhaktapur 2011 |
Then ... Onwards to Morocco, tomorrow, via Abu Dhabi. A day lying at the pool and sniffing around souks. I have every intention of finding myself a very wealthy Abu Dhabian who will give me my weight in silver just for the pleasure of my company and my animated Nepalese adventures. I am eating entire chocolate bars as I write.
Anyway, here I am masquerading as Parvati. I'm glad to be leaving Kathmandu. I've been here a long time and had many adventures, but as long as I am in this blinding pollution, I won't shake my cough. All the vendors greet me by name, the owners of the Hotel Blue Horizon ask me decorating advice, and there are still people asking me to buy their bloody Please Human Feel Me pashminas.
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