35. COUGHING UP IN KATHMANDU - NO LONGER!

Kathmandu certainly slugged it to me in the 6 weeks I was there. From brain boils, to ups and downs and outs, to fevers, colds, bronchitis; a visit to the local Tourist Hospital where I was xrayed, blood tested, pummelled and antibiotic'd for all I had;  this city is so full of disease and grime that you can't leave unscathed.  Bugger the notion of my having to purge my last two years:  just breathing here is a life threatening activity.  For the last two weeks I had to wear a face mask: coughing so badly that at times my dinner/lunch/breakfast was lost in the coughing.  

So to say that I am DELIGHTED to have left this ghastly pollution, engorging traffic and filth is an understatement. I never thought I would breathe easily again:  ventolin inhalers at 4am is no joke, especially when burning incense is essential to get rid of the stinks of the streets.  Great shopping, but that's all that's left, now, as the wonderful Mewari houses are torn down or fall down to be left in piles of rubble.  Every vendor on every corner wheedling me to come and see their backsides  ... I have more, different colours ... please, have a look my backside.  

We were going to have a facial and pedicure, but - guess what?  I was sick again!  Pale and green about the gills so I  spent the day shivering in bed while Luda had her final fling with the Kathmandu economy.  Then the black heavens opened and dumped more carbon on the hapless citizens of this Blade Runner city.  The hotel owner draped a yellow scarf around each of our necks in holy sanctimony and wished us a safe journey and may nothing bad happen to us on the plane.

Luda and I left last night, without a backwards - or backsides - glance.  Our bags stuffed into the van with no suspension, holding our scrafs (nepalese for scarf) over our mouths, watching mud fall from the sky and the poor, the dispossessed, the desperate struggle to another day, hoping for another batch of loaded tourists to ease their plights.  

Guess who turned up as our driver? Move it Move It Watermelon Smooth Skin. Had he been waiting all this time to get close to my conundrums?  I didn't dare tell Luda; she would have had conniptions and created an indignant, protective riot in the alley where even the stray dogs were now my friends.  To his credit, Mr Move It Watermelon was stone faced ignoramus incognito and reveal our secret, He Did Not. Though I trembled in terror he might create a scene and then he'd have Luda to deal with, and we'd have have to find another driver, and we might miss our plane.  I shut up. 

We passed through the multiple airport checks with the regulation amount of inner thigh fondling looking for scimitars strapped to our labias, or belts of bullets around our waist.  We were blonde and redhead, well dressed and well behaved; complying where we could. We sashayed into the Coral Class Queue of Etihad airways, where the handsome man, falling victim to Luda's flirting capacity, said he'd try and upgrade us.

Etihad First Class

And we were.  To First Class.  Nogal. Seriously.  We were first up the stairs, front of plane.  With dancing room between the seats. Lights and buzzers and controls, trays up and trays down.  Buttons for this and more buttons for that, and the smell of money piped through the pipes.  I swear the air is cleaner in First Class.

Champagne madam? Bollinger?  Orange Juice on Tap, here's a lovely Chanel smelling hot towel to wipe that disgusting Kathmandu off your skin. Would you like me to get your bag?  Put toothpaste on your brush?  Wipe the caviar dribble from your chin while you sleep like a baby in our plush caboose?

The schpiel about life jackets and oxygen masks and emergency exits came on.  In Arabic.  I thought that French was always the language to make me remove my clothes in an emergency.  Or that I would create an emergency so that a Frenchman would talk long enough for me to remove my clothes.  I never thought that an inflight safety announcement would do the same thing.  Trust me, in Arabic, you will do anything when that voice is behind the instruction.  You will jump through a burning hoop if told to.  You will wear black from head to toe just to hear that guttural, sexy, you will do anything for me voice.  That voice gave me goosebumps.  I told Luda. She said don't be silly, you're still feverish.   Through a bumpy patch I said to Luda:  bloody rough ride for First Class. She said ... don't be silly, you've activated the seat massage button.  We slept like babies, soft and warm, pampered and champagned. Priceless.

Killing time till souks open, Abu Dhabi

At Abu Dhabi, Coco wafts through the airconditioning, and everything is smooth and clean and sanitised and streamlined and did I mention clean?  Fat men dressed in white bedsheets and tea towels lounged on chairs while their veiled wives stood reverently by. We were met at the luggage carousel by a man in red, who came up to us and asked: You Miss Luda and Miss Susan?  Well, duh, we were the only (visible) blonde and redhead in the whole Emirate plane. He collected our luggage, whisked us through fast track passport, and oozed us into a silver BMW limousine which slid quietly through the runways highways of this amazing, futuristic, functional city.   Oh, yes, sisters, the princesses have returned with a vengeance and I am happy as a pig in ... mud!   Or a princess in an Arab country.

Luda at Shangri La, Abu Dhabi

In our room we have:  a bidet.  A tv that works.  A Kettle. A fridge. A shower head that is larger that the toilet seat in Nepal.   What bliss to have a shower and come out feeling cleaner than when we went in.  Look, to you mere mortals out there, who take all this for granted, trust me, having a hot, wet, clean shower after months without, is like attaining some sort of hygienic nirvana.  We almost cried with joy. In Nepal the water comes out dirty.  So you NEVER feel clean. NEVER! This morning I asked Luda whether she could arrange for us to have breakfast in the shower.  She's capable of anything, as you know. I feel kilos lighter and I glow!

Food, glorious food breakfast buffet

I swear they pipe sandalwood essence through the airconditioning system here.  The sheets are a million ply and feel like silk. The white gowns are so heavy you need leg reinforcements.   The sound effects are astounding - 4am and the Muezzin began.  We overlook the grand mosque its huge minarets twinkling all night.  We breakfasted in the Lounge - ah ... smoked salmon, fruit, cheese, real bread, and real coffee, the wi fi was working so Luda is now in her element.  We dressed, we haired, we brushed and flossed and painted and went out to take on Abu Dhabi. We asked Burmese born David in the lobby what to do first. We flexed our pale wrists, checked our credit cards, tipped our sunglasses, waiting for his reply.

Nothing. He replied. It's Friday.   Prayer day.  There is Nothing to Do.  Nowhere to Go.  Everything closed.  

Can we go to the mosque?  

Inshallah!  With 40,000 people there praying today? Are you muslim?  Are you menstruating or pregnant? Are you quite mad?

So we took a canal ride around the hotel. Yes, you read correctly. A canal ride around the hotel, under bridges and past bougainvillea spilling down arched windows, driven by Egyptian Born Hussein who told us that Abu Dhabi is safe and wonderful, because drinking is okay, but drunking is not allowed ... no fighting, if you fight, you must leave the country. Immediately without discussion.

Luda, cruising

We chugged past the swimming pools where expats were oiling their children and other fat expats were basting themselves with coconut oil.

The Goddess stirs ...

I'm wearing my Indra Chowk orange silk creation, having had to do a rescue renovation of the armpits and neckline;  and my hair is wild and fluffy because it's so excited to have been washed with warm water and dried with a machine!  I am sooo happy to be out of Kathmandu!   But I did start my photography again .. and that's the most important part. And I am getting a sense of self again, although it's been a big struggle. I'm feeling more balanced.  I'm feeling more female.  I'm feeling the Goddess stirring within.

Now, we're hanging about, while the muezzin carries on like a pork chop again, until three, when everything opens.  We want to take on the souks!  Tonight, a beach barbeque and a seafood feast, then a very late flight to Casablanca, arriving at 6am; then a four hour train ride on the Marrakech Express to Marrakech and Morocco!


Watch out world, the Princesses are on their chariots!


Well, now we're back from "shopping".  We were golf-carted to the Shangri-La for the most wonderful grilled prawns I have had in my life, poolside while men who resembled walnuts did the human version of performing dolphins, slipping in and out of the water so women could ogle.

Hotel balcony view

I've been in culture shock the whole day: this time yesterday I was shivering in a grubby room hearing black rain pelt on the roof while mud ran down steps: today I'm in a star trek city, a modern Alice in Wonderland, turning and turning in amazement at the architecture of the crooked buildings, one looking like a tornado, another like a cluster of twisted cones, swooping bridges and meandering canals and verdant gardens in a sandy wasteland knee deep in oil.   Not a plastic bottle, a speck of dust, a piece of paper, a dog in sight. Certainly no poop or pee.  Everything running like clockwork. Want to go shopping madams, step onto the shuttle bus, leaving in two minutes.

What lies beneath ...

And the malls.  Posses of fully robed women with two layers of false eyelashes and glittering sandals, expensive designer handbags and iphones in hand, slip into boutique of sensational gowns, which they wear for their sisters, friends and other female family members.

And their husbands, when nobody is around.  I went into a bra shop:  talk raunchy!  Barbarellas on Valentine's night had nothing on these floosies. Garments in silk, chiffon, lace draped and beribboned to look like the wearer was a gift to delight .. the whole point. Lace slashed down to the belly button, waves of silk chiffon to expose bare bottoms, gowns that Cher would hesitate to wear on her wildest nights.   I'd love to dress down in black all day, hiding my skin from the sun, keeping myself freckle free, and at night emerge like a glittering raunchy take-me siren;  love to dress up in magnificent kaftans to serve dinner of pistachios and goat, on silk cushions, wearing fabulous oily perfumes.  Each section of my hands are emitting a different powerful Arab smell from the slathering and lathering of exotic essences I've swooned over and had sprayed or oiled on me.   This city has made aroma an art form. There is a floor devoted to exotic oil based perfumes and I'm falling in love with the cinnamon and Oud clouds that follow the Women in Black.

Shangri la lobby

Shangri La canals

Abu at Dusk

Two hours of this indulgence to excess was enough. We caught a silent cab back to the hotel where we're having wine, salmon, pistachio cakes and watching the jet skiers through the 9th floor window below on the fake beach, where the Friday Night Beach Barbeque is taking shape.   Five hours to Morocco.   

What's in store for us there?