patriciawatt

After a couple of sea days, we dock in Mumbai and head for the airport and our Nepal Airways flight to Kathmandu. I have been waiting for this overland visit for three years now and I am very excited to finally get there. It’s hard to get through the airport in Kathmandu because there are large photos of Himalayas and Mount Everest, bathed in sunlight, all over the place. We are all stopping to gaze and take pictures. Little did we know these might be the best photos we get of the historic mountain. My first impression was of a much bigger city than I had imagined and it was bustling with people. I learned that this year they are celebrating 70 years since Hillary reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 and that presently there were over 500 climbers waiting at the base camp to start their climb.

Namaste! Everyone says Namaste to you. It’s hello, goodbye, please, thank you, be well, and very quickly you find yourself putting your hands in front of your heart together in a prayer-like gesture and saying Namaste back to everyone with a slight bow of the head.

Our hotel, The Dwarika’s is stunning! As we enter, we get a red dot on our foreheads and a yellow silk prayer cloth around our necks. This is a heritage hotel and takes its inspiration from the architectural grandeur of the Newari royal palaces. But most interesting is the man who started the hotel in 1952, the late Dwarika Das Shrestha, who saw some carpenters sawing up the intricately carved portions of an old wooden pillar to use as firewood. Struck by a sense of anguish at the destruction of his own heritage, he salvaged the old pillar and gave the men new lumber instead.

What began as an impulsive gesture grew into a passion and a commitment to save, document and restore the artifacts he collected. Dwarika started to have a problem of storage for these pieces, and decided to build a building in the ancient Newari style of Kathmandu using the rescued carvings, artifacts, old bricks and stones. He envisioned that this new building, which would operate as a guest house, would allow more people to appreciate Nepal’s ancient cultural history and give the restored treasures a new lease of life. Thus the vision behind The Dwarika’s Hotel as a living museum was thus born.

The evidence of this work is everywhere you look around this hotel. In the trim around the windows and elevators, use of the wood in the guest rooms. The old handmade bricks and so many artifacts scattered around the property. It is truly a feast for the eyes. It is a living example of how cultural restoration and tourism can compliment each other, leading to the preservation of historical artifacts, and a new generation of ‘artists’ learning from their elders, the old crafts, and keeping them from dying out. Nepal has eight World Heritage sites and has won two Heritage Awards, one for the city of Bhaktapur and the other for the Dwarika’s Hotel. There is beauty everywhere and my room is no exception. Wood trim, carved elephants, a ceiling fan slowly turning and a bath tub!!! Since I only have a shower on the ship, I can’t wait to sink into a nice hot tub and relax and start to read the book I found in my room, The Teachings of Buddha! Namaste!!

We wake up early the next morning to a cloudy rainy day and wonder if we will be able to take our flightseeing excursion over the mountains. After a very good breakfast we head out to the airport and there we wait for a break in the weather. It finally starts to clear up and we take off in our twin engine prop plane. The Yeti Airline plane has two rows of two seats down either side of the plane, and they only sell the window seats on each side. So one side gets a look at the Himalayas going and the other side on the way back. Clever, but unfortunately the weather socks in again and we are unable to see anything through the thick fog. The plane turns around and heads back to the airport with a group of very disappointed travellers inside.

For the next two days we travel around the Kathmandu area visiting the beautiful temples and various World Heritage sites. Kathmandu has a population of around 900 thousand and is a little chaotic and loud but at the same time exotic and captivating. I was really surprised to find a Hard Rock Cafe there. It just didn’t seem to fit in. My favourite visit was to Bhaktapur with its beautiful temples and stupas and old architecture. It is Nepal’s oldest city and was once its capital. It is known for its pottery and you will see pots laying out in the streets drying in the sun. The city no longer allows cars into the area but motor bikes can whiz through. I hope one day it will be strictly a pedestrian area.

Bhaktapur has more temples per square foot than Kathmandu and is a UNESCO Work Heritage site. It suffered major damage in an earthquake in 1934 and was mostly restored. But then another earthquake occurred in 2015 and the city was heavily damaged again. You can see evidence of the devastation all over town and they are working slowly at putting the buildings back together. It’s a credit to the talented men and women who work in stone and wood that they are able to return many of the buildings to their former beauty. They use old photographs and as much of the rubble as they can salvage, in order to match the look, and retain their World Heritage designation. They now charge a fee to enter Bhaktapur and this money goes towards the restoration costs.

On the day of our departure, the weather had cleared up so and we were very generously offered a second chance to see Mount Everest. We left very early in the morning and took off with Buddha Air, same type of plane, and this time we were somewhat more successful. The 29,028 foot (8848 metre) Everest was still being “shy” as they like to say here and hiding the very top of her mountain in cloud. But it was better than our first attempt and we could see many of the other lower mountains close by Everest. After that we headed to the main airport and our flight to Delhi India.

How Nepal became a republic. In 2001, the crown prince shot and killed his parents, the King and Queen of Nepal and nine other members of the family including his younger brother and sister before shooting himself in the head. He did not die immediately and while in a coma he was declared king. He died three days later and his father’s brother, who was not present at the family gathering, nor were any of his family, then became King. This gave rise to many conspiracy theories. Following the ascension of the new king, the monarchy lost much of the approval of the Nepalese people. Some say the massacre was the pivotal point that ended the monarchy in 2008. Nepal is now a democracy with a president and as a relatively new country they are struggling. As with many of the countries we have visited on this trip, covid has not helped. They are suffering economically and so very welcoming and happy to have tourists visiting again.

We stayed overnight in Delhi at the JW Marriot Airport hotel and we were all saying that this was going to be a come down from the beautiful Dewarika’s Hotel in Kathmandu. But we were all pleasantly surprised that it was a beautiful new hotel with lovely decor and a great restaurant where we had lunch and dinner with choices of Italian, Indian, and Asia cuisine. After dinner Stephen, Roger, David and I went to the lobby bar for a nightcap and while we were sitting there this lovely lady came over to offer us two for one drinks if we went with her to her bar. They boys hesitated, but I said let’s go.

I was thinking how could someone come in and steal customers from another bar? But it turned out the bar,outside and through a courtyard, also belong to the Marriott. We had our BOGO drinks. They lavished us with snacks, peanuts, pita & hummus and then came over to say, don’t be alarmed but the lights will be turned off shortly. The lights went down and in came a beautiful birthday cake for a woman at another table. We all sang happy birthday to her and then we all got to share her birthday cake and we sent her best wishes. It was so much fun. And as a bonus we got a beautiful box of chocolate truffles when we left. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place and willing to take a chance!!

We left the following morning and flew from Delhi to Kochi where we had a quick afternoon tour through this lovely city. I really like Kochi. It has a small town feeling and it was fun to visit again.

The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it…Ralph Waldo Emerson.