The Streets of Thamel

It sounds like a concert is taking place nearby, but it’s not classical Nepalese music: it’s a 1970s American rock song. “Wide world” or whatever—music from my childhood. Eek. I might want to close the window soon. Gary did warn me that I might hear loud rock music from the hotel, although I would have expected ragas or Hindu chants.

Water is something you take for granted in the United States; I drink tap water and shower with steaming hot water. Electricity is another thing we take for granted: in America it’s not an everyday thing to have a generator running or to go for a few hours without electricity or to indeed never have electricity and use a treadle sewing machine. I don’t recognize this song. It’s jamming, whatever it is. I wonder what day of the week this is—I don’t think it’s the weekend.

I left the hotel at 4:30 and wandered the streets of Thamel, perhaps for the final time, unless I do it again early tomorrow morning. It’d be nice to, after breakfast, see if the Horizon Bookstore is open, so I can get the Dalai Lama photos they had with their postcard display. The bookstore was already closed when I went out before five this evening; if they’re not open in the morning, I won’t be heartbroken, because I have three copies of another photo of the Dalai Lama. I’m glad I didn’t get any before I went to Tibet, since they might have been confiscated.

While I wandered through the narrow, dirty, and loud streets of Thamel, I promptly bought yet another fairly large bottle of water, at a little stand run by a Hindu woman in a pink cotton sari. While I was at that stand, a guy bought two cigarettes, not packaged at all but handed to him individually. I kept walking, with the intention of finding the travel agency so that I’d get there this evening, but of course I got lost looking for it. However, I saw plenty of interesting sights and was accosted by many friendly people—all male—most of whom were selling something.
The concert continues. The singer is male, of course—this is such a Boy Land, and I’m so wishing I could go to Herland. If it weren’t for the rock music coming from outside, I’d hear Tori Amos singing in my head: “I need a big loan from the Girl Zone.” The music is distracting from my writing, and I’m a bit on the spacey side; after all, I’m getting on a plane and leaving Nepal tomorrow. Too bad I don’t have a one-way ticket to Herland. (Perhaps I should mention that Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a novel called Herland back in 1916.)

Anyway, as I wandered the streets and gawked at my surroundings and dodged motorcycles and rickshaws, an old guy with long white hair and beard and wearing yellow robes and forehead makeup—in other words, he looked like a Shaivite priest—came up and sprinkled marigold petals on my hair and put a red bindi mark on my forehead. I smiled and thanked him profusely, and he asked for money, so I gave him a one hundred Nepalese rupee bill (that’s less than two dollars). As he walked away ahead of me, I noticed a beige-uniformed cop accost him, and that made me suspicious that he was just a beggar rather than an actual priest.

I soon spotted a bookstore that sold postcards, including Dalai Lama postcards, which were displayed at the very front of the store, within reach even if you weren’t on the top step. I took three Dalai Lama postcards and stepped in to the counter. A young woman with a round face and a red shawl stood behind the counter, and a guy in a black leather jacket leaned in front of it. They knew about the Shiva “priest,” whom the guy explained is just a beggar from India. I thought that was pretty funny and laughed it off rather than worry about having been made a fool of. (Apparently the fake priest is well-known, because the travel agent, Naresh, knew about him also.) At the bookstore, I chatted with the pair about other things, like about travel in Nepal, and during the conversation I noticed that the young woman didn’t actually participate in the conversation, although I spoke to her in an attempt to get her into the conversation. There sure are lots of friendly people in Nepal…but they are invariably male, unless they’re foreigners. Of course, my experience would be very different if I were actually living with a family in their house; then women would certainly talk with me.

The musician who showed me the way to my hotel last night recognized me at one corner, or rather in a bewildering square with a big map in the center that was actually quite useless for finding your way around the Thamel. We stood around chatting for a while. He asked if I wanted a cup of tea, but I told him I had to go to the travel agency and wasn’t entirely sure how to get there, but he had never heard of it and didn’t know the way there. I had plenty of time but knew I’d be spending some of it getting lost. It turns out that the musician also gives tours in Nepal, in the country. He said that he doesn’t really like Kathmandu (and I said I don’t like Kansas!) and he prefers rural places like Lumbini, where it’s quiet and peaceful and there isn’t all this pollution. The pollution had brought back a little of my congestion after I returned to Kathmandu, but it hasn’t developed into another cold. I gave the musician my e-mail address (funny, the guy at Bhaktapur also asked for my e-mail address—maybe I’m giving it out too much).

During our conversation, the first female merchant I’ve seen came along. She was young, tall and skinny, and I seem to recall her wearing a red sari, or at least something that was red. She was selling passport bags like the one I have, and I smiled and showed it to her, admitting that mine is worn out and has a hole in it. She pointed out that the passport bags she had had thicker black cloth inside, while the black cloth inside mine was very lightweight and translucent. She asked me where I got it, and I said that I ordered it out of a catalog in the States. The bags are made of colorful striped cotton on the back and brocade on the front, and a narrow string forms a loop to go over your head. My old one is royal blue, but I purchased from her a bright red one for one hundred rupees. She wanted me to buy at least one more, but I didn’t. I suppose, in hindsight, I could have gotten a couple more bags to give friends. Too late now. I feel better buying things from women than from men.

A tall and skinny guy who was wandering the street trying to sell a little wooden travel chess set noticed my purchase and tried to sell me a chess set, but I was firm. It was quite like when I bought pottery in Bhaktapur and other merchants took that as a sign that I spent money easily and would allegedly buy anything. At least one more merchant may have attempted to sell me something there, while I conversed with the musician on the crowded street. People were constantly walking past us, and it was noisy with traffic and voices.

While I stood around at the edge of the narrow street, chatting with the musician, and traffic and pedestrians passed by, a little beggar child came along, even though begging is highly frowned upon in Nepal, and the musician told the kid off, but to no avail. The little boy followed me around and occasionally tugged my sleeve, but I was determined to not give him money, because it’s Nepal, not India, and both of us could get in trouble with the police. The back of the customs form, when you arrive in Nepal, says not to give to beggars, so they mean business. When the fake Shaivite priest was with me, a cop had spotted him and chased him off, right after his little ritual with me. But I felt guilty for not giving something to this beggar child, for the boy was obviously desperately poor, with his dirty clothes and his messy, brownish hair pointed in all directions.

It’s weird, but eventually, after wandering totally lost and confused, I saw the travel agency office with about ten minutes to spare—it was 5:50 pm. Whew. Naresh spotted me through the front window and waved, and I waved and smiled back and went in. We had tea and I paid for the driver and tour that I had in the morning. Naresh said that he had shown up at the hotel at ten and was surprised that the driver and I were already gone. I said I was surprised too, and I asked him if he knew why the driver was so early, but he didn’t understand why. I remembered that Binod had said he was a friend of the driver’s, and it occurred to me that the driver just wanted to make sure Binod gave me the tour. I’m glad he did, because he was a much better tour guide than Naresh would have been.

I was concerned because the manager was not present, and he had invited me to the dinner theater thing, which I imagined would be traditional or classical Nepalese music. I was more nervous than excited about this; if I were with a tour group, or had brought a friend, I wouldn’t mind staying out after dark, but when it’s just me, that seems a little crazy. Naresh didn’t know about the invitation, and the manager wasn’t there, so after I had babbled on awkwardly attempting to make conversation (something I’m not good at), it was a relief to leave at about six thirty. I even headed out in the chaotic traffic while it was already getting dark, and I went back to the Vaishali Hotel with some relief at the prospect of quiet and solitude in my hotel room. I didn’t know how I could fill in the half hour with more awkward conversation, only to find that the manager didn’t show up. I had assumed he would be there when I showed up at six, so that I’d get business done and then head over to the concert. Uncertainty took over, and I left early.

I think part of the reason I get so lost in Thamel is the chaotic traffic. I’m trying to get somewhere or trying to go in the right direction while simultaneously getting confused and distracted by the beeping and zooming traffic and the continual threat of getting hit by a vehicle. In addition, the Thamel district is like Bodh Gaya in that the streets have no names. I have an eye for detail, such as colorful puppets (particularly a demon or deity with a bright green face) hanging from the eaves in front of a cluttered shop, or carved wooden masks lined up in front of another shop, or a doorway filled with brightly painted thangkas. But I’m not getting the whole picture, certainly not as if the layout of the streets were a map. I doubt a map would have helped, since there are no street names.

Here I am in the hotel room and the concert is still going on—it’s a male singer—and I’ve been listening. I’m sure I’ll still be able to hear it when I close the window. Between songs, I hear beeping traffic.

The music stopped, and I hear voices from down below, beeping and zooming traffic, and pigeons cooing above.

It’s almost nine and I’m thinking it’s time to go to bed. What an old fuddy-duddy. Really, being around people exhausts me so much. I started going to bed early in Dharamsala, after I came down with a cold, and I haven’t stopped since. The cold went away shortly after I arrived in Tibet, but after I got back to Kathmandu, I started coughing again; undoubtedly this is pollution-related. That proves I could not live in Delhi; to think that until this trip, I had silly fantasies of living in India for a couple years.

While it’s nice that people are friendly and chatty here, I can’t help but notice that only men are chatty. I haven’t really chatted with any women—they tend to be rather quiet. Very quiet. But who am I to talk? I’m an introvert myself and am not in the habit of talking to strangers any more than I must. Nonetheless, speaking almost exclusively with men triggers a sense of isolation, a sort of loneliness. In India, I was always with female sangha members, unlike here. As Tori Amos put it:

Boys on my right side,
boys on my left side….
I need a big loan
from the girl zone.

In Tibet, I think women would have been chatty if we had shared a common language. It seems that in Tibet both men and women are socialized to be outgoing and to chat with strangers. It would have been a really good idea to learn Tibetan before going, although it was only a one-week visit. The Tibetan Children’s Village teaches Tibetan, Hindi, and English from an early age, so it’s easy to communicate in Dharamsala, but in Tibet it’s a different story entirely. It’s a different world.