Kathmandu

I Love Totalitarianism

The curfew started an hour before our plane landed. After we queued our way through the interminable Nepali Customs beauracracy, we collected our bags and made our way to the the pre-arranged bus. Although there was the usual gaggle of taxi touts and luggage helpers, the carpark was mostly empty and there were no queues of taxis or motorised rickshaws.

Three police officers accompanied us on the bus, and two were wearing Tourist Police uniforms. The streets of Kathmandu were silent, the emptiness broken by the occasional squad of soldiers and militarised police. I saw no one at all, not even in compounds or at windows. Utterly surreal.

The soldiers wear standard green-brown camo which is somehow more reassuring than greyscale urban camo. Interestingly, the police camo is various shades of blue. I'm not sure what environment against which they expect to blend, maybe they are members of the Crack Jacuzzi Attack Squad ;-)

Curfews suck, bigtime. The good news is that we're staying in the Malla Hotel, which is well-appointed and centrally located. Unfortunately, so is the Imperial Palace, so we have a soldiers outside the hotel's gate. Luckily the curfew is not 24 hour, and for the last couple of days we've been able to get out in the moring and in the evening. It intensifies the generic chaos that one usually associates with Kathmandu (and Thamel, the tourist zone, in particular). Our hotel has internet, but the person with the passwords is unable to make it work, so we can't make posts or collect emails etc. The GSM network has been turned off so we can't even send txts.

Yesterday we spent the curfew (1100 till 1800) at Yanjin's house in the suburb of Maharajgunj. Yanjin is Diane's (Beccah's mum) bloodsister. We have awesome Sherpa food and spent the afternoon catching up with our Sherpa friends and drinking San Miguel. The curfew is not really in effect in the suburbs. The ladies walked to the local woman's massage house for some beautification and relaxation. I went for a walk down to the local shops. Most were open, but I still couldn't find an internet connection. I did discover a local game that is a cross between pool and air hockey. The board is square and lubricated with talc. Instead of balls, the game is played with discs. The players take turns to use a "cue" disc to knock a disk of the appropriate colour into one of the four corner pockets.

Blood

Moko are uncommon here and I receive a lot of attention from the locals for my kapowai moko. A young Sherpa man approached me and asked in excellent English if I was a Blood. He reasoned that since I was wearing a red tee shirt and had a tatoo on my arm, then I was probably a Blood. He's from the US and his name is Lil Lock, which he has tatooed on the underside of his forearms. He wore a cap over a black bandana, and on his stomach he had the acronym M.O.B. which he said stood for "Money Over Bitzes".

Two of his front teeth are gold. I pointed out that my wife has a gold tooth. I would have gained more cred with Lil Lock if I'd used a more hiphop appropriate term than "wife", but he seemed impressed enough to hand me his business card. It proclaims in red letters that he is a "G-UNIT SOILDER" [sic]. I told him he should play GTA: San Andreas.

Unrest

As far as we can tell, there has been a lot of localised unrest. From watching the Nepali news, the riots appear similar in scale and nature to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Everyone was throwing bricks (including the security forces), and there were many head injuries and arrests.

Last night the curfew was lifted from 1800 till 2300 so we went down to Thamel to a rooftop bar for a few quiets. We decided to head back to the hotel just before 2200. We stopped to buy some tonic water. Just then, a huge unimog pulled up and soldiers began to disembark. Instantly, word got out that the curfew had begun, and hour earlier than advertised. Previously the vibe had been calm, and tourists were generally allowed to roam around during the curfew. IMO, it's pretty crass to break curfew when the locals can't go out, so we never exploited this tolerance (except in Maharajgunj, where everyone was up doing it). This time the vibe was tense and the soldiers appeared angry. I suspect that the security forces had taken some casualties earlier that day and were pretty angry.

So we marched back to the Malla Hotel. And right out the front, on the opposite side of the road, were a group of soldiers. The vibe was heavy and negative. One crossed the road to stand in front of us. He checked his watch. It was after 2200, so he had the right to shoot us. Fortunately, they let us pass and we made it to the safety of the hotel.