What I love about Kathmandu

Kathmandu, Nepal

Honk. Honk. Honk honk. Beeeep. Bee-beep. Honnnk.



Hello. Hello. Where you from? Australia. Australia, capital Canberra! Wow, that's right! When you arrive Nepal? Yesterday. First time Nepal? Yes. How long Nepal? Two weeks. You go trek? Oh, no, I'm not really sure. I can guide you, we can have tea, we can talk? Um, no thanks. Why not? Uh, what? Why not? Uh, sorry I'm not interested. Why not? Sorry, thank you. Where you stay? Sorry, thanks.

Ugh, it's hot and dusty. Ugh, it's pissing down rain. Shit, I stepped in a massive puddle. Shit, my sandal got stuck in the mud. Shit, was that animal piss? Shit, was that human shit? Shit, my sandals flick filth up on my legs, clothes, hands when I walk. (I tell myself it's only mud.) Shit, is that a dead rat? Shit, did I just step on what that fuck was that a chunk of animal guts filled with animal blood?



No I don't want to go trekking. No I don't want to go rafting. No I don't want a guide to tell me about this building. No I don't want a taxi. No I don't want a rickshaw. No I don't want marijuana. No I don't want hashish. No I don't want cocaine.

Honk to warn you of danger. Honk to tell you to get out of my way. Honk to say I'm turning left. Honk to say I'm approaching a blind corner. Honk to test your hearing. Honk to say it's Tuesday. Honk just to fit in. Honk like it's a mating call and I'm looking for a mate. Honk because what else would I do when I'm driving? Honk honk honk. Taxi goes honk, motor scooter goes beep. Car with a Kathman-doo-dee horn goes doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee. Rickshaw with a clown horn taped to the end of a shampoo bottle goes haw-hee haw-hee. A man hangs out of a bus and shouts something at everyone he passes. A man on a bicycle makes is that a kissing sound in lieu of a horn. Honk! Beep! Doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee! Honk honk! Haw-hee haw-hee! Honk honk beep beep ssssmooch (something yelled in Nepali or Newari who knows) honnnk!



Wow, what a wonderful smell! Beautiful incense burning in that little shop. Wow, what a horrible smell! Putrid garbage piled in the street, Franken-dogs made of spare parts, with fur like botched hair plugs sprouting from eczema, prowling and tearing at it like they were in a nature documentary, giant grey-hooded crows nearby taking their share.

Wow, what gorgeous flavoursome food! Dhal bat with the tastiest vegetable curry! Vegetable momos kothey (think pot stickers filled with dry curry)! Egg and vegetable katti rolls (think thin naan covered in egg on one side wrapped around dry curry)! Decadent and divine gulab jamuns, laddus, burfis (sweets, Google 'em)! Wow, what amazing Western food, what delicious pizza, what exceptional Mexican (think huevos rancheros on a corn pancake), what fabulous coffee! Wow, what dreadful coffee, what dry and flavourless pastry that looked so promising, what disappointing coffee, what painful coffee, what heinous coffee!



Hello. Namaste. Namaste, where you from? Australia. Goo-day mate, capital Canberra. Yes. When you arrive Nepal? Five days ago. First time Nepal? Yes. How long Nepal? Another week or so. You go trek? Look, I'm sorry I'm not interested. No no, I'm just talking to you, I like to practise English. (A few minutes of shadowing and small talk.) Please some rupees / Please buy for me some biscuits / Please can you buy some milk for my sister (shop owner, without a word from my companion, introduces a huge tin of powdered milk that costs more than three proper dinners).



No I don't want to buy a beaded necklace. No, I don't want to buy a small embroidered purse thing; my girlfriend, sister, mother will understand. No, I don't want to buy your flute. No, I don't want to buy your string instrument. No I don't want to buy a giant fucking knife, yes I understand you said it's official Nepalese army. (Oh my god! Are you going to pull that out at me as you walk across the street?) No I don't want to buy a packet of Tiger Balm, No I don't want to buy two packets of Tiger Balm. No I don't want to buy a dozen packets of Tiger Balm. (Jesus, does anyone? Surely, over time, trial and error would favour something more practical like Immodium, laxitive, anything to manage your gastrointestinal tract. Dear god the unprecedented... let's just say Kathmand-don't drink the water.)

That looks like some sort of temple or shrine back through there, no one's going in there, I wonder what's back there....



Peace.
Beauty.
Timelessness.

...

Take a deep breath, and....



Honk honk honk honk honk. Hello. Namaste. Where did you get that shirt, where did you buy it? / I like your hair / I like your shoes / I like your earrings / I like your teeth / I like your laugh. Thank you. Beep beep honk. Where you from? Australia. Capital Canberra. Yes, that's what everybody says. Doo-dee-doo-dee honnk honnnnk!

I got Seoul but I'm not a soldier

(Seoul, South Korea)

Brief though it was, I thoroughly enjoyed my two days in Seoul. This was my first solo adventure in a city where English is mostly unavailable.



My hostel was in a part of Seoul called Daehangno. Armed with fairly detailed instructions from my booking confirmation email, brimming with satisfaction at having made my way into the city exclusively by train, both for the money it saved me and the achievement itself, I rose to street level to bustling late night activity. In front of the metro station there was an improvised food court; a number of tables were laid out with vessels containing various limbs of various sea creatures, with several stations for preparing these alien delicacies, I forget now whether they were vast burbling cauldrons or large wok-like apparatuses; patronised exclusively by locals (well, to my eye).

As I followed my instructions, reliably hitting the landmarks, I noted bars named The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Austin Powers. A twenty foot Gandalf statue stood guard in front of one cafe, "You shall not pass! ...without java and bundt cake." And suddenly my landmarks failed to materialise. A big intersection with a Burger King across the way and "a shop that sells bags" nearby. I did see a Starbucks across the way and a shop (among many) nearby with its garage door shutters closed... Had the mermaid overthrown the king? After briefly doing the lost white boy shuffle, I found the right alleyway and my hostel.

It was a bit of a shock to discover no one is given keys, not to their room, not to the hostel itself, everything is always unlocked. Thankfully there were small lockers where I could secure my laptop and passport and paper tickets (another story, I think I have the last paper tickets on the planet) and other designated irreplaceables, but I decided it would only be good for me to start getting comfortable with the possibility of losing all my belongings. This is not hysteria, it has happened to friends of mine. I will not be careless but I feel I am moving in the direction I want to go, that I feel I could lose everything and things would still turn out okay.

My two days were more realistically one day, and it began with making a few notes on my transit map and just seeing what I could see. I decided to start at the Presidential Palace, but found it utterly surrounded by an utterly inconceivable throng of police and countless armoured busses lining the streets. The police seemed alert but not in the middle of something. I couldn't work out what was happening. The palace turned out to be closed early that day for an inapparent reason. I concluded they were probably related but didn't pursue the mystery further.



From there I walked to an area called Insadong. This is a very well-known pedestrain shopping strip popular with tourists and it seemed locals alike. It had lots of galleries and shops, cafes, culturally relevant artifacts, street food, a few crazies (guy dressed as robot), everything I suppose you might expect. I enjoyed it but didn't see anything I wanted to buy. I had a 15-herb Korean tea with these fluff ball biscuits, billed as traditional Korean cookies, in essence sweet packing peanuts rolled in toasted coconut; quite lovely I must say.

From there I walked in the direction of the Cheonggyecheon; a river that used to run through the city, that fell victim to urban development, that not so long ago was restored, redeveloped and turned into a pleasant if not completely successful get back to nature in the middle of the city affair.



Then I made my way to another palace or temple (some circle I made on my map) and found myself in the middle of an enormous public event of some kind. Again I couldn't quite work out the nature of the happening. Traffic was blocked off, food vendors were everywhere, people were everywhere, I swear there were carnival rides but now I am unsure. Then some sort of protest mob seemed to materialise before my eyes, like clouds of cotton candy spontaneously gathering about the stick, and the people began to march. There was no English signage to help me decode the incident, except the word "NO" in places, and I saw some stars and stripes and some drawings of cows. I had heard in the news (not sure how, maybe at the airport) there was some issue the Koreans were having with beef imported from the US, so I was satisfied I had worked out what the march was about. But this was definitely not the whole story of the enclosing gathering.

Further along the square I saw people with signs to do with Tibet, with a group of demonstrators laying on the ground, with police drama chalk outlines, faces covered for a somber effect. I remembered passing some people in Insadong with Tibetan flags and another street pantomime with soldiers and a hooded victim with something on a sign about North Korean refugees, something critical of China's treatment of them. So China was also on Korea's shitlist that day.

Next I came to a huge gathering, I took to be the ultimate gathering, with music blaring from the main stage, everyone holding signs that bore a number of Korean characters and the word "OUT." I decided this was a political action day, mostly a protest about China's involvement in Tibet, Korea's contribution to the displeasure echoing everywhere in the lead up to the Beijing olympics, and the other demonstrations were offshoots, the natural result of the coming together of so many like-minded politically aware individuals.

Then I got a better look at the stage, the next song started and the crowd cheered loudly. I will not be able to adequately convey the scene. Five musicians dressed in yellow rainjacket hazardous waste Devo outfits with custom instruments hewn from odd post nuclear apocalypse materials, one musician with sousaphonic back-mounted tubes akin to flexible sewer pipes bent around his body with the ends twisted up in front of him to make a toned bass percussion instrument, looking like Madeline half swallowed by an H.R. Giger creation, the others bearing similarly constructed instruments, the central female (looking, from where I stood) performer with a type of xylophone.

Their anthem? Tequila.



All dancing in unison like some cross between Dance Dance Revolution and a Tai Bo class led by The Wiggles, inciting the crowd into happy swaying and the inevitable all together now, "Tequlia!" And I must admit, it just might have been the coolest thing I have seen in a long time.

I got a better look at the signs and saw a photo of a grave looking man in a conservative suit with the red international 'no' circle, like a vast public outcry to who ya gonna call the Bankerbusters or something. I took "OUT" then to be about a politician that had displeased this particular group of Koreans. Perhaps all the issues being presented falling under his influence? Perhaps this while thing connected back to the barricaded palace, but I had not the communication skills to investigate.

And I found the whole unintelligible adventure strangely and incredibly satisfying, I absolutely adored not having a clue what was happening.

Where are the bullet trains?

Tokyo, Japan

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. I've got that fuzzy vibratey eyes-hot dehydrated lack of sleep thing. I haven't looked in a mirror today, thankfully, but I can feel the failure of the micro-tethers that hold my face up that last millimeter, that seem to appear and start to loosen as one hits thirty, that seem to more and more easily surrender to late nights, alcohol and fluorescent lighting. No amount of breakfast or coffee will rescue me, I can only hope to heal over time. And it could be a while.

I am on the Narita Express train to the airport, a journey that takes 90 minutes (where are the fucking anime bullet trains, Japan?) which should leave me with another 90 minutes to spare; little enough time to make my father's blood in me anxious that should the right unlikely series of unfortunate events occur I could miss my flight, enough time that the blood of experience in me knows I'll be fine and bombasts loudly on the floor of my blood Parliament to Mr. Speaker that the opposition should be ashamed for such blatant partisan fearmongering. Yeah. Wow. Tired. I am.

Not sure I structured that statement in such a way as to mandate a knock on wood but I think I'll do it anyway for good measure. A coalition building gesture.

Once I get to Narita, I have two 5-hour flights to get to Kathmandu (I am rarely able to sleep on a plane, no matter how exhausted), arriving at 10pm, a mystery on the spot visa application process to negotiate (Dad's blood has been wringing its hands over that for days already) and the classic unknown quantity of conveyance to the hostel will surely take me past midnight. But all that is way too far into the future right now.

I spent two days each in Seoul and Tokyo, a travel strategy I do not recommend to anyone. This came about as the result of a change to my itinerary to spend an extra week in Taipei, triggering a cavalcade of convoluted negotiations with my travel agent. I purchased this in hindsight ridiculous batch of tickets in an in hindsight ridiculous misguided effort to leverage economies of scale and save money on all my travel in Asia whilst simultaneously leveraging my (evidently false) wisdom and foresight that told me that when I inevitably wanted to modify my plans it would be best to be championed by an expert with access and guaranteed English to manage the process; in hindsight another travel strategy I do not recommend to anyone. I was a complete dick (who, me?) to my travel agent (sorry Hannah), and indeed to everyone else that I spoke to in her office, and in reality it was all down to my inexperience and ignorant expectations. But I digress...

Where was I? Seoul and Tokyo. Perhaps I will break these down into separate entries...

Made in Taiwan

Taipei, Taiwan

Before I decided to travel to Taiwan, I would have struggled to place it on the map. Oh sure, if you asked me to, I could have faked it; scanning the Asia Pacific region hoping to spot it quickly. I probably would've had as good a shot as anyone.



What did I know about it? I was aware there is a pretty serious dispute over the sovereignity of Taiwan, that it considers itself a country in its own right while China considers it a breakaway province; that the rest of the world is a bit nervous about it because no one wants to piss off China but everyone wants access to both economies (probably rear access); that not so long ago George Bush stirred the pot by selling some sort of equipment of war, planes I think, to Taiwan. I also know 'Made in Taiwan' by which I mean I am aware it is a major outsourcing player. Not that it helps me know where it is. I heard of 'Made in Indonesia' too but I must confess I had little to no idea where that country was until after 9/11 and the Bali bombings and the media urged all Australians to be very afraid of the world's most populous Muslim country just to the north. Where is this political snidery coming from?

Truth be told I wasn't really sure whether it was a city, a country, or another city-state like Hong Kong and Singapore. So when I zero in and say I decided to travel to Taipei, I'm sure even fewer students will raise their hands to come to the front.

Why, then, Taipei? One of my oldest and best friends, Andy, has recently made it his home; in my words (he is at least as eloquent but considerably more subtle in his own words) answering a long-delayed calling of his heart to live in an unfamiliar land and learn its language, in this case spoken Mandarin and written Traditional Chinese, to live simply and truthfully in the moment. And so I am here to see Andy, to see Andy's Taipei, and to see what else might be here just for me.

From the beginning I have been impressed. Taipei seems strange and wonderful, far less English spoken and on display than Hong Kong, less architecturally and people-vibe claustrophobic and stressed as well. Taipei has been immediately welcoming; the people are incredibly friendly and the city feels completely safe; crime-wise that is, definitely not pedestrian-wise.



There seems to be a sort of hive-mind telepathy at work in traffic, a wireless network I have not yet learned to fully join, swarms of scooters everywhere, swarms of scooters anywhere, including the footpath, assuming there is one, even other areas that by all visual cues with which I am familiar should be pedestrians only, scooters happily carrying whole helmetless families complete with infants and or pets and or shopping bags; no Taiwanese person, be they on scooter, in car or on foot seeming to take notice of each other yet somehow able to negotiate. There are some spectacular exceptions however, as a quick search for "scooter accident" on YouTube will demonstrate, the lion's share inevitably Made in Taiwan. It's definitely not as packed and outwardly crazy looking as some images I have seen of India for example, but Taiwan seems to give just enough space to build up a good speed.

Some of my comfort is doubtlessly to do with having Andy for a guide and anchor. Like almost all places in the world I have been so far (oho I've been to sooo many), there are enough global mega icons to remind me I'm still sometimes thankfully sometimes depresingly within reach of the western world, I'm still on McPlanet Earth (though on my first trip to Mars I'm sure there will be a Starbucks and a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Unavoidably, my introduction to Taipei has been filtered through Andy's experience and preference. Most of the cafes and bars I have been to would be right at home in San Francisco; the decor, the music, the ambience. Less so the food and reading material. The coffee however has been surprisingly excellent. My only complaint would be that smoking is permitted everywhere, and indulged in enthusiastically. I am surprised Taipei hasn't been overrun with French Canadians and Central Europeans. For some, I'm sure this is a piece of the appeal. For me, it's been a while since I had to contend with coming home from a night out smelling like smoke.

We are often the only expats in these places. That said, there are also places with an unmistakable expat patronage. This is neither good nor bad, it seems expats naturally coalesce in all metropolitan cities, though I'm told more noticeably so here.



On my first night, I was told that six months in Taipei infallibly turns nice guy expats into bad boy expats. I didn't understand immediately. Later, when taking recommendations (from some females) for places to check out, the pattern was: "You should go to (insert club name)." "Oh yeah? What's that place like?" "Oh I hate it but you guys would like it." "Why would we want to go to a place you hate?" "Because you're guys." A what is that supposed to mean shrug. "Oh come on, a lot of expats go there, the Taiwanese girls who go there know lots of expats go there, that's why they go there." I pretend I still don't understand...

Andy's pre-filter aside, there is definitely a something else that makes Taipei incredibly appealing to me. Something I haven't fully identified just feels good, creative, genuine, in touch, soulful in a way that resonates with me. I have the gut feeling there is an abundance of creative and vibrant and spiritual people here. Perhaps this is partly driven by my impression that many of the artists, musicians, thinkers from China make their way here for its comparatively freer open-minded culture. Taipei is simulatenously more expressive of Traditional Chinese culture, being somewhat out of reach from China's Cultural Revolution. Everything just kind of seems perfectly acceptable here, welcome even. Maybe I am just feeling the cultural impact of Buddhism. The explanation is not really what is important. The point is, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoy it here. Better, the point is simply how much I enjoy being here.