HOW MUCH TO KILL SOMEONE?

THE WHITE WATER RAFTING TRIP

Neither Matt nor I had ever been white water rafting before. I wanted to have at least one activity that he could look back on and say "That was something completely new!"

Since I'd had plenty of time to research, I'd found the right place to go. Lots of safety gear and I spoke to the person (Del) who would actually be in the boat with us. Booking through an agent is stupid - you never know what you'll get nor who you'll be dealing with.

As directed, Matt and I showed up at 5:30AM to the business. Del met us there. In America, when someone's fly is open people feel awkward about pointing it out and make roundabout references to it. Not Del. He grabbed my zipper and zipped me up. I thought Matt would hurt himself laughing. I hoped he would. Del thought it was funny. I was in too much shock to really register it.

Having another guy unexpectedly 'zip you up' is one of those experiences that is tough to write about. Describing it to someone who hasn't experienced it is tricky. I do know that sits on a shelf of "Matt's cherished memories". Wanker.

The rafting itself was a lot of fun. We had two Israeli tourists in the boat we called "King and Mayor". Del guided the boat. Compared to the five of us in the boat other rafts had 6-8 people with no safety boats. We had one other large raft and three kayaks just to keep us from dying. The tourists were outnumbered by the safety team in our raft. Note that the rafting trip we had cost around the same as the competition. We just got a lot more for our money.

The people in kayaks and such weren't duffers either - all of them had won awards for kayaking. Everyone was very polite and hard workers. These guys have great jobs and are paid in money, room and board - so they take their jobs very seriously.

Halfway through the rafting trip, we got served a simple picnic lunch that was pretty tasty and prepared right in front of us on the beach.

I can definitely recommend Adventure Aves Nepal. It is in the NW part of Thamel.

For those who know about rapids, we did several grade 3, 4 and 4+ rapids. Lots of fun though I did fall out of the boat once. It was a bit shocking just how fast Del got me back in. Whether it is zipping up your fly or yanking you out of the water before you've registered the fact you are in the water, he is your guy.

Matt described the rafting as one of the best days of his life. Matt said "White water rafting is like taking out your cock and slapping nature in the face!"

The bus there was pretty standard and pleasant. The bus back was an absolute nightmare for Matt. He had the back hard bench with seats in front of him stuck in the fully reclined position pinning him to the seats. He wasn't a happy camper. Combined with the lever action of the bus causing him to 'catch air', it was miserable.

More on Matt's vacation in the next blog!



NEPALI CUSTOMS - WOMEN

One of the tribal groups of Nepal is the Newa. The women get married three different times. The first marrage is at age 3-4. They get married to some sort of big green fruit called a 'dell' (some call it an 'eyah fruit'). This is not a pickle or bell pepper - it seems to be unique to Nepal and India. I have no clue why this is done. Maybe the eyah fruit is lonely.

Before the girls have their first period, they are kept in a dark room with paintings of devil ghosts for 10-12 days. Only women go there, no males. Sometimes, the girls die within this room. Their bodies are not allowed to be burned. Instead, a hole is cut in the floor around the bed they died in. The entire bed and floor are then lowered to the ground floor. A hole is then dug into the ground directly below where the girl died and the corpse is placed in there. During this time, the body can't use the stairs nor see the sun. If the girl dies angry, she then becomes a ghost called 'barah see'. This is a 'super bad' ghost. The family then must get a witch doctor to deal with it.

If the girl survives two weeks indoors, they are then married to the sun.

The third marriage is to a man.

This is a very old tradition dating from a god (?) known as 'Ram'.



NEPALI CUSTOMS - TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS

If you hit someone with your truck and they are injured you have to pay them some money and then help support them for the rest of their life.

Should you accidentally kill them, you have to pay the widow (etc) between 50-100 Lac. One lac is 100,000 NRS. Hence, should you accidentally kill them you owe half million to a million NRS. Depending on the circumstances, you may do a year or two in jail.

Because of this rule it is common after hitting someone to go back and run them over again to make sure they are dead. It costs a lot less money.

No, I'm not making this up.



NEPALI CUSTOMS - MALLS

If all of the clothing and shoes stores mysteriously vanished from the mall, the building would suffer a cataclysmic structural failure and collapse. Oddly, I never see anyone actually buying anything in these shops so it is a mystery how they stay open.



NEPALI CUSTOMS - DEMONSTRATIONS

Within their government, they have 'Maoists'. Lots of red flags with hammers on them advocating becoming communist. Since it worked so well for the USSR. (For foreign readers, that last sentence was sarcasm.)



KATHMANDU AIRPORT

It is remarkably easy to find someone from international flights. All of the passengers are channeled down a single hallway. They are observed from the other side of a glass partition by people waiting for them.

Like many other airports in the world, a taxi from here is more expensive than one off of the street as the taxis have to pay a small surcharge to get in (or out?) of the airport. The charge for the one we took out of the airport was 30 NRS.

If you are paying more than 300 NRS to get to the Thammel district, you're getting horribly ripped off.

As with all airports travelers should ignore everyone in the airport as well as the 'pre paid' taxi stand. It is amazing how many people would jump tourists to funnel them over to that booth or for other crap and the tourists would just go with it.

Remember, only rich or stupid people shop at an airport. [The only exception to this rule I've seen was the 7-11 at the Bangkok airport in Thailand. They charge the same low prices as all of the other 7-11's.]



WITCH DOCTORS

(See costs, below).

The witch doctors of Nepal are not the kind that many westerners think of. They seem to fall into two main categories - astrological and non. The astrology ones will want to know all of the usual crap astrologers want to know and presumably tell you the same kind of crap astrologers tell you.

Despite new planets being discovered and debunked.

The other kind may do things like instruct you to fully sweep your business for an entire year and bring them all of the collected dust from it so they can analyze it.

Female shaman (aka 'witch') is a 'gurma'. A male witch doctor is a 'gruba'.



NEPALI MYSTICISM

Get a black female horse. Take horseshoes from it and cold forge (no fire at all) them into a ring. When worn on the index finger it keeps most supernatural things away from you. The ring is especially powerful on Saturday and Monday, for some reason.



TRAVELER'S TIPS

The hiccups given by the rotten quality of the alcohol in Nepal can be prevented by not drinking it 'neat'. Vodka and sprite isn't bad.


T-shirts with an actual photo on them are crudely glued. Avoid them. The quality was so poor that the middle man actually refunded my money - an unheard of practice in Asian business.



RESTAURANT REVIEW - KOREAN KITCHEN PICNIC

Note, they don't speak Korean there.

The food is excellent and for 300 NRS you get more than either Matt or I could eat. Finding it will be tricky as it is down an alley near the 'Garden of Dreams' on the same street as the restaurant 'Fire and Ice'. I've eaten here several times and the food is consistently good.



RESTAURANT REVIEW - ELECTRIC PAGODA

If you've never eaten proper Mexican food before and only seen it in books, you'll have something in common with the chef here. The portions are large but not very tasty.



MOVIE REVIEW - COWBOYS AND ALIENS

3/10. Wow, this movie sucks. I was bored to death during most of it. I have no idea how they got Harrison Ford to be in it and play such a crappy stereotypical character. Amazingly poor showing.



VIDEOS

Exploring KTM
Light B & E
KTM Conspiracy
Surprise Kingfisher
God Costs Money
Natural Temple
Hidden Temple Crouching Stupa
Stone Rat
He Aint Paying
Peaceful Walk
Hawk Man
Did You Get The Snakes, Billy?
Chaugnar Faugn and the Tcho Tchos
Pungi Pit
Dodge Death
Reaction Shot



COSTS

Everest Steak House Cheeseburger (with chips aka fries), 400 NRS
Ruslan Vodka bottle, 600-750 NRS
Witch doctor, average, 50-100 NRS
Movie, 3d, 320 NRS
Wicker stool, 300 NRS
Lac (unit of measuring money), 100,000 NRS. Note 'lac' is pronounced as 'lack' as in "I lack funds".
Rafting, 3000 NRS/day (after bargaining)

Sewage fixing, 700 NRS per manhole. This funds a crew of four or five guys without appropriate tools to come out and remove stuff people have flushed down their toilets that shouldn't be there. Like plastic bags. What kind of idiot flushes a plastic bag down the toilet?


Cost breakdown of a movie ticket:
Entrance fee, 246.25
Film development board (15%, no idea who they fuck they are or if they actually do anything), 36.94
VAT (13%), 36.81. Total, 320 NRS. The 3d glasses must be returned or you pay 200 NRS more. They do have a personal and bag search when entering the movie theater though they felt awkward about searching my bag so they didn't. Which is good because I had illegal outside drink hidden in it.

HALL OF BRIGHT CARVINGS

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM

Because I was bored, I went to visit the national museum. Admission charge with my camera (separate charge for that) came to 150 NRS.

They wanted me to leave the bag of stuff I always carry. That's not going to happen. I explained they could either allow me to take my bag in or refund my money and I would go away. They compromised by doing a quick visual search of my bag both coming in and going out. Pretty much anything under hand grenade size would be missed in the search they did.

I wandered around the museum. There were three buildings and most of it was taken at my normal fast walk reserved for dull stuff. There were a couple of nifty things but overall the most interesting thing at the museum was the smell.

The smell of ancient antiquities, dust, neglect and disinterest. It's the special kind of smell you can only get from museums with very low traffic and a lot of libraries in the USA where print died long ago.

Museums are depressing places. The photos of famous long dead people and artwork don't really depress but when you see something intimate - something that actually belonged and was used by someone... And most of the time the stories are lost. The stories which are more interesting than the artifacts.

When I was a child, one of the things I was forced to read included reference to a 'hall of Bright Carvings'. [Disclaimer, this may be part of the Titus Groan novels but I don't recall any of that stuff. Just a story about this 'hall of Bright Carvings' which I shall now relate. The whole story could be a figment of my deranged mind and nothing to do with Titus Groan. Not a clue here and I don't care enough about it to actually research it as the novels don't look very good.]

As I recall the story, it goes something like this:

Once upon a time was a village. Every year, they would have a wood carving competition. People would labor for an entire year upon their wood carvings and then enter them into the competition. The best one was selected by a panel of esteemed judges. All of the other pieces were then placed into a large pile and burned.

The winning piece was then taken to the Hall of Bright Carvings. There, it was ensconced with winners from all of the preceding years. Other than the caretaker who cared nothing about art, nobody else was allowed into the Hall. The winning wood carvings would then sit and gather dust for the rest of eternity.

I'm not sure why they had us read this story when I was in grade school nor why I remembered it. The message it conveyed seemed to be 'don't try that hard, it doesn't really matter and nobody really cares'. Not the kind of message I want conveyed to students in grade school.

But that image of the Hall of Bright Carvings has stayed with me these many years. Any time I enter a museum, I am reminded of it.

On the way out, I was preceded by two Nepali gentlemen wearing backpacks. They weren't searched, I was. Baffling.



SHADY CHARACTER?

I was wandering the streets when I got stopped by a balding black haired Aussy. He did the double hand shake and identified himself as Paul. Something tripped my internal alarms.

Paul: "What's your name?"
Logan: "What's up?"
Paul: (Forcefully) "I asked what your name was - or don't you answer questions?"
Logan: "Not from people I meet on the streets."
Paul: (Gesturing for me to go on) "Walk your own line then."

I did.

I'm thinking he was either a beggar or a really bad con man. He would need to build his skill as a 'roper' before he can start getting things out of people. Yes, there are a lot of people who would encourage me to 'be nice' but I'd rather be wrong and follow my instincts. My instincts all told me 'this guy is going to try to get something out of you and it's not friendship'.

Don't get me wrong - I will often strike up conversations with people. Lots and lots of people. But my intent is a good conversation. I'm not trying to get anything out of them - I just want to be friendly. Given how often I am able to strike up conversations and even end up giving them my card or sometimes hanging out with them, I think people get that on some level.



PAYPAL

I've had a lot of folks tell me that I should have a paypal button on the site to be able to accept donations. I've bowed to the wisdom of this and, after a small battle with Paypal, gotten my paypal account active again and put the button up.

If you feel like donating, great, thanks.



NEPAL CUSTOMS

Nepal is extremely concervative with regards to women. If you take a Nepali girl to a hotel, there could be police involvement. Even if you are sharing a taxi! It is assumed that you are taking her to a hotel to have sex. It is automatically believed that she is a prostitute. Probably doesn't do well for her self esteem.

God help you if she is of a different caste.

These problems don't exist with foreigners. This is why a lot of Nepali gentlemen would rather date foreign women.

I have no idea at all what the women of Nepal do but I'm guessing it is not as free for them to date foreign men. Or if they will be assumed to be a prostitute if seen with a foreign man. My guess is yes.



PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

I've been doing some research on the temperature of different places. It seems that the temperature of Kathmandu as well as that of Goa is about the same during June and July.

My visa for Nepal expires on June 16th. My visa for India expires July 29th. Since the only thing I'm wanting to do in India yet is to check out Goa, I might take the difficult and exhausting overland route down there. It will be via first class train once I get out of Nepal. But first class in India is second or third class by European standards.

When I am in Goa, I can figure out if I want to weather the monsoon season that will be there (as it will in Nepal) or move on to deal with the monsoon in either the Philippines or Indonesia.

For all of those Georgians (Republic of Georgia, not the state in the USA) reading, yes I will be heading back to Georgia at some point but I still want to hit some more countries yet.

Note that this is all speculative. I may decide just to laze around more spots in Nepal, get a visa extension and all of that - but I'm thinking Nepal isn't what I need right now. It has nice parts but because it has been turned into more of an amusement park for trekkers, it is a bit pricey to get out of Kathmandu. I've literally seen everything in Kathmandu I care to - a week or two ago. By the time Matt's visit is complete, I will be very ready to move on from Kathmandu if I can find a good place to go.



TRAVEL QUOTE OF THE DAY

"When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home." - Sir Winston Churchill.



COSTS

Pirated movie, 30 NRS. [Yes, that's like .36 USD.] The fun part is that if you return the DVD without any scratches, you get 10-15 NRS backi.

Hookah, flavored, 250 NRS. The prices are very strange here. For a hookah and a beer, you could instead have a nice room for the night. Or 2-3 big meals. I suspect the evil hand of the government.

Taxi ride: I've been told that renting a taxi for an entire day would probably cost 4000-6000 NRS. That tells me that it is cheaper to just get one for a ride somewhere then pick up a new one later. You can go anywhere in the city for 250 NRS on down though some of the taxi drivers will start at outrageous prices like 600-800 NRS to see if you are stupid and rich.

Milk and cereal are amazingly expensive. Every now and then, I just get a strange urge to sit down with cold milk and eat an entire box of cereal. 500g of cereal is 300-500 NRS. 1 liter of milk is 240 NRS. That will set you back as much as a steak dinner. [I realize normal people don't eat an entire box of cereal in one go but there we are...] This cost is actually as much or more than you can purchase it for in the USA...

Simple (less touristy) restaurant, mains 50-250 NRS.

Cigarettes can be purchased singly even from restaurants though you'll have a 40% mark up in a restaurant if you don't go to a store to buy them.



VIDEOS

Well, I went to the national museum of Nepal in Kathmandu. I'd rate it as 'meh'. I got my 150 NRS worth but just. (For those who don't know the exchange rate, it's about $2).

Across the street - for the same price - they have a military museum. I will see if Matthew wants to go there when he is in town and sober. And not killing a hooker.

Here are some videos of it:

National Museum 1
National Museum 2
National Museum 3
National Museum 4
National Museum 5