My first full day in Kathmandu gave me a first hand experience of the monsoon season. Fuck, did it rain,and, and rain. Warm rain, but every bit as wet as the stuff back home.
The frog chorus I had come to know and love has been replaced by pigeons. Hundred of the appear to live in Kathmandu. To be fair, they are not the nasty, often deformed, rats with wings that you see in the UK . More like cooing doves....
I awoke to a fine morning, the sky was blue and you got a really nice view of the Kathmandu valley from the rooftop garden at the hostel I was staying at.
My first task of the day was to get some cash. I had no local currency so need an ATM. There are not hundreds of them in Thamel, very unlike Thailand. The first one didn't work, the second one kindly told me that my card was "closed" great! I found a money changer, changed my last sterling into grubby Nepali rupees and then headed back to my hotel to try and find out what "card closed" actually meant. Having incurred around £30 in mobile charges the last time I had to call the bank, I decided that I would try and use skype. That was a test in itself. The first attempt didn't connect, the second attempt I got as far as explaining what had happened, finding out that my card was still active, and being transferred somewhere or other. Then the connection went down.
Third time lucky! After running through the scenario again in was put on hold, being transferred to "control". After a wait of some ten minutes and some serious praying that I didn't lose the connection again. There was non"warm handover" and I was eventually barked at by some shit who proudly announced belonging to the "fraud department" hmmm. That's encouraging. He would have made a good security guy at Manchester airport. . We went through the security questions again and he told me that my card had been suspended due to suspected fraudulent activity.
I hate that, as if isn't worrying enough that your card doesn't work. Surely they could brief their people to use better words. "Hi, my name's John. Could I just check a few things with you" would be so much better. Or why can't they text me like MasterCard do, and ask me to call them, instead they just block the card and wait for you to call them. I guess I should be grateful that they are protecting my interests, except they're protecting their own.
A couple of recent (2 weeks ago) had been flagged up as suspicious and the computer had said "no"
Anyway, after convincing them that a 100 withdrawal a few days earlier and payment to my MasterCard credit card were of my own doing, he said he would lift the block. I thanked him for his help, grateful I had got through the conversation without getting cut off again. Till next time you Fuckwit!
My guesthouse, the Hotel Premium, is a couple of hundred yards from Thamel, the touristic ( is that a word) part of Kathmandu. It is like a rabbit warren. Once the card was back and working I set out to have a look around. As is my want, I didn't take a map and ended up getting hopelessly lost. It took me a good couple of hours to get back, picking a few Nepali touts, trying their luck on the way. And in the pissing rain too. I eventually, luck rather than judgement, found my way back and deposited some bits in the hotel before heading out yet again for a late lunch. I chose a quite classy place and had a delicious chicken tikka and nan. Not cheap but this is not a cheap area, making the most of the tourists. The shops are same same but different. Every one of them is selling either pashmina, trinkets, tours and treks or trekking and mountaineering gear. Quite cheap too. There is something a bit romantic about the fact that thousands of Everest climbers have passed through this area. Indeed, one restaurant will allow you to eat free for like if you conquer the peak!
In the evening, it being Saturday, I would go out for a few beers. The best laid plans of mice and men. I was scuppered. I experienced the first of the fairly regular power cuts at 6.30. Its called "load shedding" and happens pretty much every day. Its not that there isn't ample electricity, its that the Nepali government sell most of it to India and China, especially China who they appear to owe a lot too in terms of economic support.
All dressed up and nowhere to go. As it went dark, and I'd used up the remaining battery on my iPad, ( although surprisingly the ADSL worked during the power cut, they must have battery backup) I decided at 9.00pm in would go to sleep. At 11pm everything came back on again. By that time, although wide awake, I didn't feel like going out.
In an effort to cut down on the weight of by backpack, I had undertaken to transpose all the notes and handouts from the last months TEFL course into word documents. That kept me busy for a couple of hours. I have broken the back of it now having done a couple of hours a day for the past couple of weeks. Probably saved about a kg of weight too. I should have been smarter and offered to sell the documents on to my fellow students. It would have been worth at least a few beers.
There is plenty to see in Katmandu and tomorrow I plan to do a bit of sightseeing.
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Location:Paknajol Rd,Kathmandu,Nepal
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