Historic haven

At the heart of noisy, chaotic Kathmandu, travel editor COLIN MOORE finds a peaceful place where time stands still.

It was as well that my return to Kathmandu coincided with a general transport strike called by the Nepal Communist Party.

Two weeks earlier I arrived in the capital of the mountain kingdom at a tatty and half-completed airport terminal. Someone muttered that there didn't seem to have been any progress on the building since they were last in the city two years before.

As we waited and waited for our transport to arrive, workers were scratching out a foundation footing, their efforts checked every few minutes with a tape-measure by a well-dressed foreman, who otherwise just stood and watched.

When the depth was judged satisfactory an old, mechanical compactor was manhandled into the trench and after much effort coughed and smoked into life.

I have used one of these George Lucas-inspired beasts myself and they have a mind of their own which the two spindly legged workers in thongs and hard hats had no hope of controlling. Even they were laughing.

Welcome to the Third World.

The road to the city centre was clogged with people, bicycles, trucks of frightening vintage, buses that were really trucks and locust-like hordes of three-wheel taxis into which were crammed enough passengers to make the Guinness Book of Records.

The honking of horns is even louder and seemingly more addictive than in Cairo.

Sacred Hindu cows lie on the footpath or scrounge with skinny dogs among the piles of garbage. The collection system bears similarities to an Auckland suburban inorganic rubbish collection.

The day's garbage is left in a tidy pile in each street. By the time a truck arrives to collect it the scavengers have significantly reduced the heap that has to be shovelled away.

Everyone seems to have something for sale. One woman sits in front of a set of bathroom scales. Check your weight for a few rupee.

Outside the giant Bodhnath Stupa, the largest temple to the Buddha in Nepal, a woman with a tiny baby is begging. Cynics suggest that such babies are passed around a gang of beggars to entice sensitive Westerners to part with their money.

At the Hindu Pashupatinath temple girls of six or seven years, with babies on their hips, have a novel routine. The temple is also known as the monkey temple because of the monkeys that scamper along the tops of the stone walls and footpaths in the hope of a food scrap.

The young girls come screaming among the tourists seeking protection because the monkeys are trying to steal their babies. Once sympathy is received there comes the plea for something more tangible.

The greeting, even from the tiniest of children, sounds something like "rupee-bonbon-pen." It began with money but then nice tourists started handing out lollies and the real do-gooders gave pens - for education, you know. So rupee-bonbon-pen it is.

The Pashupatinath temple sits beside the Bagmati River, a tributary of the Ganges, and it draws religious pilgrims from all over the subcontinent. A body is being cremated on the ghat.

When it is consumed the ashes will be swept into the river. Downstream people are bathing and washing clothes.

Gaudily painted sadhus sit in penitence. They have abandoned all their worldly goods to come closer to the meaning of life. That is, of course, unless you take their photograph. At least the buskers who paint themselves as marble statues stay quiet when you walk on by.

Ah, so where is this mythical Kathmandu that in the 1960s drew a hippy generation to the hashish shops of Freak St, where restaurants like the Third Eye were immortalised by mountaineering writers?

Sadly, it seems to have largely gone the way of any other city on the subcontinent - except when the communists, the official Opposition, call a transport strike to protest an increase in fuel prices.

After two weeks' trekking in the vehicle-less Kkumbu region, Kathmandu might have been a sharp shock to the aural senses. Instead, waiting at the airport when our Twin Otter touched down from Lukla were, thanks to some smart telephone calls from our Sherpa trek leader, a bevy of cycle rickshaws.

The group normally sit outside the Hotel Shanker to tout for custom from trekkers taking the short walk to the shops of Thamel. Now their presence was welcome and we loaded ourselves and our gear aboard for a quiet and sedate journey into the city.

Gone was the noise, the car horns and traffic madness. We were transported back to another era and it was bliss. In the afternoon when we walked into Thamel we could cross streets without taking our lives in our hands and begin to really enjoy the colour and life of this exotic location.

Next day the vehicles were back on the streets en masse but we maintained the mood of the past by visiting Bhaktapur. This is the medieval centre of old Kathmandu which, thanks to a German-funded project in the 1970s, is kept just as it was centuries ago.

Vehicles are banned and people go about their lives just as they did in the 15th century. Buildings have been restored and on every corner there is a temple to one of the Hindu deities.

It costs 300 rupee to enter the city, a genuine living museum, and it is worth many times more. Bhaktapur is no Disneyland; the people threshing rice or turning clay pots are not doing it for show. Nor is there any crass hard sell.

We saw no beggars, nor were we assaulted by touts - perhaps because there are as many Indian and Nepalese tourists in the municipality as there are Europeans. We spent much of a day wandering the streets of the old town and could have returned several times.

As I sat sipping coffee at a traditional cafe, I could quite easily turn back the clock and imagine that had my OE taken me this way instead of through Africa, I too might have eulogised about going to Kathmandu.

* Colin Moore followed the trail to Kathmandu with the help of Thai Airways International, Peregrine Adventures and the Adventure Travel Company, Parnell.


CASENOTES

GETTING THERE: Thai Airways International fly Auckland to Bangkok five days a week and Bangkok to Kathmandu seven days a week. The basic return fare from Auckland is $1849.

WHEN TO GO: The dry season is from October to May. Kathmandu, which is on the same latitude as Cairo or Miami, can be very hot, even in winter, although the temperatures may plummet in the evenings.

WHAT TO DO: There are more temples than you can poke a camera at but keep visiting until you tire of it. Shop in Thamel and Durbar Square, visit the old city of Bhakatapur.

WHAT TO BUY: Casual clothing is cheap. Tibetan souvenirs are plentiful. Buy Tibetan carpets from the Tibetan refugee centre.

MONEY: There are no ATM machines in Kathmandu. Obtaining spare cash involves a lengthy wait at Barclays Bank.

FOOD: Be careful. Try the Pumpernickel Bakery for freshly baked bread. Use only filtered water.