The Milk Scam

On our last morning in Kathmandu, I thought I'd regale you with one of our minor adventures.

Nepal is a poor country. Westerners are relatively very rich. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people try to get money from Westerners. Foreigners pay much higher entrance fees to museums and cultural areas--quite reasonable, in my view, although it's not clear how much actually goes to upkeep and how much lines someone's pocket. Other people offer themselves as guides and seem quite upset when you say no; others just ask for money. In Pokhara a couple of young students--middle or high school--sold us tickets to a performance of "Romeo and Juliet." We didn't go, but it was unique enough to be worth a few hundred rupees.

Then there was the milk scam.

Walking around Thamel a couple of days ago, where every shopkeeper is begging us to enter, a woman dragging a small girl behind her waived a small bottle at us. "Milk please!" she entreated us. "No money. Milk!" We looked at each other. Very hard to refuse. So immediately the woman shot off, looking over her shoulder to make sure we were following. She stopped at a cold store that sells water, sodas, and small items, and pointed up to a box of powdered milk.

I asked the shopkeeper how much.

"One thousand rupees," she said.

Now, a thousand rupees is about US$15. I haven't priced powdered milk in the US, but I doubt it is $15. So we shook our heads. Immediately the woman pointed to a smaller bag of powdered milk. 400 rupees. Still overpriced, but being soft-headed westerners we signed and bought it.

Now I'm pretty sure the shopkeeper overcharged us for it, and I'm pretty sure the woman got a cut of the scam. On the other hand, it was a more ingenious scam than usual and, well, a few hundred rupees is just the cost of our further education.

(And we should note that scams go on in rich countries too--only we usually know how to recognize those...)

Nonetheless we've had a wonderful time in Nepal. When we return we'll add more pictures, and if we get stuck in Bangkok we'll try to post.

A quiet last day

As I remarked last time, today there is a transport bandh. A lot of shops are closed as well. We just quietly walked around Thamel and then to the slightly more upscale Lanzimpat.

We are supposed to arrive at LAX on Monday evening, but we have a 1-hour layover in Bangkok--after departing the chaos that is Tribhuvan Airport in Kathmandu and dealing with new security measures in Bangkok (thank you very much, Mr. Underwear Bomber). And Thai Air has only 1 flight per day from Bangkok to LAX so it is entirely possible we may be delayed. There is excellent wi-fi at the Bangkok airport so we should be able to make note of it.

But after two weeks it is hard to believe it is nearly over...

Patan and Bhaktapur

Today, our calves still knotted from the descent from Sarangkot, we went to the nearby cities of Patan and Bhaktapur. A few hundred years ago, before the Shah kings united Nepal, these were separate kingdoms to rival Kantipur (Kathmandu). Now Patan is a suburb of Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, even over dusty, in-construction roads, is barely half an hour away. They still retain much of their old charm, except for locals constantly offering to guide us. Fortunately we had our driver to be our own guide.




Power is out again--generators power internet cafes but I'm not connnecting my laptop or my camera to these computers as they likely have more viruses than (fill in your favorite metaphor).

Tomorrow, our last full day in Kathmandu, there is supposed to be another transport bandh (strike). That may be just as well, as we are tired out from our "vacation" and could use a day relaxing. We may try to see a movie. "Avatar" is playing here, and it's possible the plot seems less stupid in Nepali, but we are likely to try for a local film, "3 idiots."

Back to Kathmandu

We're back in Kathmandu. Our legs are still sore from the rough descent from Sarangkot. Tomorrow we will try (again) to visit Bhaktapur.

Pokhara

Everyone has been asking us if we are going to Pokhara. So we went to Pokhara. West of Kathmandu, 2 hours by car, 30 minutes by plane + 1.5 hours waiting in the airport.



Pokhara has a lakeside district where the tourists are ghettoed. It is quieter and more scenic that Kathmandu, although still plenty of ways for tourists to spend their money.


But there is the view.




From the town one can see the peaks of Annapurna poking over a northern ridge. Today we took a taxi to the top of that ridge, then hiked up another 40 minutes to the heights of Sarangkot, the location of an ancient fort. Spectacular views, which my camera does not do justice to.




Then, crazy as we are, we decided to hike the 2000' (600 meter) descent back to Pokhara.

We had a map, but got lost nonetheless. Fortunately we mostly just had to follow roads and paths downhill, helped by local villagers used to pointing the way for ignorant bidesiharu (foreigners) such as ourselves.


We finally made back to town, tired but happy.

Tomorrow we return to Kathmandu, for 2 more days before we return home.

Chitwan

One of the pleasures of fantasy and science fiction is to take you to a new world. Even better is when a F/SF story takes you to one world, then after you have grown accustomed to it, suddenly throws open a door to yet another new world. Part of the success of Tolkien, Rowling, the movies of Hayao Miyuzaki, and so are, is the great pleasure is taking you from new world to new world.

That captures our journey to Chitwan National Reserve in Nepal.

We flew from Kathmandu to Bharatapur--waiting four hours because of bad weather. We had been offered a six hour car ride, and in retrospect that would have been the good choice. Nonetheless we finally boarded and took the 1/2 hour flight and landed at a small airstrip. From there we were met by Temple Tiger and driven by chaotic Nepali highway. Already our position as priviledged westerners was obvious--the two of rode in an nearly empty van, with resort employees outnumbering us, as we passed buses jammed to the roofs with Nepalis. After roughly one hour
we turned off and drove past fields and farmers, until we reached the Narayani river, which we crossed by boat.



On the far side of the river, now in the Chitwan National Reserve, we went by jeep through grassland and muddy track, through sal hardwood forest, to reach the Temple Tiger site.



The amenities at Temple Tiger are spartan, but that satisfied us. We did have power and hot water--for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening--and a hot fire and all the tea (chiyaa in Nepali) we could drink.

Despite being in the lowlands, it was cold and misty. At night our hut was heated by kerosene heater and while we were at dinner--mitho khaana, or tasty food, by the way--the hot water bottle fairies visited our beds making them cozy and warm.

One of the attractions of Chitwan is elephant riding. In our short visit we had 4 wonderful elephant rides. Elephants are a combination horse and bulldozer, able to push through high grass and dense forest. Furthermore rhinos and tigers will not charge an elephant, making us safe.




The elephants were endlessly fascinating to watch. They must eat hundreds of pounds of food per day, mostly grass, but as we were out on safari the elephants were constantly grabbing snacks as they walked.

I don't know if it is a good life for the elephant. (I also wonder if "elephant driver," or panjit, is a good job. Probably is, but insurance is hell to get.) Elephants are not domesticated like dogs and cattles; these are wild elephants, tamed, but that is not the same. On the other hand, it is very hard to make an elephant do something it really does not want to do. One should also note that overall things have improved in Chitwan; a century ago important visitors were slaughtering tigers by the score.

On a side note, perhaps the best meditation on what the elephant's life must be like is Carol Emshwiller's marvelous SF novel The Mount.

We saw a lot of wildlife: monkeys (2 kinds), deer (4 kinds, including the fetching "barking deer," the world's smallest and cutest deer), wild boar, more birds than we could count although Donna tried with a bird book, and rhinos.


Rhinos seems less scared of us than annoyed to have their peace and quiet disturbed. They have poor eyesight and squint at the papparazzi, trying to see who is bothering them now.

There are only a little more than 100 tigers left in Chitwan. They feed mostly on deer and wild boar. Going on a walk through the forest with our excellent naturalist--who gave us careful instructions on how to deal with angry rhinos, sloth-bears, and tigers--we did find evidence of tigers

a pawprint. On our second full day in Chitwan, while out in the forest with a naturalist, we heard a monkey giving a predator warning. "Must be a tiger or a leopard," said our guide, who carefully steered us away (not being on elephant back made us vulnerable). Humans, it seems, do not earn a warning from monkeys; they consider us weird, not threatening. I do not know if they underestimate us or have us pegged.


I don't have time to go through all the adventures we had, floating on the river and inspecting termite mounds. We had a wonderful time which we will long remember. We were away only 2 1/2 days from Kathmandu and yet it seems a week.

We have been in Nepal barely 9 days and it seems a month.

Tomorrow we go to Pokhara, where we hope for better views of the Himalayas.

Pashupatinath

A transport strike kept us from going to Bhaktapur, so we went across town to Pashupati, a holy Hindu site where cremations are carried out and the ashes swept to sea in the Bagmati river. Sadhus (holy men) and monkeys abound; the sadhus charge to have their pictures taken, the monkeys don't.



Tomorrow to fly to the Chitwan reserve where we are very unlikely to have internet access (the elephants are always hacking www.morepeanuts.com) so look for an update next Tuesday or Wednesday. We will be at Temple Tiger ; our local travel guru got us a good deal.