Stand up, stand up for your rights!

Lobuche--4,900 meters, where HAPE kicked my ass and I had to make a quick descent.





I'm going to backtrack now and try to decode my journal.

December 29, 2008

Bourbon Street and the French Quarter can be a lot fun if you don’t live in New Orleans. The Thamel tourist district in Kathmandu, more than any touristy hustler districts, has always reminded me of the French Quarter, and if you haven’t been there a lot but have only been there but one or two times, it can still have that old world charm.

Basically, Thamel is your run-of-the-mill touristy place to hang around after dark, where you can push through swarming crowds of drunks or stoned tourists and locals who jostle with one another to sell or buy hash, trade in women of all ages--mostly underages, all on the narrow streets lined with souvenir shops selling sweat shop curios where in front of the shops kids in rags beg you for a few rupees on narrow streets lined with bars playing loud music.

Thamel is a lot like Bourbon Street and the French Quarter but with less jazz and jocularity, more gloom and a whole lot more poverty.

Most people give themselves 16 days or more to do the Everest base camp trek. I didn’t have that much time off from work—with pay—so I had to squeeze it into ten, which is doable, if you trim away the days spent in Thamel coming and going which are part of the itinerary most tour packages offer--and you travel alone and hustle up those hills. I’ve probably spent as much time relying on my well rehearsed choreographic drunken crowd maneuvering in Thamel than I have on Bourbon Street. I used to live in New Orleans, and like I said, Bourbon Street can be a lot of fun—if you don’t live there. If you do, you avoid it, you side step it, drive blocks out of your way to not have to deal with it. It is much harder to avoid Thamel if you’re in Nepal to leave the city's party ghetto behind. It’s where the hotels and guest houses are. It’s fifteen minutes from the airport, and it’s safe because after your first visit, you know where to go and where not to go, depending on the depravity of your tastes.

Travel books try to sell you on the quaintness that Thamel can be for people who haven’t lost their Nepalese touristy virginity. It’s often pointed out that all of Kathmandu can remind you of a picturesque medieval village, potholed, unimproved roads, teeming with people, mangy dogs, cows, the dissonant sounds of a guild class and castes working out of their 6 by 10 cinder block stalls, the blacksmiths, tailors, cobblers, the whores.

I had to visit a few outfitters to pick up some gear like windbreaker chaps, a collapsible walking pole, and a poncho, assemble a first aid kit for my trek. So I had to venture out into Thamel. Anyway, there is a rolling black-out in Kathmandu that leaves you two choices between 2 – 8 —-sit in your candle lit room and get stoned waiting for the power to come back on. Or you can do the stroll.

Not far from my hotel I was lured into the "Raggay Club" which had a loud, live reggae band on the fifth floor. The electricity was powered by a generator. Upstairs in the club, fifth generation hippies swayed to “No woman no cry”—that third world anthem you hear in clubs from Bangkok to Vientiane and all points in between. I sat and ordered a beer and before the beer arrived, a hash dealer and his female companion joined me, offering me a sample—no need to buy, just try. When he went to scrounge up a pipe, I sat across from an unhappy Nepalette, her hair cut short. She was unable to look me in the eyes. I poured her a beer. We talked. Rather, I initiated a conversation with that third world starter upper—have any children?

She looked up at me and shook her head. She muttered, “I’m not married.” “Why not?” I asked. They always pester you with the same questions. I suspected the answer right away--she was in her mid-20s, and I had an inkling she might want to talk about “it.”

“I’m tomboy”, she said, breaking into a half smile.

“Oh, then do you have a girlfriend?” I asked as naturally as one might ask someone for the time. She broke into a deep smile and her eyes sparkled. Being a dyke in a Hindu kingdom is probably a very underground experience. “Yes, yes I do—but don’t tell my friend. My girl friend is his sister-in-law.”

“You know what,” she went on with a story she'd probably been holding in for years and finally had someone to share it with. “One time, my mother caught me and her kissing.”

OK. That was borderline too much information, but what the hell. I’m a seen it all, done it all nice guy. I’m wasn't going to offer her money to watch a performance and or ask how much would it cost to throw me into the mix. She knew this intuitively. So she opened up.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “My mother loves me." Say no more.

"But don’t tell my brother-in-law, though” I made the my mouth is buttoned move. It would be our little secret. After the beer, after the sample smoke, after two or three more Bob Marley standards, I finished my beer, bought them a round, looked them both in the eyes, smiling and said, thanks and goodnight. I searched my brain for something profound to say, something that would keep the tom boy from caving into pressures for an arranged marriage or some such, but the best I could come up with was a hand shake and “remember, just be true to yourself.” I felt like what I was, what I am, a condescending American schmuck. Be true to yourself. What a wad.

I made my way back up the alley to my hotel wondering if there isn’t some Dyke NGO out there that helps to sponsor lesbians from Hindu countries, rescue them, refugees or at least provide them with battery operated gizmos.

If there isn’t one, there should be. The UN should form a steering committee.

I returned to my room. Took a couple of valiums, did a quick equipment check, then doused my candle. I had a 5:30 start.