Kathmandu – Pickpocket

Thamel Guesthouse 90 NRs

Today is a day before the Indra Jatra festival, and there were quite some performances in the Durbar Square, Kathmandu. Everybody and virtually with each of his dog flourishing the square to watch the big festivities. I will try to write about the festival itself in other post, but now just want to share my unfortunate.

I was so occupied with taking pictures of the dances, that I completely forgot I put my wallet in my back bag. And yes, after the dances finished, I checked my bag, and it was open. There were my harddisk, my wallet, and my cameras inside. Intuitively I have removed my camera and put it somewhere else, but I just put the wallet and harddisk in a very easy to open part of the bag. The thief was little bit “good man” that he only stole the wallet, and left away my harddisk, with all of my photos I took during the trip stored inside. What I lost 5000 NRs (about 75 US$), 200,000 Indonesian Rupiah, some Afghanis and Pakistani Rupees, and the most made me sad: my student cards from ITS Surabaya and Tsinghua. Really bad feeling. I was absolutely “empty” when my Malaysian and Chinese friends took me to report the lost to the police. The police here, with a “dont care” attitude threw us to this and that offices. And it took long time just to get the paper.

I have controlled my emotion now (the theft happened 1 1/2 hrs ago) and I regard this as my karma. Anyway, the most important things are still with me. And this is really a lesson, a big lesson, before going to India.