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September 27, 2005 Thamel Guesthouse 80 NRs World Toursim Day? Never heard before. But today, on every single corner of Thamel, you can see brochures and banners to welcome “all distinctive guests” on the world tourism day. I read on the newspaper that today there would be special performances, like pop rock bands, japanese dances, …. hmmm….. :question: So, the real festival started after dark. The road is full of people selling food (remember “pasar malam” (night market) of Indonesian small towns). It seems that almost every single shop in Thamel want to participate in this Tourism Day. Restaurants offer “open air tables” where guests can have dinner on the main street (reminded me to Kaoshan Road of Bangkok). And even hotels, supermarkets, and internet cafes turnt to be an instant restaurant. I wonder myself whether what supposed to be “world tourism day” is “thamel food day”. At the evening, the rock band starts. Everybody came down to the main road of Thamel, everybody dance together. And Thamel Chowk has turned to be a huge open air discotheque! (plus the open air restaurants selling all kinds of Newari snack). It’s indeed a climax of all kind of entertainments in Thamel. [...]

September 25, 2005 Thamel Guesthouse 80 NRs Ting.. tang… ting… tang…, kedua bilah gunting besi beradu cepat, berdentang-denting bergantian di sisi kiri dan kanan telingaku. Sebuah irama yang sudah sekian lama tak lagi aku dengar, setelah pisau cukur elektrik merajai pasar salon kecantikan. Dimulai dari rasa gerah yang teramat sangat, menyengat ubun-ubun kepalaku yang ditumbuhi oleh rambut-rambut yang semakin hari semakin lebat, aku melangkahkan kakiku mencari tukang pangkas rambut. Cukup tersembunyi di balik lorong-lorong sempit tak jauh dari Thamel, Kathmandu, sebuah salon mungil dengan hanya dua bangku terjajar rapi, dua pemangkas rambut, dan dua orang yang “terpangkas rambutnya”. Ruangan mungil itu dilengkapi dengan dua buah washtafel, nampaknya kepala pengunjung akan dijorokkan (bahasa Jawa: didelungupkan)ke washtafel itu untuk dibasahi sebelum pisau-pisau cukur menunaikan tugasnya di kepala mereka. Tak nampak satu pun peralatan elektronik di sini, semuanya serba mekanis. Oh, tak lupa juga bunyi bilah-bilah gunting yang beradu seru. Ketika tiba giliranku mendapatkan pelayanan, rambutku terlebih dahulu mendapatkan “siraman” segar dari air yang mengocor deras dari keran mungil itu. Tak lama kemudian, bilah-bilah gunting cukur yang panjang itu mulai lagi beradu sengit menunaikan tugas mereka, yang denting-dentingnya mengingatkanku pada masa kecilku, dua puluh tahun yang lalu, ketika ayah menjorokkan kepalaku ke depan [...]

September 24, 2005 Thamel Guest House, 80 NRs Received a good news today, that my article of Afghanistan and Pakistan is confirmed to be published on the 11th edition of National Geographic Traveller (Beijing). The total number of pages for my article is 12, quite much for a writer-beginner like me. The article will be in Chinese, a translation from the Indonesian version (downloadable in this website also). The translation was made by two of my friends who studying Indonesian language in Peking University, and I really admire their Indonesian proficiency. Today I spent the whole morning for giving captions for the photos used by the magazine. Too bad, I am not in China at this moment, so I even wont get the chance to see the magazine by [...]

Ruang kerja kantor polisi Hanuman Dhoka. (AGUSTINUS WIBOWO) September 23, 2005 Thamel Guesthouse 80 NRs This story is still related with my pickpocketed wallet a week before. And after today, I completely give up the hope of getting back my wallet. Remember last week how I was ‘ping-pong’ed by the police officers when we tried to report the loss right after the accident. And I didn’t have any photos with me (required for report, and all of my passport photos were in the wallet). Not big deal, the second day I submitted a passport photo and passport photocopy. The officer of foreign section was not there, so I passed the stuff to another officer, who promised to make the report the second day. After visiting Gorkha (September 20), I came again to the office, supposed to have the report prepared. But, oho, I was just too optimistic. Nothing was done, and even they lost my loss report So I had to make another report, starting again everything from the beginning. The fat lady was busy of typing another stuff with the prehistoric typewriter, and asked me to wait for 5 minutes (and you know what 5 minutes mean in South [...]

September 21, 2005 Thamel Guest House, 80 NRs After so many lazy days in Kathmandu, I decided to move on. Today I applied Indian visa in the Indian embassy. The embassy opens at 9:30 but I started queueing at 8:30 (got the 5th position). The embassy is famous for the low efficiency and strict working hours. It closes at 12:00 precisely, no matter how many people still waiting in line. For most of Asians, they only issue 3 month visa here if you have never been to India before. Multiple visa is possible, depends on your nationality. The total visa fee is 3350 NRs. For Chinese passport holders (and sometimes including Hong Kong passports) they only issue 1 month visa. Better not to have Pakistan visa in your passport if you wish to bargain for longer visa. During my waiting there, suddenly I saw a black man holding an Indonesian passport, applying for Indian transit visa. I was so curious, as this man seems completely not an Indonesian. And then a girl popped-up, quite Indonesian Chinese face. And the man told the visa officer that the girl was his wife. Brought by my curiousity, I talked with the girl, which [...]

September 19, 2005 A hotel in Pokhara-Kathmandu highway junction, 50 NRs There is also Durbar square in Gorkha, but this Durbar is quite different from its Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur counterparts. The temple-palace is located on the top of a mountain, probably about 1-2 hours of hiking, and is militarily sensitive area. Photography is strictly prohibited, and they are really serious about this. You can see many armed guards around the temple area, and you have to leave your camera on the gate. There is no entrance ticket, but everyone has to write down passport detail in the guestbook of the temple. From the temple, you can see spectacular panorama of the area, dozens of hills queueing, and some small villages dotting the green thick forests. There are several different ethnic groups living in Gorkha, and they are quite distinctive from the Newaris in Kathmandu. Many of Gorkha hill people wear sarong, and guess what, the sarongs are imported from Indonesia (95% of sarong in textile shops are from Yogyakarta, the rest are Singapore and Malaysia). The price is also not so bad, around 300 NRs each, comparable to what you would pay to obtain one in Java. We tried [...]

September 18, 2005 Gorkha Bisauni Hotel 50 NRs/bed Met a Malaysian traveller some days ago, a journalist of a quite reknowned Malaysian media. Since this is the first in last two months for me to be able to speak Malay/Indonesian language, I felt so happy to chat with her about the politics, cultural issues, etc of our region. She told me that some days before she met a Nepali guy who has ever worked in Malaysia (there are sooo many Nepalis with working experience in Malaysia), and this Nepali guy, Deepak, invited her to attend a wedding ceremony of one of his friends in Gorkha. I was so interested in attending the ceremony (wedding ceremony is not everyday, right?) so I joined them. Deepak speaks a little bit of Malay, with very bossy accent (guess that he learnt his Malay from his Chinese boss in Johor). He insisted us to depart at 6 o’clock in the morning as he wanted to take the earliest bus to Gorkha, 150 km or so from Kathmandu. And he also insisted us to take the “best” car, which cost 200 NRs per person. The journey was gruelling as he even didnt let us to [...]

September 17, 200 Thamel Guesthouse 90 NRs Today is the peak of the celebration of Indra Jatra Festival, the biggest event in Kathmandu throughout the year. Before talking about this festival, let’s see the unique habit of Nepali Hindus to have a living goddess. This living goddess is called as Kumari Devi, a young pre-puberty girl chosen through a set of difficult tests. This girl then become the living goddess, staying in a palace, Kumari Bahal, just south the Hanoman Dhoka Royal Palace. The girl is then worshipped as a god by the people, and she possesses many spiritual powers. Non Hindus are not allowed to even step in into the Kumari Bahal. Taking pictures of her is strictly prohibited. The girl, once she arrived to her first day of puberty, is not a goddess anymore, and another Kumari Devi should be chosen again. It is said that it’s not good to marry an ex-Kumari, as the husband will be in misfortune. But some says that the Kumari is used to be spoilt during her young ages, and when she grows to be a woman, it will be difficult for the men to fulfill her wish. Well, it’s just a [...]

September 16, 2005 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 [...]