firstdayinKATHMANDU

April 9th '08

Kathmandu's roads are similar to village and countrside roads in China. They're not anywhere as developed as the cities in China, even the small cities in China. Walking down the streets, I can small incense, hear hinu and Nepali and see Nepali writing which is so neat to see. A local boy named Bibek, showed me how to write my name in Nepali and it's similar to arabic writing I think. while the corner stores, the gardens, the women and men using buckets to bathe and wash their clothes are 'same, same' there is something distinctly different here. Nepal does not try to hide their poverty, they do not try to build up the city, or maybe it actually is more poor here than in China. Hindu women wear read dots between their eyes in red and shimmering golds called tikas. The married women wear red going into their parts of their hair as well as the one on their foreheads. Unmarried women and married women wear different clothing than each other. Surprisingly, married women wear more revealing clothes than their counterpart as well as more gold jewellery.




I spent a couple of hours talking to Krishna, a artist that worked at the top of Monkey temple. He has dark skin and long hair, looking a lot like my cousin Mickey. Krishna looks more Mongolian or Chinese than Indian. His art is inspired by buddhism as well as celtic art. He said that celtics also believed in eternal cirlce in life like the buddhists, until enlightenment anyways. He plays the flute both bamboo and classical. He was telling me some stories about underground heavy metal bands and shows that were held at police underground places. The musicians just paid off the cops and the shows had to be 'clean', so no drugs and no alcohol but hella dancing and loud music. He said that there are a lot of bands in Kathmandu and I want to check some music out.


Amit and Bijaya(pronounced Bizana) are two Nepalis from Baktapur. Bijaya is 21 and her and Amit want to get married. The problem being that they're from different castes. Amit if Brahmen(the highest Nepali caste) and Bijaya is Newari. They've been together for 6 years but their parents don't know. Amit's parents wouldn't approve of a marriage to a lower caste.