Nepal Final Thoughts and Observations

Friday May 6^th

Nepal is similar to India in many ways, but is quite different and unique. Nepal wants to be recognized as different from India (their huge neighbour to the south – kind of like Canada and the US), and to illustrate this, they have their time set fifteen minutes ahead of Indian time, they have their own time zone!

Again, the people of this country, as in all of the countries I have visited, are really friendly, polite and very interested in tourists. They seem to be content with their lives and show endless patience when forced to endure delays. The one thing that annoyed me though, was that they are a community of horkers and spitters, making loud noises and spitting in the street.

There are a lot less cows here, but they are treated the same way, and no one seems bothered when they are laying in the street and traffic has to go around them. I saw a few trucks full of males buffalo that were being taken for slaughter, so apparently they do use buffalo meat for some food.

The air in the valley is very polluted and the views of the mountains are always extremely hazy. Many people in Nepal wear masks over their faces, especially motorcyclists. The traffic is just as noisy, smelly and congested as India, perhaps more so in Kathmandu.

As I said earlier, they have a huge problem with generating electricity. In the dry season the water is low and doesn't provide enough energy to meet their needs. Therefore they have timed blackouts of up to fourteen hours a day. Therefore most businesses, hotels and some wealthier people have back up generators, which run on diesel and further pollute the air. The problem is though, that several times a year they have severe gas and fuel shortages too. Apparently this is because India controls their fuel supplies and Nepal either can't pay for it or is late paying for it and India turns off the 'taps'. So, some businesses or hotels and such can't use their generators. I saw long, long lines of motorcycles and cars blocking roads as they lined up for hours for gas. I asked Anil why people don't protest this, and he said that they protest the price of public transport going up one rupee, but for some reason just accept this.

One day as I was driving on the motorcycle with Anil, he pointed out a long line of men. It was about two blocks long and contained hundreds of men. He told me that they were lined up for an interview for a chance to get a contract for two years to go and work in a South Korean factory. People are desperate to get out of the country and find work.

Everyday outside the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs hundreds of men from areas outside of Kathmandu, line up to get a Nepalese passport. Sometimes they stay overnight. There are no washrooms for them and the wall all along that area smells of urine. There are people who make money selling food and fruit to the lined up men. If they are successful with the application, they have to come back a month later to pick it up! For some reason that I didn't understand, people from Kathmandu don't have to line up at the same place, and the process is easier for them.

It is very difficult for Nepalese to travel anywhere. They have to have a visa to go to any country except India. If they have friends and family in another country and want to visit them, they have to prove that they will return home and not stay in the other country. This is obviously hard to prove.

When driving to Pokhara we got into a traffic jam, and when we got to the source of it, we saw a team of men painting a white line down the middle of the road, by hand! using a cut out wooden stencil to measure the right length for the stripe.

As we drove that river valley to Pokhara, we saw many metal suspension bridges for people to cross to get to the communities on the other side of the river. Sometimes, though there would be cables and a metal cage. I watched a couple of times where people (up to four) would get into the cage and using pulleys, they would haul themselves and their goods across the river. At one of these places, there were school children using the cages and I didn't see any adult supervision.

Throughout India and Nepal the swastika is used as a decoration on buildings and temple. This of course has nothing to do with and predates the Nazis. But, another symbol is also very prevalent. We know it as the star of David, but Nepal uses it as a symbol for education. It is on the signs for their ministry of education and Deepak explained to me that with education there is light, and without education there is darkness, and the star represents that light in the dark sky.

I have included a photo of a postcard I bought of the 'living goddess', Kumari.

Up until about a hundred years ago when a man died and was cremated his widow was expected to throw herself on the fire and burn with him. This was outlawed by one of the prime ministers, but when he died, his wife threw herself on the fire! So, it took awhile longer before they got the law firmly in the books.

Nepal used to be a kingdom right up until the beginning of this century. The nine members of the royal family of Nepal were killed on Friday June 1^st, 2001, by the crown prince, apparently over the family's unhappiness over his choice of a bride. He died later the same day, of an apparently self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, although people wonder how a right handed man shoots himself in the left side of the head. (See not only Americans can have conspiracy theories!).

And last but certainly not least, Peter and I got into a good discussion a few days back about the garbage and pollution in the 3^rd world.

Not long ago, 3^rd world countries wrapped up things in materials from their surroundings, like banana leaves, or with vines and the like, and those things were biodegradable. But then the 1^st world introduced them to the marvels of plastic. Unfortunately it's not biodegradable and the countries do not have the infrastructure to deal with all of this plastic. Large containers can be reused to carry water, and in fact, all through Africa, when our truck stopped somewhere, women and children would ask us for large plastic bottles to carry their water from their sources to their houses. The small bottles, however, just get thrown away and can be seen all over the world in ditches, fields, swamps, everywhere. It is a worldwide poverty problem. A large number of these bottles are used by tourists, for safe drinking water on walks, hikes, treks and they discard them everywhere.

Perhaps if they put a deposit on the bottles the poor, or the 'untouchables' would clean up the country overnight. But then the government would have invest in some way to recycle the bottles.

This needs to be a major focus of the 1^st world countries. We caused the problem, maybe we should be part of the solution – we've done it to them. I saw lots of signs of wells in Africa that the western countries have dug in order to give people a chance to get drinking water. Perhaps, we need to also focus on a means of dealing with all of the plastic waste.