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Shopping only allowed between 5am and 7am, they say. Nah, I reply. There must be time to shop in the evening too. Who the heck is up and out at 5am?

Pre-Asia, I worked for an exhibition organiser. The company, and I, were based in Edinburgh but our exhibitions were held in Glasgow. For each exhibition there would be a team of around six of us from the Edinburgh office on-site in Glasgow every day for approximately 10 days. Those higher paid sales personnel and management would stay in a hotel in Glasgow, while us lowly secretaries would take advantage of the great daily expenses rate.  And rather than spend it on a hotel room, would travel in every day. I would be up at 4am to get the 5.15am bus to the train station in time to catch the 6am train, arriving in Glasgow around 7am. Then a short taxi ride would get us on-site before 8am when the doors opened for exhibitors. A 5am walk through the dark to the bus stop.

Around about the same time I took a coach, along with a friend, from Edinburgh to Calais, France for the day. At that time many people crossed over the Channel into France to take advantage of the cheaper wine and other items. An organised ‘bus tour’ was common. And pretty exciting back then! We left on a Friday evening in time to catch an early morning ferry over to France. As we were not interested in the mega hypermarkets, on arrival in Calais, which is mainly a port town, we took a train to Bologna, which is much more ‘authentically’ French. We slept back in Calais with the rest of the group in some ship’s bow shaped hotel.  Extremely thankful to finally lie in a bed that was not moving before being up and out around 5am for the ferry again and long Sunday drive back to Scotland. Two 5am ferry boardings.

Fast forward a decade to Bardia National Park where I was partner in a safari lodge. Getting up at 4am was a regular thing to ensure breakfast would be ready for the guests at 5am so they could be at the park gate for the 6am opening. Foggy and cold in the winter, steamy and hot in the summer, those 4am starts were hard work.  

That brings me up to Kathmandu. I wish I could talk about being energized by sunrises over the Himalayas but in general those early morning sunrises in the hills, gazing at mountains, were mainly followed closely by going back to bed. No, from Kathmandu most of my early morning forays have been when travelling back to Scotland, for I would rather go on an early flight, and trips to more tropical places.

I think the last pre-5am out and about was in Bangkok for an early morning flight to Koh Lipe. I remember that in the airport’s domestic terminal, nothing was open that early. At the other end of the flight, there was a bit of a wait before the first taxi van heading to the docks for the first ferry to the island. Another early morning fly-drive-ferry ride.

But probably the most memorable 5am wanderings have been to watch sunrise over Ankor Wat in Cambodia. I have done this twice although have been to the Ankor complex a good few times. Perhaps I have been in the Himalayas too long to fully appreciate the majesty of the mountains in the morning. But an early morning tuk-tuk ride to see sunrise over Ankor has tourist me gawking in awe the same way tourists to Nepal gaze at the mountains. 

So yes, there have been a handful of times I have been out and about with a purpose at 5am (and we won’t mention arriving home at 5am after an Edinburgh night out). But I’m not yet, at the time of writing anyway, ready to experience sunrise over Lazimpat while waiting in line at the veggie shop.  

About three weeks ago the editor of this publication commented that I seemed to be running out of ideas to write about. Like many writers, I suffer occasionally from ‘writer’s block’ but this ‘running out of ideas’ is more than that. It is a reflection of the state of the world where on the one hand, politicians and health experts are struggling not to ‘run out of ideas’ as how best to tackle COVID-19 and on the other, the rest of us are struggling to find ideas to fill our time at home. Or, for those who have returned to work, find ways to ensure that the daily commute does not include bringing the virus back home. 

For those of us who are following the rules, or the rules of common-sense, there is no going for nights out or afternoon parties.  No art gallery openings; no launching of new products; no plays/concerts/films to review. So yes, I am running out of ideas. The world too has run out of non-essential practises and events such as the International Edinburgh Festival, Oktoberfest in Munich, and even reality TV. I am merely a reflection of that.  Having already written* about what you and your kids can do during lockdown, where you can buy food on-line, what recipes you can create with those same home-delivered products, and letting you know what hoteliers believe the short and long term scenario will be (and don’t get me started on that 2020 dead horse named tourism!), it is indeed hard to come up with new topics. New topics when my whole world for the past five months has been basically two rooms and a screen!  As I am sure yours has been too.

I was in much dismay to see that when Nepal opened up a couple of weeks ago, all caution was thrown to the wind.  I watched dumbfounded, as people I know headed to bars in and around Thamel and participated in traditional festivals, which involved hundreds of people.  I can understand the peer pressure to go out, but cannot understand the lack of sense of civic responsibility that enables people to participate in events without any attempt to physically distance or even wear a mask.  Ah the mask!  This is a country, particularly in Kathmandu, where we wear a mask a great deal of the time to protect ourselves from pollution. Is it because we can see and feel pollution or is it that no one is telling us to wear a mask against that filthy smog that we feel we can don that piece of fabric to protect ourselves?  Yet now we seem unable to wear the same mask to protect both ourselves and others.  The whole mask debate around the world bewilders me completely. Such a simple thing, with such a huge impact on our personal health and the health of our family and community. 

Leaving the anti-maskers aside, because you might as well tell me there are purple people living on the moon – it makes that much sense to me – and leaving aside the whole political and medical side to COVID-19 -  because I am not qualified to voice an  opinion publicly – there is very little left to talk/write about!

So I sit here, behind my screen, watching otherwise quite sensible people act like lemmings jumping off the metaphorical cliff. Even countries like my own, Scotland, where there is a strong (female) leader in charge and a new set of rules to follow almost weekly in the loosening and opening up of the country, the lemmings just keep on racing towards the cliff top. I want to scream and shout and punch quite a number of these careless lemmings but then I also have a civic responsibility not to cause physical harm.

Yes indeed the editor is right, it is getting pretty hard to remain positive and write like before, as nothing is like it was before.  And after five months of staring at four walls, it has finally dawned on me that nothing will ever be the same again.

*See my lockdown stories https://theannapurnaexpress.com/author/6 

If you are like me and been quarantined or self-isolating at home and you live alone you will not have felt human touch for over four months! Who would have thought that even possible unless they were marooned on a desert island! And like me you are probably horrified when venturing out to see people shaking hands in the street. This shaking of hands, being a formal gesture, indicates these people are not living in the same household. So why are you touching each other unnecessarily?

Shaking hands has become widespread throughout the world as a sign of greeting and of sealing a deal. But where did it originate? Some scholars put the origin back in the fifth century BC, apparently to show neither person was holding any weapons with the intention of attacking the other. A sign of goodwill and peace.  

There are some countries that uphold other methods of greetings. Thailand, Japan, India and Nepal still often opt for the more traditional greeting of placing two hands together with a slight bow. A deeper bow for senior and/or respected persons. Yes, all over the world correct etiquette can be confusing. Should you start with the oldest person in the room? Probably yes, to be on the safe side.  Should a man shake a woman’s hand? In some countries only if she offers hers first, so hold back guys! Should I give a firm grip or a weak one? In some countries a firm grip is considered rude yet in others a limp handshake is considered as a sign of being ‘weak’ and offering a half-hearted greeting. Is very confusing. There are even classes for business people entering different cultures on how they should act.

But, overall, the handshake has taken the world by storm. Here in Nepal you rarely saw handshakes in the past. The Namaskar gesture was traditional, simple and need I say, hygienic. But somewhere over the past few decades the handshake has become the modus operandi of doing business in Nepal too. Not just business, it has crept into daily greetings between friends also. The hug and kiss on the cheek has also made its way into Nepali society, particularly in the younger generations.

Growing up in Scotland we did not hug and kiss friends when we met. Today still I don’t hug or kiss British friends unless for a celebration or a long separation. It’s just not British! Well at least not among my and my parents’ generation. I do confess to (pre-2020) kissing the cheek of European friends. When in Rome and all that.

In these days of Covid-19 the world has switched to a ‘Namaskar’ or ‘Wai’ greeting.  For obvious reasons. So why then am I seeing people, mostly men, still shaking hands in the streets of Kathmandu? In the first week of lockdown I saw two elderly friends meet and give each other fist bumps. Both laughed raucously, no doubt thinking they were being young and ‘trendy’. Yesterday again, I was very happy to see other men doing the same thing. The laughter was still there though. Seems the fist bump has not quite reached the status of being standard procedure. But those people I feel are the few exceptions.

With social distancing pretty much forgotten and pictures of young people carousing in bars, the handshake is, I’m sure, making its come back. Along with the hugging and kissing. Need I say what it is also probably bringing with it? I shudder.

How about we retain the Namaskar greeting? Grandparents will be very happy, and you won’t offend anyone, quite the opposite actually. What’s more, you will be doing your bit to slow down the possible community spread of Covid-19. 

Namaskar and #staysafe.

If you are a lover of old English literature you might be familiar with ‘The Canterbury Tales’ by Chaucer (1340 to 1400). Chaucer is reportedly the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and the father of English poetry; his most famous work being The Canterbury Tales.  

Relevant to this article is the fact he was the first to coin the phrase ‘each man for himself’. What he meant by this was if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will. Today we are more likely to use the phrase ‘every man for himself’. The meaning has been adapted a bit since Chaucer’s day and now tends to mean, ‘look after your own interests, not others’.

And that is what we are having to do in this 2020—look after our own interests because it appears no one at a higher level is helping us out. Looking at the mistakes made in the UK and the US we can see how the general population were basically told to ‘get on with it’. Which led to many of them into believing it is their constitutional right to do whatever they pleased. For example we see this in the gun laws of the US—where it is written into the Constitution that citizens have the right to bear arms. Of course this was written in the days where the majority of citizens were pioneer farmers living and hunting off the land. Whereas not many live off the land today. Yet this provision has not been repealed.

This seems to have filtered down in current times to it being a ‘right’ to choose not to wear a mask against Covid-19. Even if that mask could protect both the wearer and others. My choice not to protect myself, for whatever reason, potentially impacts the health of others. But using the ‘every man for himself’ policy, that’s just fine and dandy!

In recent news I read that a bus driver in France was killed by three male passengers when he challenged them for refusing to wear a (government mandated) mask. What the heck? We also saw how some took advantage of protests and peaceful demonstrations to loot shops in the US. These are extreme examples of ‘every man for themselves’. Less obvious is the fact some countries, like England, are leaving their citizens to decide for themselves whether in the face of Covid-19 they take a serious stance by socially distancing, wearing a mask, etc. 

In other countries we can see how there has always been a culture of the individual taking care of their immediate family. This in the past included those within the same community. Now with urbanisation, communities are not as strongly linked as they once were. Resulting in every family having to fend for itself. Which is not the best approach in a public health emergency. We can see the success of countries like Scotland (which has taken its public health initiative into its own hands rather than follow Westminster), New Zealand and some other countries where focus has been on the whole, and not the individual. 

While not every country or region resorts to violence under the guise of ‘every man for himself’ some have a history of weak authorities and individuals have always had to fend for themselves. And many areas/communities/families manage quite well like this. Perhaps because it is the culture they have been raised to and so expect nothing more than having to take care of their nearest and dearest. But wouldn’t it be so much better if we all pulled together as one team? Being globally in the same ‘2020 boat’ wouldn’t it be great if we all had equal access to life rafts and had a sensible captain to steer us, rather than having ‘every man for himself’?

Going through some travel sites recently I was drawn to an amazing array of gadgets available for travellers these days. An odd washing machine contraption which takes one t-shirt at a time because “what is hand-washing?”; a tiny vacuum to draw air out of your luggage, so you can fit more in; a sand-less beach mat, because the last thing you want in the beach is, sand… Who even dreams up these things?

Most likely on your ‘must have’ list are a go-pro camera, portable solar panel, or battery to recharge your stuff, laptop/ipad/ tablet, smart phone, GPS, drone, Bluetooth speaker, and a huge amount of cable to go with everything. With that amount of expensive equipment in your bag you might also want some good insurance and a sturdy padlock.   

While spending so much time in the house these past few months, I had a bit of a cleanout of old drawers and found my stash of ‘must have’ travel gadgets from 30 years ago. The year 1990 was when I set off for my year-around world trip. I might not have gotten around the world, but the ‘trip’ is still going.

I had four, what we can call gadgets. One (a camera) snatched from my hands in Indonesia when travelling with my mum around 25 years ago, one currently in daily use, and two found in that dusty drawer.

The one still used daily is a travel alarm clock. It sits by my bed and until the advent of smart phones, came with me on any weekend or longer trip. Made in Germany by Braun, the tiny light and seconds hand do not work anymore. It was a very expensive clock I seem to recall, which I bought in John Lewis in Edinburgh. It used to have a front cover which had a table showing comparable times around the world, but that has long been lost. But 30 years on and still going strong that clock has been worth every penny.

My mother gave me a gift before I left home. When asked what I wanted I chose a pair of binoculars. Japanese, Minolta brand, also not cheap I guess. These were used a lot in various conservation areas and national parks around Asia but were last used from the back row at the Bryan Adams concert in Dasharath Stadium.

My third travel item was something I had anyway, an AWIA walkman, the must-have of everyone in the 80’s! I just checked and yes, it still works. It’s a pretty impressive one with bass, treble and super bass buttons as well as a radio and ability to record. I see it has a belt clip on the back. So I must have looked very cool with that strapped on my waist. My best memory of the walkman is sitting on a train in India watching the country listening to Tracy Chapman. A ‘must do’ of every traveller.

Have you noticed that it is the young folks who are travelling with those other (soft) gadgets? Such as horseshoe pillows on flights, noise-cancelling headphones, travel blanket, sleep mask, travel hair dryer, etc? Whatever happened to the universal sleeping bags, earplugs and (this being my first week out until I realized no one cares at all!) standing under the ceiling fan to style ones hair?

Now like everyone I travel with my phone, which acts as camera and music player. Sometimes I travel with a very small and light laptop. Those wires and having to recharge, and finding the corresponding multi-plug for each country, are such a pain. How do other people handle all that technology, all their gadgets, on the go? 

If you are a regular reader of this paper you will know I used to live in Bardia National Park many moons ago. If you are a Facebook friend of mine you will know I have been struggling to make banana bread without an oven. You might ask, how are the two related?

When in Bardia we also had no oven, no supermarket, and no western food. But over time the cook and I put together a good selection of western menu items and he created an improvised oven. 

During the lockdown period I have been busy cooking using recipes I have searched on the internet. But in the Bardia days we didn’t even have a telephone for the first couple of years and the internet was only found in certain places in Thamel. But I did have a wonderful reference—an old Peace Corps recipe book, which I have just found again this week, under years of accumulated dust! The front cover has long since departed so I do not have a date of print. The back cover states it was printed in Varanasi and distributed by Ratna Book Distributors, Kathmandu, for the princely sum of Rs 50.

The introduction, some of the recipes and presumably the collation of recipes from other Peace Corps Volunteers was done by Walter Martin, Nepal V, based in Salyan. I have tried Googling but have failed to come up with anything on Walter. If you knew him, please get in touch.  

Here is part of what Walter says in his long, and extremely humorous intro:

“Nepali khana doesn’t rank with the world’s great cuisines… Badly prepared it can be revolting… Well done, it can easily be as good as pizza pies, hot dogs and Coke… A bland Volunteer may very well be what he/she eats. Granting the usefulness at times and in certain places, of Kool Aid, powdered milk and Cadburys, when they come to be a steady diet and a substitute for necessities, then all the massala has gone out of your experience in Nepal.  You’ll go back to the Safeway (USA supermarket chain) a little wealthier, but no healthier or wiser than when you came.” Well said, Walter!

I’m not sure when this book was written but I obtained it—and from where I have no idea—in the mid 90’s. With its reference to goat meat worth Rs 10 filling a big pot, I imagine this was probably written during the 80s. Inside, it shows how to make an ‘oven’, how to create local food, and how to recreate Western favorites including sauces, jams, pies and cookies using ingredients found locally. Invaluable, I would say to new volunteers to village Nepal. And to me at that time. And perhaps now if lockdown continues longer.

For those who were following my banana bread fiasco, you might want to know that Lissa Barker’s (of which PCV batch it doesn’t say) oven consists of a dekshi into which a bread or cake pan is placed on top of a tin can. The lid of the dekshi is then weighted down with a stone. Place in a fire—bonfire or kerosene stove—and voila! I know my cook recreated such a thing which was set in the fire which heated water in an old oil drum. Later I bought a cake tin which was manufactured for volunteers and certainly until the mid 2000s you could still buy in Patan. That cake tin was a large donut shape (in German style) creating great cakes on the kerosene or gas burner.

Speaking of cakes—stuffed inside that recipe book I found an old letter from my mother dated October 1997 containing a recipe for yogurt cake. This turned out to be a year-round favorite as yogurt replaces eggs. Eggs, which had an off-season in the Bardia summer heat.  

Recipes from Peace Corp Volunteers around the world can now be found online, including at https://peacecorpslifehacks.tumblr.com/post/129458810961/peace-corps-cookbooks

Bon appetite!

A discussion arose today based on comments out of a quarantine center in Banke. The fear in the center was of snakes. Now while snakes are numerous in the plains of Nepal and yes, people do get bitten every year, there are not as many ‘sightings’ as you may suppose.

I base that on the fact I lived on the boundary of Bardia National Park for five years and probably saw no more than a dozen snakes in that time. Rat snakes to be exact, often found in the grass roofs. We once had a python on the premises. Goodness knows how it got there because they are really not known to travel far. I remember the first time I visited Bardia, I was warned by people living on the border of Chitwan National Park that the snakes in Bardia were extremely dangerous and would chase innocent people down to bite them!  Needless to say I never saw anyone being chased by a snake. In those days (1991) Bardia was pretty remote and very ‘jungly’ even to the people of Chitwan. In fact, in that first visit there was no road from the highway to the Park HQ. Just a long 15km walk through the fields. 

Far from being chased by snakes, I felt it was us who were chasing the locals. The locals were extremely shy to see us, the majority not even speaking Nepali in those days. There was no accommodation aside from Tiger Tops, so we had taken a tent along. Graciously the Park Warden allowed us to camp in the Park HQ premises. He even invited us to dinner.  Interestingly it was venison (deer meat)!

It was four years later that I went to live in Bardia. And was still not chased by snakes! Scarier however were the wild elephants. Living next door to the then King Mahendra Trust, wild elephants were attracted to the female domesticated elephants there. They were also attracted to the rice growing all around us. That first year we were pretty isolated aside from the trust and not very knowledgeable about elephant behavior.

As a result we spent a lot of time lighting fires around the boundary and chasing elephants away. There were a few sleepless but exciting nights! Over time we learned there was nothing of interest for the elephants in our compound; they were simply walking passed to the fields or female elephants next door. We also learned elephants are extremely silent walkers but loud eaters. So ultimately, after that first year, we tended not to get too excited if we heard munching nearby in the night. 

But one day we did have an incident when our guide and guest came face to face with an elephant on the road outside the park. The guest was told to leap into a ditch and out of harm’s way.  Meantime the guide, a local young man, was gouged by the elephant’s tusk.  The guest was an emergency room nurse back home so took control and we got the guide off to Nepalganj hospital. Although there was a lot of blood thankfully there was no major or lasting damage. 

When the guest returned from the hospital later that evening he completely fell apart. His professionalism had kicked in but when all was safe, his natural fright of the close encounter took over. We kept in touch and sometime later received a letter from him. On his return home, his girlfriend gifted him with an elephant head earring. “How did she know?” he commented.  As in those days of no internet he had not told her the story earlier.

So yeah, although I dislike snakes intensely, I have to say they are not hanging around to chase us. But if we are in their territory, which we are more and more these days, it might just be game on! 

I’ve been following the discussion on the ‘Nepal Tourism Think Tank: Into the Future’ Facebook group. I was interested to hear that the Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) was working along with the Ministry of Tourism to look at the possibility of utilizing empty hotels as self-quarantine centers for returning migrant workers, particularly those arriving by flight. With no one being particularly clear on what steps are being taken, I talked to several hotels that I have personal contact with to see if they had been approached in this regard. 

I then read an interesting article at the weekend in another news media that had talked with HAN and established that it is expected that 10,000 hotel rooms would be used for quarantine.  

Earlier I had heard that hoteliers quoted up to Rs 14,000 per room per night. Bearing in mind that 14 (nights of quarantine) x Rs 14,000 would be inconceivable for returning migrant workers, this has been revised downwards and they are now looking at Rs 3,000 for tourist-standard rooms. Meals included. The article I read also mentioned these hotels would probably be in Nagarkot, Dhulikhel, Chitwan, Pokhara, and Bhairahawa. Which somewhat negates my discussions with Kathmandu hoteliers, particularly as none have been approached by HAN in this regard.  

Interestingly, however, one Kathmandu hotel had a call some weeks ago from the army requesting information about their capacity, but with no follow-up. Then about an hour after writing this article there was coverage in yet another media, which included a picture of a well-known hotel in Thamel being made ready for returning migrant workers, one of 47 around the country, seemingly. Quite baffling!

Focusing then on the limited number of hotels I did talk to, 50 percent are temporarily closed now because of Covid-19. One having closed completely in April due to both Covid-19 and the request from the landowner for triple rent. Another is closed at this time because it has a long-term guest with underlying medical issues and two small children living in the hotel so are not willing to take chances. Regarding staff, of the hotels I talked to, 50-80 percent of staff is not working. Even those with guests are running at low capacity. Only one hotel questioned is not paying staff at this time, while the remaining ones are following HAN recommendations on payment to furloughed staff. All mentioned practicing WHO and/or Government of Nepal standards with regards to precautions against Covid-19 transmission.

“Marriott International and WHO/CDC norms are being followed in our hotel,” says Vikram Singh, GM of Aloft Kathmandu Thamel. “Plus we have a doctor checking daily on the staff and our current guests. Our staff are certified from the Marriott Global Source (MGS) and we have more than 200 plus safety guidelines to follow within our We Care Program.” Singh also explained that staff stay in-house on a two week rotation to minimize exposure to anything outside the hotel.

This is also the case in the other hotels: staffs are now staying on-site to reduce risk of transmission to guests. Social distancing and avoidance of all physical contact between staff and guests was also mentioned by all the hotels questioned.

“We are offering our guests room service under strict conditions of no contact. We have written and printed new guidelines for both guests and employees so there is no confusion over procedures,” says Pauline Driard, owner, 3 Rooms by Pauline, Babar Mahal.

While the hotels still operating are providing guests with in-house meals, two of the hotels—Aloft and Noya (in Gairidhara)—are offering take away services (as are a number of other hotels I did not contact). While Aloft is operating through some of the food delivery providers such as Foodmandu, Noya is providing deliveries within its immediate neighborhood. 

All hotels agreed that the biggest challenge is just to keep going in these unprecedented times. They all stress cooperation from landlords and the government is vital to keeping, not just them, but hospitality and tourism in general afloat. “We love Kathmandu and the people so much we felt we could live with the pollution, the traffic, and we even survived the earthquake in 2015,” says Thomas Tingstrup, co-owner of Tings Kathmandu, Lazimpat. “We might even have gotten through the current Covid-19 close-down as we are doing in our Lisbon property, but what we can’t live with are the real estate prices. As a result we were forced to close down Tings Kathmandu in April.”

“We are lucky as our property and land are family owned and they have agreed to waive the rent for time being. On the flip side, have payments due from businesses and individuals who are having a hard time making ends meet, and as a result cannot pay us now,” says Sanju Gurung, Manager, Pacific Guest House, Lainchour. “But we are working on ways to make ourselves sustainable during this time such as creating a kitchen garden.”

Finally, I asked: What does the future hold for tourism in Nepal?

“With the scenario changing moment by moment it is hard to predict how long it will take for the hospitality industry to recover,” say Saugat Adhikari and Pradeep Guragain, joint owners, Bodhi Boutique Hotel, Thamel. “Cleanliness and hygiene need to be a big focus in the future. We now see how important that is,” says Gurung of Pacific Guest House.

Santosh Shah, owner of Noya Hotel, states he feels the local community has a role to play in helping tourism thrive again: “There is strength in unity and an extraordinary opportunity here for us to help each other.” In Singh’s opinion, “tourism and hospitality cannot recover in the next two years unless a vaccine is found. We need to all come together. In Nepal we need more aggressive marketing and plans to reconfigure the product and delivery. This is the new normal.”

Having got no nearer to my objective of discovering exactly what HAN has in mind regarding quarantine facilities for returning migrants, I did get a better picture of how hoteliers are feeling at this time. And this is best summed up by Vikram Singh of Aloft. “The year 2020 is about surviving. Then 2021 and beyond is about reviving."