My Day 1

KE flight 695 from Seoul did touch down and we all filed into the Tribhuvan International airport to get our visas, pay our fees, collect our bags and meet our welcome party which included Rob and RR Pandey! Pradeep from Everest Tours was kind enough to meet us and shepherd us along the queue. The ride into town must have been wild to our new guests, new to the madness of Kathmandu road driving or must I say organized jockeying of buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians and all sorts of motor vehicles owning the portion of the road they can manage to inch their way through to get to their destinations.

I figured they can marvel at the organized chaos, the seemingly strange way drivers communicate with each other to avoid any more delay that a fender bender can add to their already laborious commute. Or like me, I just let the driving stay with the driver and gasp quietly as we travel along.

We got to visit Kathmandu Durbar Square first and be part of the living museum of 16Th century palace grounds overridden by the passage of time. We saw the Kumari, the living goddess still worshipped to today during her festival. The merchants remain peddling their wares, striking a weary look to the tourists who need to check it out before saying, “Cha Hai Daina” meaning, “No, I don’t need it!”

Shopping will be relegated to Thamel where we can haggle and compare merchandise. For now we follow our guide, Mitra who can do this tour with his eyes closed, He’s been our guide to the volunteers and guests we have brought over year after year! He is proud of his country and at the same time aware of the failings of a government, the failings of the opposition parties and the failings of a people to rise up and demand their democracy because they have been a people of hope, of peace, of calm and of quiet suffering. There is something that runs very deep in this culture that will take years or decades to peel off. The fact that their freedoms were never taken away from them by a colonizer makes it harder to determine who the enemy really is.

I digress. The palace square was fascinating! After all, where in the world can you see 16th century architecture as it stood then, a testament to a kingdom on the top of the world that once ruled a people that believed in the notion that a King protects, guides, honors his people and strives to make his kingdom the most powerful one in their land! A kingdom no more today as all kingdoms have gone to make way for the people to rule themselves.