Waiting for Festivities to Start !!

Late August 2006

So things have started to heat up now. We were somehow biding out time, before we went to Kathmandu. Actually for Naveen, this would have been first opportunity of Air travel. Infact I myself flew for the first time in February of 2006 itself. But till this time I had already made 3 trips ‘by air’, all to Mumbai for business.

Flying for middle class was not as easy as it is today. Before the low cost carriers like Air Deccan, Spice Jet , and others started their operations few years back, flying was almost out of reach for average Indian, barring people who flew on company business or who got travel reimbursements from their employers. A two way Delhi-Mumbai ticket used to cost anything in range of Rs.10, 000 (USD 225), however that figure has come down to Rs.5,000 (USD 115). This has brought Air Travel in reaches of middle class families.

Coming to the buildup to Kathmandu, preparations were on in full swing, we were discussing about the trip with anyone we can get hold of. Collecting a lot of information about currency, prices, casinos, nightlife, bike rental, trip to Pokhara. Infact we were waiting for October to come, as from September end the festival season would have started, triggering a whole lot of festivities. Navratri , Durga Puja, Dussehra, Dhanteras, Bhai Doooj, Ramzan, Id-ul-fitar, Guru Purab, Diwali and many more. You can check this list of Public Holidays in India to realize how much we celebrate ;-).

So more than a dozen festivals thrown in 40 days time, add to that 1 billion people, with a growing economy, and you can imagine the kind of time we have in that period. So we were waiting for second half of September, as next 30-40 days would be filled with excitement after that period within a week we will be headed to Kathmandu.

Nepal - How it started ?

Second Half of July 2006

For last couple of months Kathmandu was repeatedly coming up in conversations with friends. It was discussed that people from Delhi and other parts on India go there to party and have fun; they go on a Saturday, spend a lot of time in casinos and would return on Sunday. Even though it all sounded very glamorous and I was tempted by all this, however it seemed quite out of reach and I never really thought of going due to various reasons.

However in middle of July 2006, I happened to visit Dalhousie and Khajiyar (Himalayas), for a 3 day break, more on that later. After returning from there I was discussing the experiences and other details with my friend, Naveen. He got very excited and was looking for a escapade for himself as well. Couple of days later he showed me the package tours that were being advertised in newspapers, I do not recall them exactly, but they were like Rs.10,000 – 11,000 (USD 225) per person, including airfare and 3 day 4 night accommodation is 4/5 Star hotels. The package sounded pretty decent, however all of them had validity till September and we planned to go there after Diwali. So we decided to get the tickets done for early November (3^rd – 8^th), which cost us Rs. 6,000 each (USD 140) Delhi – Kathmandu – Delhi on Indian Airlines, now known as Indian.

After that started my research on Internet. That was first time I used internet to gather information about a place that I was visiting (Even though I am hooked to WWW for more that 12 years now). There was lot of information available on the internet, but that was from western tourists and their perspective. On the basis of the same we decided that we will also visit Pokhara, as according to most of the travelers it was a beautiful place.

There were couple of more people who wanted to come with us and got their tickets booked, but after that got them canceled due to individual problems. So started the hotel inquiries, we wanted a decent place to stay, range was never a major constraint, but we wanted to try our options. A special mention to currency difference (INR 1 = NPR 1.6). In the process I stumbled on Annapurna Guest House, Thamel, Kathmandu. There was not much information available on this one on TripAdvisor, VirtualTourist or other websites, however the rates that were mentioned on the site (http://www.annapurnaguesthouse.com) seemed reasonable enough (literally cheap). However since there was not much information available on the internet, I decided to send a mail asking for the best rates and availability. Infact I had sent mails to some other reasonable hotels; however I got a response from Mr. Manjit Thapa, owner of Annapurna Guest House. He sent me all the details, with rates in INR and also offered free pickup from the airport.

In following days, I exchanged a few more mails with Manjit, he gave a good discount to me, and we booked our room in Annapurna Guest House, Thamel. We paid around INR 400 (below USD 10) per day for a double room. I have always believed that service provider who is prompt in answering his mails can be relied upon. And this time I was proven right and how (more on this later).

Over here a special mention to a primary difference I have noticed between Western and Indian traveler. Most of the western travelers (few backpackers might be an exception) give high importance to getting a hotel booked in advance. They try to get the hotels booked along with the tickets, however generally Indians do not get them booked in advance. We prefer to go to the place first, physically see the hotel, negotiate and then decide. I am not sure how right I am in this assessment; maybe your comments can throw some light.

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings (LOTR), the trilogy is listed everywhere among the all-time top 20 movies. However I never had a 'real' chance to watch them. I have watched the 1st and 3rd one, however at that time I was not familiar with American Accent, and ended up with little understanding of the movie, that there was an evil ring and Frodo (Elijah Wood) was supposed to carry it to the evil city and destroy it. And others Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), & Legolas (Orlando Bloom) were the ones who were the good guys and supported him. Other than that I enjoyed the extravagant war sequences and special effects.

However I always thought that there must be something special about these series and that is the reason so many people actually love it, and now that my understanding of foreign accented English has improved, I wanted to see all of them again, but never got a chance. In fact I got all three movies on DVD (Extended Editions), however was not able to watch them.

Yesterday being Sunday, and nothing major to do, I thought "today was the day". So I sat through entire day and watched the entire series again, yes the entire 12 hours of it. And was I glued to it !! even though I found them a tad lengthy (but maybe that is the reason they are "Extended Editions" and were not released in theaters) but I loved them. Specially the story, as it was something very new for me, I am sure that 95 % or above Indians, have never heard about LOTR or J.R.R. Tolkien, and that is the reason we are not familiar with elves, orcs, hobbits and all.

There might be another reason, because our history is full with huge epics and mythologies, two of the most important ones being Ramayana & Mahabharata. So LOTR might be the work that gets closest to Mahabharata in terms of scale and proportions, however latter was written thousands of years back and is still among the lengthiest piece of writings. Other then scale there are other similarities like good versus evil theme, however there is a major difference, and I believe this difference is due to religion and cultures. LOTR is work of west, which is being dominated by Christianity, and Mahabharata is an Indian tale, in fact it would be more appropriate to say that its a Hindu tale. Even though I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on this, but I still feel that Christianity is Black & white religion, either you have good OR evil, however Hinduism is bit different in this regard. We have a lot of Grey. That is why Mahabharata is so different, there is always a conflict in minds of characters, more from the point of Dharma VS Karma. The story of Mahabharata is far more complicated, huge in scale & humane in nature.

But lets not get drawn from LOTR for the time being, I immensely enjoyed the movies, specially the fact that special effects and great artwork, never took over the actors. They were brilliant in there roles. Peter Jackson despite the scale, always had a grip on the story and didn't let it all fall apart, which was a major possibility in a work of such proportions. In fact they excelled in almost all the departments like screenplay, make-up, background score etc.

I really hope that I again get a good Sunday to myself and I can watch the trilogy again ;-) !!