At the time when Nick and I were at Nepal (early april 2006). The country was in the throes of a civil war. The troubles began in early June 2001, the royal family of Nepal suffered a terrble tragedy when the prince apparently massacared the entire royal family members. The successive king, King Gyanendra, who took over, was extremely unpopular and his government was blighted by corruption. The rouge communist group, called 'The Maoist', began to gain the support of masses and the tension between the ruling party, The Maoist and the citizens of Nepal escalated into the civil war at the time when we were present. The civil war would come to an truce in mid 2006 after King Gyanendra announced that he would step down in the future.
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Day 2: Kathmandu 180306
It was a chilly morning. I always liked the feeling of blowing into the chilly air, looking my breath condense into smoke.
Dharma, Nick and me set off in high spirits for our bus trip to Pokhara, a town that is about 6 hour bus ride from Kathmandu.
On the bus enroute to Pokhara, we saw a cute wide eye nepalese teen selling crackers. The women of Nepal are beautiful, very much like their 'Ms Universe winning' north indian counterparts.
The bus came to halt, a pit stop to pee by the roadside, army style. But it turned to an hour long halt. In the end the bus had to turn back due to maoist rebels fighting just outside of kathmandu valley. Kathmandu was under siege; the maoist rebels had choked up all the major inroads to the capital. No one was allowed to come in or out of the capital.
So we went back to our hostel but we did not want to give up going to Pokhara. Decided to try to take the same tourist bus to Pokhara the next day and hope the fighting would ease up. Although the outskirts of the capital was blighted by fighting, the capital itself was pretty peaceful. So, for the rest of the day though, we decided to take a tour around Kathmandu city.
In the early afternoon, we went to the 'Monkey Temple'. It is a buddist temple in a country where 90% of the inhabitants are hindus or buddist. Even amongst the two religion, the lines are pretty undefined because of their similarities and the nepalese culture had integrated them somewhat.
Nick and I was pestered by noisy kids to take pictures. I think the digital camera technology fascinated them quite a bit.
Next we visited the Pashupati Nath Temple. It is the grandest hindu temple in Nepal and not only it feels like a religious site, it feels like a weekend hangout place for the nepalese. We saw lovers and friends chilling out under the shady trees of the big temple, Shardus (hindu holy men) meditating and best of all, an odd spectacle; public cremation of people of high social status or holy men.
Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, is grossly under developed. Like rural china 20 years ago. Mud tracks and roads. But the citizens are happy and peaceful. They experienced 5 hrs of electricity rationing daily since beginning of the year due to poor rainfall, affecting hydro power. And at the time of writing, fluctuating prices of food and water due to the civil war; fresh products are sometimes prevented from coming into the city due to the maoist sabotaging the land trade routes.
At night, Dharma invited us to his house for dinner. We took local bus transport to Dharma's house. Automation has not arrived in this country yet. The tickets were brought by negotiating with a guy standing at the door of the bus.
It was a good dinner at Dharma's. Nice family of 3; Mr Dharma, Mrs Dharma and their son Vidjya. 'Sakti', Mrs Dharma's cute sister, who looked around 20 years old, joined us after dinner. I did a nice magic show, everyone had fun. Mrs Dharma did not look very happy though, she was quite wary of my magic. Probably thought I had some 'dark' powers, or maybe she was just not happy that my face was red from the whiskey. 
The TV was playing a local drama which consists mainly of slow motion eye staring shots, ala bad Kill Bill clone. Over food and TV, we found out that it costed them RS 1000 (Nepal Rupees), about SGD 22 (Singapore dollars or USD 14 rent for the small university dormitorio like room they are living at. Daily living expenses for the family is around RS 300-500, less than SGD10.
A week for Nepali starts on sunday, normally 6 working days, saturday rest. Almost all the kids go to school. The education system is similar to America.
We had a very full dinner of baked beans, rice and chilli beans. Took a taxi back to hotel. There was no electricity again. Nick and I slept once again under the romantic candle lights.
I prayed hard that the bus could go to Pokhara the next day.
