It was the final day of Tihar, and the auspicious time for this day’s main celebration was around 11.50 so when the Gentleman Friend, tired and unwell, finally woke and we left for breakfast there was almost no breakfast to be found. Eventually we made our way to the French Bakery (where I had the stupendous sandwich a week or two ago) and nipped in just before they closed the shutters like a scene from a horror movie. I can confirm that the only French thing about the place, as far as I can tell, is that when they placed ‘milk tea’ on the menu they meant it to be ‘tepid and diluted milk foam with a couple of tea bags bobbing on the surface’ rather than what the rest of Nepal considers milk tea. We waited about 10 minute and the colour darkened from white to a very pale beige, the colour of singed cream. In an almost unprecedented fit of outrage I sent it back and they came back with masala tea which was slightly better though still not great. Anyway we had our breakfast and then strolled down to the Kathmandu Durbar Square where we looked at the buildings and sights we’d previously missed. The brochure was from before the earthquake so several of the temples were literal piles of brick and rubble, but we examined the Hanuman statue to the best of our ability (as it was swatched in fabric), looked at the erotic roof trusses on the Jagannath temple, and walked through the very sacred and rather lovely Ganesh temple.
Because of the holiday very little was open, primarily barbers and bakeries so far as I could tell, so the streets were pleasant to walk through. However, there were plenty of women selling offerings, including marigold garlands and the garlands made of a vivid purple ball-shaped flower that when first spotting I had thought was artificial.
Then we walked down to Freak Street, the areas just south of the Durbar Square where the Hippy Trail once ended. It passed through Pakistan as well, and is well remembered by those of a certain age and class, but here of course its spirit was much more alive as the hippies didn’t really stop coming, they just changed. Everything was closed so the streets were quiet but we went to the fabled Snowman Cafe and had one of the best apple juices I’ve had in recent memory, as it was spiked with lime juice. The remnants of the photography exhibition from a few weeks ago were still there, with photos from the freak days hung up around a couple of derelict plots of land, including one rather fine lot of photos of a German and notorious Newari ‘hippini’ whose family would cross the street rather than admit they knew her.
We took a rather winding way back through empty alleys and courtyards, piled with rubbish most of which was, at least, marigolds, and hung with lights. The plates of food offering on the ground aren’t pleasant after they’ve been kicked around and left to rot, but better than piles of plastic waste, I daresay, at least it eventually goes away and contributes something good to the soil.
The GF was exhausted by now so we returned to the room where I read and he watched a film, and then we went downstairs to meet the rest of his hiking group for a final dinner. They were a very nice bunch: three Indian men (one Indian woman had had altitude sickness and left early); one other English fellow, and an Austrian. I was particularly taken with the Austrian, a man rather like a St Bernard, very open and kind seeming, and with the Indian who had organised the hike, who seemed sharp and bright but also very relaxed and genuine. He asked me if Pakistanis, Urdu speakers as they are, can read Hindi, as he wanted to send a letter to someone, and it was with some regret that I had to say no; I only learned what I have learned a few months ago.
The rest of them leave on Saturday morning, and the GF and I also depart for our Airbnb, so it all ends.
Today it was four years since my mother’s death.