It’s been too long.

Oh Kathmandu, it’s been too long. But let’s not linger on the challenges of the last few years. For now I’m here.

And I’ve had a hiccup on the camera front, so no photos this time.

Has it changed? The pandemonium of the arrivals hall up at Kathmandu airport hasn’t changed. The traffic mayhem is, if anything, even worse. The only way I can cross the busiest roads is to find someone else looking to cross, tuck in behind them and follow as they weave through lines of traffic. (And especial thanks to the young man who spotted me looking hopeless and steered me across the road like an old person. Without him I might still be there). The air is so thick with diesel I could taste it.

The welcome in my hotel is just as warm. The pomelo tree in their lovely courtyard, set back from the chaos, gives a dappled shade: my refuge from the streets.

But there are changes. The earthquake in 2015 did such damage here; while most ancient temples have been repaired many buildings collapsed completely and new structures have emerged. A new temple is being built where a school once stood. Swanky new hotels rise, incongruously, in the ancient streets of Thamel.

It is obligatory to get lost in Thamel - which is how I stumbled on the garden behind the Museum of Nepali Art. There js a cafe in one corner, and I sat under a jacaranda tree with my coffee. The frangipani will smell sweetly in the evening. It is mercifully quiet.

The rest of the space is divided into quarters. At one edge, a small plaque with a quote from Rumi: ‘Somewhere beyond right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there’. I wander on. Not a blade of grass is out of place; such a contrast to the chaos of the streets outside. There is a large, bronze vajra (it is a religious symbol. If I’d taken time to google I could tell you more). And some fibreglass statues - a reclining woman, an androgynous man. I’m trying to find a word other than peaceful to describe it, but for now that will have to do.

Surrounding the garden is a hotel, small shops and spa. Along one wall there is a series of photographs that tell the story of this space. Before the earthquake, this had been an unremarkable courtyard alongside a hotel. In 2015, within minutes, the site was destroyed. Nothing but a sea of rubble. Buildings alongside at risk of total collapse.

I don’t know who took the decision, but this rubble was cleared and the garden planted in only three months. There is a photograph of the gang of workers, dusty and disheveled and rightly pleased with themselves. I know that there were still people living in tents at the time (I visited and saw them), and you could argue that homes could have taken priority. But the men and women who survived the trauma of the earthquake and rebuilt Nepal also needed a restorative space; and here it is. I love it even more now.

A welcome in Kathmandu

The plan, in coming to Nepal, was to spend some quiet time recuperating from the events of last year. Maybe I should know better than to think life here could be quiet. So much has happened in this first week I can’t condense it into one post, and so I’ll give you snippets, and then more snippets when I get home.

The airport in Kathmandu no longer alarms me. To be fair, the airport itself has never alarmed me, and the computerised visa system now makes the arrivals process significantly easier and quicker. No, it is the landing, in the mountains, which had been a bit breath-holding. One minute you think you are several hundred feet above the ground and then, a quick circle with mountains crowding on all sides, and you’re down. (It’s still alarming if it’s windy!)

But I hadn’t expected all the Nepalis on the plane to stand up and put coats on. I’ve been here in January before, and know it can be chilly in the evening, but this time it was actually cold. Not England-cold, not the raw, bone-eating cold of home, but still cold. And cold enough for poor people without warm clothes to die in Nepal this winter. So, I tell myself, put your fleece back on and stop grumbling.

Besides, after the usual preliminaries at the hotel I was invited to join the group of young men cooking potatoes on a fire in the courtyard. We sat close enough to get hot knees. The flames fizzed and crackled, smoke wafted into the night sky, and the potatoes were delicious. Welcome, I thought, to Nepal.

I had just one full day in Kathmandu. I wandered out in the morning, armed with a map and the sun in the south. So how did I get so lost, so often? Yet each time I ended up on a street corner, clearly bewildered, someone took my trusty map and relocated me. Each time I’d set off again, with confidence, only to get lost again. (Once a lad was sent to run after me, as I’d taken the wrong turning within half a minute of leaving the man who had sorted me out!). 

I’m rarely fazed by being lost. And it matters not one jot in Kathmandu - the streets are teeming with people and motorbikes and cars, small shops spill their wares onto the pavements, the air is so thick with diesel you can taste it, icons at the roadside exude wafts of incense, there are potholes and storm drains and the occasional dog - but the Nepalese are unfailingly kind and generous. If I had to choose one city in the world to get lost in, it would be Kathmandu!

By the time I get to Kathmandu ...

By the time I get to Kathmandu you’ll be having your Tuesday lunch ... yes, it’s that time of year again.

I’m packing. As a process it doesn’t faze me - I just gather everything I need and tuck it into my suitcase. (What? No rucksack? Sadly my knees have, finally, rebelled at being asked to carry a quarter of my body weight on my back. And so I’ve found a lovely wheelie suitcase with plenty of pockets and I am beginning to forgive it for not being a rucksack.)

But packing is so much more than just shoving things into a suitcase. It comes with that tingly feeling that precedes every trip. Even returning to somewhere I know and love, like Nepal, it is impossible to predict what might happen. 

Last time I visited just after the earthquake. There was devastation everywhere, but almost no tourists. How much has been rebuilt? Have the tourists returned? What has been built to lure them? I know that Pokhara now boasts the longest zip line in the world (a drop of 600m over 1.8km) ... shall I?

Last time I had too close an encounter with a crocodile. The time before that it was a tiger. Is it time to settle by the riverside and steer clear of the wildlife?

Last time Tika’s children were aged 6 and 14. Is the little boy too big for balloons now?

I know I need some recuperative time after the challenges of last year. And I know the country well enough to be sure I can find some restful places. I also know that it is full of the unexpected - and  to go with too many plans means I miss the opportunities that might leap out at me (metaphorically - I don’t need leaping tigers!)

These are the sort of mumblings that accompany my packing. It is a glorious dialogue between the familiarity of last-minute preparations and possibilities that lie ahead. 

Enjoy your Tuesday lunch. While I unpack in Kathmandu.

In four days ...

I'm heading back to Nepal.

No, I've not packed. But I have done a lot of thinking.

As you know, I have friends there and have been asked to help promote Nepal's tourism industry. It has been floundering since the earthquake. Bookings are down. Too many hotels are empty; too many restaurants quiet. Mountain guides stand around and look at maps. Yet these are hardworking people, trying to rebuild a country. For that they need money - the sort of money that tourists can bring.

I've had several people ask what they can do to help. I've had a generous donation (Tika will help find a home for that) but not everyone has money to spare. I've been given goodies to squash in my suitcase to take up to villages in the mountains (Tika will help carry them).

But the thing I really need help with is the promoting-tourism bit. I've no training in marketing. Efforts to sell my own books are a bit hit and miss. But this time the marketing matters - and I haven't the faintest idea how to do it.

At the moment, I don't even know exactly where I'll be going (Tika will ...). All I know is that I shall write about what I find - and that the writing will be slanted towards encouraging other people to visit. No doubt I'll spend time with friends, but that will not be the story. No doubt I'll sit by the lake in Pokhara and ponder, but that will not be the story. I hope I climb to the tiny coffee plantation, on the path towards Begnas Lake, to drink some of the best coffee in the world - that will only be part of the story if the lack of tourists is affecting the family.

And so please, my loyal blog-followers, can you help with the promoting-thing. If you think I'm missing something, or should emphasise something else, tell me. Ask questions (I'll have internet connections, at least some of the time). Bang on about it on Twitter and Facebook. If people get irritated that's fine - as long as they get the message.

Nepal is open for business. And it's still beautiful.

Photos from Nepal.

Just a few photos from Nepal, to tempt you. On the left - the mighty Machhupuchhere - the mountain that looms over Pokhara. It has never been climbed - successfully. After a number of deaths, the government now refuses to allow anyone to even try. And maybe it's right that there are mountains that are simply too difficult to climb.

Overawed by the wonderful mountains (and who isn't) you can always retreat to a temple. Which is rarely a peaceful, contemplative place - rather the focus of people coming and going, connecting with god with a tinkle on the bell and the sloshing of holy powder, and then getting on with the day. This temple is in Durbur Square, in Kathmandu.

Though Kathmandu, needless to say, is a hectic city outside its temple corners. This is just one busy street. Miraculously this picture doesn't include a motorbike! Nor someone pushing a bike laden with vegetables. Nor a little man trying to sell chess sets and tiger balm.

Outside Kathmandu - this is what you are more likely to see.

There are a few more pictures on my website, here. Enjoy!

Coming home

Two days ago I was whizzing through the streets of Kathmandu on the back of a motorbike. And now I'm back in Wiltshire. It takes a while to make sense of such transitions.

Kathmandu - it sounds exotic, doesn't it? It is, in truth, a smog-ridden city - and I love it. The narrow streets are littered with potholes, lined with stalls and tiny shops selling everything from incense to saris to plastic buckets. Dogs sniff in corners. There's the occasional cow. People, taxis, rickshaws, bicycles, even buses - as well as animals - compete for all available space. Horns toot incessantly - as if anyone needs a reminder of the traffic behind them. The air smells of fumes from countless chugging generators (power cuts are endless at this time of year) and passing pongs from the river. Thank goodness for temples and the whiffs of incense. Secrets lurk in every corner.

No temples in my little market town. With its elegant shops selling tailored dresses, its bookshop (books are priced out of the reach of most Nepalis), and respectable supermarket. The busker playing 'Moon River' - easily heard above the drone of traffic. Crossing the road is simple - traffic generally stays on the left. We have the occasional pothole, but nothing that might unseat an unwary cyclist. I do not need to swerve into the road to avoid a cow, nor a stall that spills its wares hopefully all over the pavement. The air is sweetly clean after the rain.

I have jetlag, of course. But the transition is more than just jetlag. It is the struggle to accommodate the reality of both places, to find a way of understand them both without putting them in boxes - Kathmandu is There, and now I am Here. It is a strange misplacement - part of the process of coming home.

I'll get back into my blogging stride soon. Meanwhile - please bear with me. And if anyone has ideas on how to accommodate transitions, I'd love to hear them.

While I'm away.

I'm off again - for a month, this time. To the mountains of Nepal.

I could have written blogs to cover my absence, organised them to come out regularly, so you'd barely notice I was away. Twice a week you could read my passing thoughts on writing, and reading, and general observations about plumbers.

But I haven't. Why - because it seems a bit disingenuous to be blogging as if I were here when I fact I'm up a mountain somewhere. The reality is - I will not here. I will not even pretend to be here. I've gone walkabout, because that's what I want to do.

Plus - I hope to connect from time to time. Tell you what I'm up to. Remind you how beautiful Nepal is, how wonderful her people. After all, blogging is my way of keeping in touch with everyone at home.

So there will be unreliable posts, from expected places. I understand from my Lonely Planet that wi-fi is easily available in Kathmandu and Pokhara now, but I suspect I shall still be at the mercy of power cuts. And I might just creep off the beaten track occasionally and be out of wi-fi range.

So - I'll blog when I can. Though probably without photographs - those will wait until I get home and I can organise them on the website. So you'll have to take my word for it that the Himalayas are huge - and stunningly beautiful. With snow on the top that turns purple at sunset. That the lake in Pokhara shimmers in the slightest breeze. That the temples of Lumbini are mysteriously peaceful. And the elephants ...

My head is already there. It's time for my body to follow.