Nights Out

So I left the last post with implying(clearly stated)that the next post would have an example of why the government putting me down was annoying. I don’t really have any proof of this event so I will do my best to describe the happenings with confusing you as much as possible.

Last Saturday there was a concert at a club called the “1905”. The 1905 is a huge place that serves food and puts on concerts in the middle of Kathmandu, right outside of Thamel. It truly is a classy place. The concert was for a blues festival in Kathmandu which was happening all week long.

First of all, the concert. I must say that the musicians playing were all quite talented, and impressive. There were a few guitarists that could really play some great solos, and some vocalists that could really belt. That being said, it was a blues concert, and I found it strangely odd that by the end of the night there was in fact, no blues. Almost the entire concert was based around a distant distant blues baseline and drum beat, which could barely be heard through a steam rolled pile of rocks(haha rock and roll!!).

This is where the government steps in. 4-5 police offers came strolling in at 12pm..am…whatever it is, and decided to shut the place down. When they initially broke in there were a few things running through my head about why they decided to end the party:

1. They’ve found me!

2. They’ve had enough with this so called “blues” and have decided to teach us all a lesson, either via beating or a nice offbeat quartet rendition of the new Nepal Anthem.

3. Its 12pm and its 2 hours past curfew…whoops.

Either way, the police came in, all serious like, jumped on stage, and had the event organizer tell everyone to go home. The place was packed full of expats and such, so except for a few rowdy people it seemed like it was going to be a pretty orderly exit. The police seemed upset, but it didn’t seem like there was going to be any trouble. Enter the drunk guy.

Some drunk guy decided that enough was enough and that it was time someone showed the police who was boss. He kicked, yelled, pushed, shoved, yelled some more, and fell over a few times, which really did not help whatever view he was trying to express. Lots of shoving and some intensifying time later, I decided to go home. Exciting no?

I went back to that club last night to see a jazz concert. I was not expecting any real jazz but to my surprise the name held up and the main act had a sax, a bass, and a drum set. It was actually pretty damn good, but this time, they decided to end the event on time.

Got to take my first concert photos:

New Nightlife

When I first arrived in Kathmandu the nightlife was actually pretty good. Contrary to popular belief, there were actually a lot of very nice bars in the city which catered to many different kinds of people. If you felt like lounging at a nice bar or pub, there were quite a few to lounge in. If you felt like dancing while you were drinking, there were a few dance clubs that were there to fill your needs. if you felt like drinking while you watched other people who apparently had not acclimatized to the hot weather in the summer months of Kathmandu, and had thus decided to leave their clothes at home, there were plenty of establishments to do that in as well.

Other than the avid beer lover, there seemed to be something in Kathmandu for everyone.

Enter the communists.



Apparently the communists of Nepal skipped that chapter in their manual "Communism and You: Deluding Yourself, One Food Stamp at a Time."

The Maoists have decided that the city is full of filth and it is high time that it was cleaned up, which in itself is a noble goal, and something that honestly should be done. The dance bars attract a lot of bad people, are unregulated, promote people trafficking, and generally make the city look rather sleazy. So, the issue isn't with their goals; it is with their plan to solve the problem, the side effects and there alternative agenda.

Instead of shutting down all the dance bars, sleazy establishments, and drug rings, they have decided to just shut down the city at 9 or 10pm every day. So effectively, as long as you are home for bedtime, you can drink and watch nude people dance to your heart's content. The big problem with this plan is that there are a lot of good places to get a nice drink and some good food late at night. Thamel, the tourist part of town, usually goes all night and has a lot of nice establishments. These places are causing no harm, and help the economy. When you shutdown all of the nice restaurants and stores, you are also taking away income from the taxis, and hitting all late night grocery stores hard. In general it is causing a lot of hardships to business owners, and proving a great inconvenience to people who want to party.

It really is annoying, believe me. Example in the next post.

-TR

Economic Crisis

As most of you well know, the financial crisis/meltdown/doomsday/apocalypse is dominating the news these days.  I can try to get a good idea of what is going on from the TV and Internet but I can’t help but feel like I am not getting the full story and am unable to feel the emotions that my fellow Americans are experiencing.  I honestly feel a bit left out, hung out to dry as they say.  It is kind of like when you’re playing xbox by yourself, and your big brother’s group of friends, are playing Dungeon and Dragons.  You know that you are having a good time playing the latest first person shooter, and you know playing Dungeon and Dragons will be no fun(them being no good at D&D), but just because you are not included in the group, you want to play anyway(-5 from self confidence)

To make myself feel more at home, I tried to draw some comparisons between the US and Nepal economic plans/and health of the economy.  To make some fair and well educated comparisons, I decided to read Nepal’s 2008 Budget speech.   I eventually had to rethink my endeavor when I found there to be no colorful graphs, or even pie charts.  Apparently an investment in Kinkos has been overlooked by the new Minister of Finance.

For now I will make only one comparison between American social economic planning, and Nepal’s.  Perhaps more to follow later.

 If I say it can happen, and I put a big enough number backed by nothing next to what I say, it will all be ok!

Nepal is no different.  The new Maoists that have taken charge of the government released their new budget a few weeks back.  One of the major points the plan features is increasing literacy rates to 100% in two years.  Just to put that into perspective, the current estimated literacy rate in Nepal is 50%, or number 162 out of 177 surveyed countries.  That be some serious Learnin! The budget calls for creating more schools and making them free for all children that want to enroll.  There are two foreseeable problems with this plan.

1.       If you build it, they will….honestly a lot of people won’t care.  Just because you build schools doesn’t mean that all the kids are going to want to go there, especially if they have managed to get a job.

2.       Nepal’s budget is based on assumed tax income and “revenue” from aid from other countries.  Neither of these two methods of accruing cash guarantees the amount of money they are asking for. 

But it sure does sound good!

Then again, who is to say that the Maoists haven’t completely planned this out and that communism might actually work…

Oh, that’s why they don’t invest in Kinkos.

 -TR

Dasain

I thought from my last post, that I should go into further depth about this holiday called Dasain.

The holiday generally involves a lot of street festivals, a lot of Tika(yogurt,color stuff on your forehead which is like a blessing),  lots of dead animals and blood from sacrifices, gambling, and drinking. This is what I gather from descriptions I get from Nepali people, and what I have observed.  I realise that a holiday with red paint, blood filled rowdy streets, gambling, and above normal excessive drinking sounds more like a scene from a movie involving a not to distant future where society has fallen into ruin, but it is actually quite orderly.  In order for the government to keep things in order and provide for the festivities, the police up their check points the month before the holiday to collect fines/bribes, which seems perfectly acceptable and par for the course(much like speed traps at the end of the month in the US).

The game of choice for channeling the need to gamble for the Nepali people, and obviously is of great interest to me, is a game called Marriage(Perhaps a jab at arranged marriages?) .  A quick search for the rules of Marriage on the Internet return very little information so a quick description might be in order. Basically the game is like rummy, but remove some of the skill, and replace it with luck.  Even if you have the best strategy in the world, if you don't get 12 certain cards, you will not get any points, and thus lose money.  Luckily, such a game lends itself very well to drinking, so it is a good match.

Dasain seems like a great holiday for Nepal, and is really a time where everyone stops working, takes some time to relax, gets together with family and the community, and generally have a good time.  What also adds to this great holiday is the ambiguous start and end dates.  The description on Wikipedia says that it is 15 days, I have been told by many people that it is 12 days, which is also in stark contrast with the people that say it is in fact 14 days.  So really, this holiday is capable of being stretched and catered to one's own schedule, allowing one's self to reach their maximum enjoyment level.

The religious base for this holiday is Hindu, which is one of the major religions of Nepal, and involves praying, and offering sacrifices to many goddesses of the Hindu religion.  Unlike Christmas in the US, the religious part of the holiday is a very important part of the celebrations for a large amount of the population.

I was in the mountains...

-TR

A Moment of Clarity

Getting tired from the chaos of Kathmandu, I decided to go on a trek/relax session during a holiday called Dasai. Dasai is basically the Nepali version of Christmas except it is 12 days long and gambling/drinking is a major part of the celebration(my kind of holiday). I finally concluded that I should go up to the mountains, so I headed to the western part of Nepal and hung out for a few days.

In a village called Muktinath(3710meters) I decided to take some time and think while I sat outside of a temple amongst the peaceful beautiful mountains. I would like to say that I came up with some profound view on life, a new insight into my religious beliefs, or something that really brought my life into focus, but alas I did not.

Even so, one of the things that did run through my head in the small moments of clarity that I had was this:

"I still think Picard is better than Kirk."

Perhaps that is profound enough.

-TR