The time that Corry Holliday and I
were in Nepal was a crucial time for country politically because they were in
the process of creating their constitution.
Of the 15 days that we were in the country, there were strikes on 11 of
them. These strikes range in severity
from a few shops closing in solidarity, to all roads being blocked by city cabs
and busses parked lengthwise across the street, to angry mobs breaking into
power stations to shut off electricity to sections of the city.
In Kathmandu we stayed in the tourist
area of Thamel and were more or less confined there because of the political
situation. The less than quarter square
mile area contains over 2000 tourist related businesses that can pretty well
fit into four categories: hostels, trekking agencies/outfitters, hippy stores
and prayer flag stores. I would love to
see all of the professors of the Farmer School of Business try to explain how
they all stay in business when they’re virtually identical. I’m not sure anyone knows… After two days of
being stuck in the city due to strikes, we finally got a bus to Pokhara, which
is the jumping off point for treks in the Annapurna range.
On our way to Pokhara our bus was held
up for about an hour because two Lorries had gotten in a head-on collision and
were blocking most of the road. When I
got out and asked around about the crash I learned that it happened about five
days ago, but the trucks are too big to be hauled out of the ditch on the side
of the road by any tow truck that would fit on the road. So the plan was to dismantle the trucks and
bring them down the mountain piece by piece.
Then I asked why we were waiting, because there was enough room to drive
around the crash and, as it turns out, we were only waiting because the people
looking at were blocking the way. The
rest of the drive to Pokhara was uneventful.
People who grew up in the ‘90s
probably remember a game called Oregon Trail.
The goal is head west across the country in your covered wagon with your
family. You can only carry so much and
sometimes bad luck would befall you and you may have to, for example, replace a
wheel or trade for supplies that you lost in a storm. Occasionally the game would just decide that
you drank bad water and now you have Dysentery.
Well, that’s more or less what happened next. When we arrived in Pokhara it was pretty
evident that Corry was getting sick, then really sick. We ended up having to skip the trekking and
we hung around Pokhara for a little over a week feeding Corry a heavy regimen
of Antibiotics and a few other drugs. She recovered without incident and we were
able to enjoy the rest of our trip.
We were forced to go back to Kathmandu
early because there were supposed to be strikes for up to a week starting three
days before our flights out of Kathmandu.
With the strikes in effect most of the businesses were only open from
5-8pm; leaving us with not much to do during the days (we couldn’t go explore
the city either). On our second to last
day, the strike was less enforced (by the mob) and the barber near hotel was
open. I decided it would be a good time
for a hair-cut and shave. About half way
through I hear the outer metal garage door slam shut against the ground. I cautiously asked what was going on because
I was now locked in a small room with three men, one of whom still had a straight
razor on my neck. They calmly replied
that a strike parade was going by and that if they left the door open the shop
was likely to be looted by the mob.
About a minute later I heard the strike parade going by; the barber
translated the chant as, “close Kathmandu, close all businesses, close Nepal.” I
was locked in there for about a half hour and left with the best hair cut
stories ever.
Corry and I left
Nepal more or less unscathed and just in time too because Nepal failed to
ratify the constitution a few days after we left. I read in a newspaper in Seoul that there
were some pretty bad protests/riots after that.
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