Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Having finally negotiated Nepal’s dreadful air traffic control, we are picked up, reunited with our bags, which we’d left at the City Centre hotel, and head for Dwarika’s Resort in Dhulikhel, on the outskirts of the city.
Every year, AD kindly takes me somewhere for my birthday. This has been the incredibly exotic Rwanda to see the gorillas, or The Ice Hotel within the Artic Circle. One of the highlights was Barmouth for fish and chips! She’s very excited about this resort, having read countless articles and reviews, seen photos etc. However, the journey to it is grimy, dusty and Dhulikhel, when it arrives, is horrible. We are, finally, dropped off at an oasis on a steep hill. Beautifully appointed, suites with great views, were it not for the dust smog, a great list of activities, really interesting facilities, restaurants and exemplary service. We had 36 hours detoxing the trek, look away Capetonians, long, luxurious hot baths and, generally, winding down, to wind up, for India. I really enjoyed pottery and art classes, which we had to ourselves. AD indulged the unknown in some Singing Bowl Therapy. This appeared to involve lying flat on your back whilst a power healer assessed your chakras (!) and than administered a session of hitting bowls to make them vibrate on various parts of your ailments and off-kilter chakras. The session culminated in a grand finale of having a bowl placed on your head (think metal mixing bowl)and beating it with a stick (think wooden spoon). Don’t try this at home kids!! Emboldened by the absurd, next up was vibrating chakra meditation instruction. Essentially a method of reaching a high meditative state by chanting various Oms, Lums, Rums and Wums until you are so lightheaded with oxygen deprivation that no thought process can survive !.....A sauna to sweat out my cold, yoga to get rid of the aches, topped and tailed with delicious food in beautiful surroundings, Happy Birthday, indeed!
So, we leave Kathmandu and Nepal, it’s a country coming to terms with a huge earthquake, its infrastructure is creaking and it’s quite hard to like as a whole, however much you like the parts! Needless to say, leaving wasn’t easy as we sat on the tarmac waiting for the inevitable, useless air traffic control to clear us to take off. I hadn’t realised how much of a rites of passage Nepal has become, Glastonbury is so last century, darling! The flight is predominately kids who’ve spent quite a while here. Newly acquired beards and body odour, as a result of a lack of facilities, all wearing the uniform of Nepal, multi coloured this and that, old henna tattoos and everybody struggling with some illness. When we finally took off, coughing and spluttering for Delhi, it was certainly, bring on India, you can get what you can pay for!
- comments