November 20 2019: I book a flight to
Kathmandu with China Southern for February 15, my Himalayan home.
December 31 2019: China informs the
World Health Organisation about a strange new virus.
January 20 2020, Australia’s first Covid-19
case.
February 1: Australia bans
foreigners arriving from China.
February 2: Being a “responsible
traveller”, I cancel my China flight, rebook with Thai to return in June.
February 20: Kathmandu…. friends, parties
and plenty of gigs. All I need to do is chill, for sure it will be over by June.
February 28: Italy to go into
lockdown, outbreaks throughout Europe.
March 1: First death in Australia. Lucky I am in Nepal where we don’t have it.
March 11: Australia extends entry ban
to South Korea, Japan and Italy, thousands of flights cancelled.
March 12: India closes its borders.
There is now no way I can leave Nepal by land. Friends and family urge me to
consider returning. I begin searching for a cheap flight out.
Friday the 13th: I
resolve to move my ticket forward. After hours on the phone, I hear first
available flight is the 24th but he cannot change till Monday.
March 15: Australia and New Zealand
enforce 14 days self-quarantine for arrivals.
March 16: I wake late to a panicked
message from my partner Kim in Christchurch. She offers to fly me back on the
first flight regardless of cost. I line-up at the airline office. The Friday
call has led to nothing, they move me to April 1.
I search flights again. Despite Kim’s
offer to pay, I settle for a cheaper one to Christchurch on the 22nd
with Qatar.
March 18: Australia urges all
citizens to return home immediately.
March 19: Jacinda Adern announces a
ban on foreigners entering NZ unless they are residents or partners of a Kiwi.
I do have a Kiwi partner and have lived there 4 of the last 6 months but how do
I prove that? Nepal announces that airlines including Qatar will be banned from
midnight on the 20th. I spend half the night trying to book another
flight. The earliest I can find is the 23rd. The internet too slow,
timing out when I try to pay. After an hour, the 23rd is no longer
available, so I try the 24th. When this fails a third time I go to
reload the details, suddenly a ticket via Singapore is available for the 20th!
Kim has woken up and manages to book with good Kiwi internet. There is a
choice: either to Brisbane or Christchurch direct. Nobody thinks NZ will admit
me so I opt for Brisbane. Thanks Kim!
March 20: Fruitless hours trying to
contact NZ immigration before heading to the airport. Suddenly, my “under the
radar” lifestyle seems a liability as I assemble the meagre documents proving
my Kiwi credentials. Nepal continues on as normal. My local friends believe
that the toxic smog protects them from Covid-19.
At check-in, I ask if I can change
my destination to Christchurch. He rings immigration in New Zealand and they
knock me back.
March 21: Transit in Singapore. I make another attempt to change to NZ, but encounter a very grumpy clerk. Immigration say “no” again.
In Brisbane I self-isolate in a
hotel and book a ticket to Christchurch for the 23rd.
March 22: Cooped up in the hotel, I
watch a video where illusionist Derren Brown demonstrates how to hypnotise a
stranger into doing what you want them to do. I rehearse half the night. Singapore
closes its borders.
March 23: I approach the check-in
counter. “I am on my way home to
Christchurch,” I tell the woman. As I pass my documents I say, “Oh I left my
umbrella outside the window.” She looks a little dazed. I look her straight in
the eye and say, “I’m a resident and you are going to check me in.” She nods,
rings up immigration and convinces them I should be allowed. Thanks Derren!
It is the last Virgin flight from
Brisbane to Christchurch possibly ever. Half of the passengers are laid-off
staff. The stewardess gives a moving speech as we land. We applaud in joyful
relief.
As we disembark, we are informed
that all of NZ will be under 4 weeks self-isolation. That’s fine by me. Thanks
Jacinda!
What is it about Kathmandu? I think to myself at times, especially if I am struggling along a footpath which looks more like an obstacle course than a sidewalk. The roads are a dusty shemozzle, getting even simple tasks done can be frustratingly time-consuming, and the sky is often thick with choking brown smog.
Ah, but there is something about this mystical kingdom which even the worst afflictions of modern society fail to overwhelm.
Picture the highest, most hazardous mountain chain in the world, which cuts the Indian sub-continent off from China. Imagine then, a green valley which rolls gradually from the highest passes down to the planes of the sacred Ganges; one of the safest routes between the world’s two most populated countries. It’s high enough to avoid the crippling heat of the Indian summer, but low enough to avoid the winter frost. With such geography, Kathmandu has been a centre for trade, culture, and religion since time immemorial.
The city boasts thousands of temples, palaces, and holy sites which were built when the human psyche was very different to today, when people had no doubt that magic lurks around every corner. Those links to the past have been nurtured with offerings of flowers, food or incense in an unbroken lineage stretching back over millennia. It feels as though these beautiful places have been charged with a tangible spiritual presence, which evokes a sense of the supernatural. Some of them are tiny; a nook in the wall with a relief carving, or rock statue twisted into the serpentine roots of a banyan tree. Others take the form of multi-storey pagodas, intricately carved by people who lived 20 generations ago.
Where I stay, my local spiritual powerhouse is the Great Stupa of Boudhanath. This earthly representation of the Buddha’s enlightened mind has a base the size of two football fields, an enormous whitewashed dome, and a gilded, square-based tower which rises 100 feet into the sky. The iconic eyes of Buddha, which hold their transcendental gaze in each of the four directions, have become a symbol for Nepal itself.
Encircling the structure is a wide flagstone pedestrian zone, contained by a ring of temples, shops and restaurants. Each morning and evening, Buddhists both local and from around the world, stream down to The Stupa to perform the devotional act of khora (walking around a holy site.)
I love to join the throng of practitioners, circling in laps, with their rosary in hand, humming Sanskrit mantras. The air is thick with the scent of burned offerings, and devotional music spilling from the doors of the temples and shops adds to the overwhelming sense of tranquillity. Street vendors hawk all kinds of wares, from wheatgrass juice to feed for a huge flock of wild pigeons.
When I join that river of pilgrims milling around the monument, it feels like I am entering a special mind-stream as well. As though spun by the whirlpool of the stupa’s vortex, the ring of worshipers moves together in one great stream. Some walk fast, rolling the mantras off their tongues at breakneck speed, while others progress by prostrating their bodies on the ground all the way around, but somehow everybody weaves around one another harmoniously. There are young people chatting together while taking selfies, and elderly Tibetan women in gaily coloured tunics with long, black plaits and faces lined with a spider’s web of wrinkles.
With the daily ritual done, we sit around soaking up the atmosphere with a cup of chai or coffee. Maybe I do know what it is about Kathmandu; it’s just purely magical.
Kathmandu Durbar Square
Don’t forget to check out my album Love Me Tinder click here for free trial on Bandcamp or else find it on iTunes and all the usual outlets.
Swyambhunath is a magical holy hill only half an hour by foot from the heart of old Kathmandu, sacred to Hindus and Buddhists alike and alive with mobs of cheeky monkeys.
It was here that I met my dear friend Desmond, an Irish blues musician who has lived in these parts for over four decades. He is a wonderful character, with his long white pony tail, panama hat and signature Fender Stratocaster, still blasting out Hendrix numbers in the bars of Kathmandu after all these years. We played some music together and he inspired me to write this song, which I then recorded right there at his Swyambhu studio. I have set some of my photos behind it for all to enjoy.
Two Scottsmen walk into Durbar square, their short cropped greying hair trickling with sweat as they amble through the busy sunlit craft market. Both of them are enormous guys, standing out like Hagrid amongst the throngs of brightly and smartly dressed Nepalese artisans. The most massive of the two has a capacious beer gut which erupts from his tight black long sleeved lycra top and looms ominously over his precariously tied khaki kilt. His hairy badge bedecked sporran swings limply between his legs below the mound of his stomach like the tail of an old Himalayan yak. The kilt of the other Scott also hangs bedraggled below his burgeoning belly, the belt clinging desperately to the top of his buttocks in a last ditch bid to protect his decency in such a public space.
I have to respect them for taking pride in their national dress. However, I can not help thinking just how ridiculous they look lumbering around the ancient heart of Kathmandu city in their funny skirts, tight shirts and cheap Nepali hiking boots.
Suddenly, five ravishingly gorgeous young Nepali women sweep out of the crowd like a flock of parrots and begin circling the two men, chatting excitedly to one another – giggling joyfully all the while.
Finally, they approach the two strangers timidly and with great dark soulful pleading eyes, beg to have their photographs taken together. Passers by are roped in, hair and clothes are checked (for the girl’s part anyway) and one of the women produces a slick modern smart phone for the photo shoot. They ensure that every conceivable angle is captured, with the girls cuddled together in a happy huddle between the two towering lads.
Then with a thousand thank yous, much folding of hands and beaming of heartfelt, heart-warming smiles, they dart off into the crowd, consumed in a buzz of rapturously delightful energy.
The two men shuffle back into the market, unabashed, clearly accustomed to pleasing the populace wherever they should happen to go.
