In the illusions of post-workshop time: a post of home-hunt and some challenges of a big city

The workshop of 8 intense days has finished with a great relief and rosy illusions about deserved rest. Before I move to the process of broken dreams, let me say few words about the workshop.

Kathmandu Univeristy. School of Management

The workshop gathered 5 frustrated PhD students from Denmark, Nepal and India; as well as their primary and secondary or tertiary supervisors. To summarize these were the processes we were going through in this period: 
1. Killing our babies. Most of PhDs had carried several carefully kept and maintained ideas, which were brutally killed. 
2. Eating candies. This most popular snack was generously given on our tables and it was highly consumed at times when no one really understood what is going on. 
3. Long and heavy dinners of Nepali food, which is very good, but absolutely impossible to have every day twice for my spoiled western stomach.
 4. Listening to political frustrations during the political symposium. 
5. Upgrading geekiness through learning a new software for research.

Overall, apart from these things inhabitants of the wonderful expensive Summit hotel (the one which kicked me out from the room 3 times; also the one having cockroaches in the most expensive rooms) were enjoying conditions of a vegetable in the greenhouse. All the meals, transportations and even planning of a day were not of our concern. At the end, though, together with my colleague we sabotaged few evenings and went outside in the real world.

Even though it all may sound quite nice and interesting to a reader, don’t get misleaded: at the end of the day my brain capacities were below zero and the only escape from the shameful situation was putting a mask of smartness on the face and trying to follow with eyes the speaker. It didn’t always work though; I still managed to fall asleep during the symposium.

Now you can understand how happy I was after the final workshop day – to go to my hotel room and to think about sweet tomorrow, which would consist of hotel hunt, managing research visa and, finally, enjoying massage at the spa center.

Ha!

First of all. Finding a guest house in a non-touristic, quite but not isolated area, with a room, which could be used for working and living (not only sleeping), having constant electricity and internet… it is impossible in Kathmandu. My first frustrations started to grow when I looked for one specific hotel for 30 minutes (it was less than a km away from me)! In Kathmandu only few streets are given names and you just need to know all the other locations since maps are VERY imprecise and locals know only MAJOR landmarks. That means that if you are lost, you are lost and there are no signs helping to identify your place. This fact together with my topographic idiotism should make you feel pity for me.

Anyways, first day I struggled across dusty roads towards the noise of hippies (there is a street, which gathered first western hippies). Another interesting fact about Kathmandu – most of the  streets/roads are not divided for pedestrian and transport. Accordingly, people, bicycles, motorbikes and cars have equal rights. For the safety purpose, all the vehicles feel obliged to use a horn every time they see anyone else. For me it is a disaster –  I have some sort of “noise-phobia” and loud sound totally knocks me out. So you can imagine how frustrated I was standing at the crossroad, being totally blocked by cars and motorbikes and hearing cacophony of tens vehicles.

On the second day I already thought – oh no, why did this workshop ended up?!!! Feeling totally helpless in this city I thought I need to give up and to go to old good Thamel (a small touristic district) neighbourhood, simply because it is so much easier.

I was lucky though. Going through airbnb the evening before I have noticed one room offer, which seemed a nice option for me. I called, I came to see it and I was happy to move in the next day. The house is rented by Australian-French couple and they rent me out the big room+common are+bathroom and the kitchen. A really nice option. Although the people already made me feel like being a part of the family and calling this place my “home”, I am still facing challenges of a Nepali house. Often electricity blackouts. We have a generator, so we are not totally left in the darkness, but this light is still quite dark. Cold. The house is constructed in the way that I am freezing even when it is hot (25 degrees) outside, so in evenings (when it goes up to 5-6) I lose my abilities to function. Impossibility to fully close windows, leaking sink, etc. etc. All this was passionately minimized by the western couple, therefore I still feel happy. Also because it is so quite, I hear birds and I don’t need to put dust protection mask immediately I leave the house.

Ah, don’t send me letters, I do not have any address. I am 10 min away from Patan Dhoka and you will never be able to find me. That’s why I understand that in the application for a bank account people are asked to “draw the map of their home”.

My dear Danish friends – if you feel happy about living in a quite and organized country, I will try to destroy your feelings now. Every morning I wake up, run to the window/balcony…. and enjoy the warmth of the first sun rays. The sun is always here  Always (the picture below shows a view from the hotel room_early morning)