Oh, dance bars

10 June 2010                        11:28pm                               Kathmandu

We have been kept so busy this week I’ve barely had time to write anything!  Yesterday we had a very early start- we departed for the Swayambhu Stupa at 6:00am.  Which meant that I had to be up by around 5am in order to get ready and shower.  It was rough, I really didn’t want to get up in the morning.  I guess it was worth it, though.  The entire Swaymbhu cultural area is full of life early in the morning, and the views are wonderful.  The stupa overlooks the entire city of Kathmandu, so it is possible to see almost the whole city from this one spot.  Once again we had an excellent guided ‘tour’, this time led by Dambar.

Despite the area’s beauty. we eventually all started to succumb to our hunger and returned to our hotel, where I did not order nearly enough breakfast.  Luckily my appetite has returned since being in Nepal, but the downside of that is everyone wondering how much weight I’m going to gain over the summer.  Clearly they don’t realize how much food I eat at home.  After lunch I did a little bit of website work that I’ve been meaning to do, but mostly just crashed.

Too soon after we departed for CEADS, where we were to have our language class as well as our lecture/discussion.  Our class was joint this time, and along with learning the language we also learned some culture.  One of the most difficult things for me is going to be sitting cross-legged for a long time and not being able to stretch out, as it is inappropriate to show the soles of your feet.  That, and the whole no privacy thing are going to be huge adjustments.

I must say, the lecture and discussion were fantastic.  The speakers were Prof. Krishna Khanal and Dr. Seira Tamang, whose works we’ve read extensively in New York.  Prof. Khanal gave a thorough talk on the political (I.e. governmental) history of Nepal, interestingly comparing it to America’s governmental process (US independence 1776, Prithvi Narayan Shah uniting Nepal 1769).  It was also enlightening to put it in the Cold War context, as (in my opinion) much of today’s international political discourse still revolves around that standard.

Dr. Tamang’s lecture was fantastic, even if it was a little “doom and gloom,” to use her words.  She focused a lot on the issue of excluded groups, and the fact that even if members of excluded groups are in the CA, they aren’t allowed to stray from party lines.  She and Prof. Khanal both described it as exchanging one monarchy for another- the Shahs for the elitist CA.  Still, it’s just a group of privileged men making decisions- the paradigm has not changed.

We had a short discussion period with the two, and actually continued the talk in smaller groups after the program was officially over.  Dr. Tamang was pretty much backed into a corner because people kept coming over to listen to her.  Soon after we departed, most of us for dinner as we had eschewed lunch for naps.  We ended up going to Café Kaldi, another place on our recommended list.  It has amazingly fast wi-fi and the food is pretty good as well.  It’s smaller food than a full dinner, but still good.

On the way back, Ashe had the brilliant idea to step in one of the dance clubs on the way back, to check it out and get a drink as well.  A note about these dance clubs: we had been informed earlier in the week that the term ‘dance club’ is just a term for basically strip clubs.  ‘Shower clubs’ are the same thing, but the girls are in shower booths.  As you can imagine I wasn’t the most enthusiastic about going, but I figured what the hell, why not.  Luckily, this dance club lived up to its name and featured people just dancing.  Either that, or we were there too early.  I figured it was safe as there was a young boy in the audience, but later learned that that isn’t an accurate indicator (or an indicator at all) of whether the place is ‘family friendly.’

We left after a short period, especially after we thought Ashe might have to dance to pay for our drinks!  Either that or the one girl just really wanted to dance with him.  All in all it was a fantastic day, and an equally interesting and entertaining night!