Back in the Thamel After Visiting Bhaktapur

I visited India and Nepal for the first time on a Buddhist pilgrimage led by Shantum Seth in 2007. The following is from my 2008 trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet and is about Nepal.

It’s almost eight in the evening, I’m in my hotel room, and I hear a concert taking place nearby, but it’s not classical Nepalese music: it’s a 1970s American rock song. “Wide world” or something — music from my childhood. Eek. I might want to close the window soon. Gary (one of us dharma bums in Dharamshala, India) did warn me that I might hear loud rock music from the hotel, although I would have expected ragas or Hindu chants.

Water is something you take for granted in the United States: I drink tap water and shower with steaming hot water. We also take electricity for granted: in America it’s not an everyday thing to have a generator running or to go for a few hours without electricity… or to indeed never have electricity and use a treadle sewing machine.

I don’t recognize this song. It’s jamming, whatever it is. I wonder what day of the week this is — I don’t think it’s the weekend.

I left the hotel at 4:30 pm and wandered the streets of the Thamel District, perhaps for the final time, unless I do it again early tomorrow morning. After breakfast tomorrow, it would be nice to check if the Horizon Bookstore is…