bye to Sedi
and hi to Kathmandu
the big city
a big shock
after seven rustic weeks
of sumptuous verdure
on the green hillside of rice-paddy terraces
...
...
so i made a great pal
Maury the blue-eyed buglist from Brescia
and we said Bye on Thursday
...
so here’s to friendship
...
i mentioned Maury and “Bromance” before
yet its a big shame it comes to an end
...
we’ll meet again
but, don’t know where, don’t know when
...
Maury has a big honest heart
a big honest laugh
high-end resourcefulness
and constant unrestrained enthusiasm
all of which makes for an excellent companion
on the steep sweaty climbs
over another chai
and on the finicky clambers down the old-stone steps
...
Maury
48
ex-trumpeter in the orchestra
Vivaldi’s “Winter” and all that...
ex-army bugler
the boogie-woogie bugle boy from company glee
and all that...
cyclist and hiker
Patagonia, Oaxaca
and all that...
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...
we went on many excursions
up to Sarangkhot
out to and around Begnas Lake
along to Ghattichina then back around to Pame
up to Methlang then a long way along and down to Pame
the Peace Pagoda and Giant Shiva starting from Damside
the Giant Shiva and Peace Pagoda starting from the Yellow Bridge
over to the next valley for Milanchowk and Hemja and the first river
a Stand Up Paddleboard across Lake Fewa
plus an odyssey to see The Odyssey at Mid-Town
and more
...
while every other day or so i ascended to Lake Lovers
on his doorstep
for a fry-up breakfast
...
and what’s more i, then we
have been consciously wording it a Bromance
for a couple of weeks now
...
voicing it in semi-serious terms
always with a thick coat or light touch of
irony
yet
always with some truth
...
“that’s not Bromantic”
“that’s very Bromantic”
...
while its nice to have a pal
who’s wide knowledge does not overlap much with your own
...
and who wants to get out and about
who makes decisive plans easily
who doesn’t complicate
who doesn’t get fixed on one plan
who walks at the same speed as you
who is interested in everything
and who laughs easily
...
and maybe the above are, in some measure, true of me
yet they are certainly very true of Maury
...
while the chief ungood would be that i often speak my English too fast for him
...
...
Maury
constantly whistling Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
which is, of course, from the ultimate buddy-movie
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
...
...
while his Dad runs a big Italian country restaurant near Brescia
which sounds the absolute pastoral business
yet Maury decided decades ago to get off the career roundabout
and here he is
after much epic wandering
...
...
while an oddity here is that
as i’ve said before
i wrote a poem about Maury before i ever met him
?
about him and his then partner, Iasmina from Warsaw
...
for we were both in Gokarna for Lockdown
in fact living 200 metres from each other
yet never spoke for a long time
and never quite properly met there
...
back in the easy empty pandemic months of 2021
i spotted them walking as happy as larry
along the beach
and up Rudrapad
then over the fields
and i thought of the line-stroke-poem
and so wrote it down for them
even though i’d not met him
then i went round to where he and Iasmina lived
same four-house row as Dylan and Dora
and i left the folded piece of paper on their porch
...
poem was
the couple, joined at the lip
one long smile between them
...
which must have been a weird thing to receive
returning to your home
from someone you don’t know
...
while those lines were even in last year’s Fringe show
in the Movies poem
with an added line
the couple, joined at the lip
one long smile between them
so in love they beam like imbeciles
...
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a very Kathmandu photo
...
in other news
am in Kathmandu
after ten hours of scenic minibus
first next a vomiting Kathmandu-ite
then next a Tibetan Monk wary of the nearing big city
...
the Pokhara-Kathmandu main road is down
due to the awful disaster further up the Trishulu River
so the minibus went south at the Trishulu
where we could see its ominously outsized mudbanks
which tell some of the ugly story of the flashflood disaster
before we head East at Bharatpur
to Hetaudi,
through some notably unattractive roadside-sprawl towns
in a grim deluge
before heading Northish over the mountains
through Baise and Derauli
on the old roads
now the only roads
which are hairpins and steep drops
and long routes along the contours of the river valleys
which were clearly donkey-routes for centuries
and are now back in over-use
as they are currently the chief way between the country’s two biggest cities
Pokhara and KTM
...
yet, after overcoming the frustration
of realising we won’t arrive before
five pm
i rediscovered patience
and lost myself into enjoying the road
the scenic
the pretty
the green
the valleysides
the flat glacial valley bottoms
the waterfalls
until
finally
we are delivered into the big city
where i’ve four nights
to reacquaint
with one of my very favourite places
though
after seven weeks of rustic
Kathmandu seems very errrr city
busy hectic cluttered
...
...
Chongking noodles from the Kung Fu Noodle Shop
where i haven’t quite time to try the whole menu
...
…
in other news
plenty wander
while
many things taste different
because the water was so much purer in Sedi
...
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in other news
bye Maury
…
Thx for this Jem.
You are in my favorite country in the world . At a time when I am not sure can get back cos of health stuff. Thx for sharing. MIssed you at the Fringe!
Sue in Edmonton.