Day 44 - Kathmandu, Nepal

Day 44 – His.

Today we visited the Nepalese palace. It was the scene of The Nepalese royal massacre on 1 June 2001.  Basically what happened was this, Dipendra (the crown prince – and slightly unhinged) had been drinking heavily and had "misbehaved" with a guest (whatever that means), so dad, King Birendra, told his son to get lost for a bit. The drunken Dipendra was taken to his room by his brother Prince Nirajan and cousin Prince Paras.

One hour later, Dipendra returned to the party armed with an H&K MP5 and an M16 and shot 9 of them to death. During the shooting, Prince Paras suffered slight injuries and managed to save at least three royals, including two children, by pulling a sofa over them.

During the attack, Dipendra darted in and out of the room firing shots each time. His mother, Queen Aishwarya, who came into the room when the first shots were fired, left quickly, looking for help – or so she says – to be honest I am sort of with her – if I came into a room and my dead beat drunken, slightly crazy son was spraying bullets around from an M16 – I would have ‘gone looking for help’ too.

Dipendra ran amok around the place until his mother Aishwarya and his brother Nirajan confronted him in the garden of the palace, where they were both shot dead. Dipendra then staggered to a small bridge over a stream running through the palace, where he shot himself.

Needless to say most of Nepal was in shock and oddly enough, despite a ton of evidence, it is widely believed that Dipendra didn’t do it. Most of the conspiracies centre around the involvement of the Indians. The world is a curious place.

Well after Dipendra did for most of the family his younger brother, Gyanendra, came to the throne. Gyanendra's reign was marked by constitutional turmoil. His predecessor King Birendra had established a constitutional monarchy in which he delegated policy to a representative government. The growing insurgency of the Nepalese Civil War during King Gyanendra's reign interfered with elections of representatives. After several delays in elections, King Gyanendra suspended the constitution and assumed direct authority in February 2005, assuring that it would be a temporary situation to suppress the Maoist insurgency. In the face of broad opposition, he restored the previous parliament in April 2006. His reign ended approximately two years later, when the Nepalese Constituent Assembly declared Nepal a republic and stripped the King of all titles and duties. Apparently he is still alive and well and hoping to be king again.

In 2001 the Nepalese performed an exorcism for the spirit of the only slightly crazy Dipendra and after ousting Gyanendra they opened the palace up as a sort of shrine/museum.

It’s a large rickety building filled with treasures from the royals – mostly sets of clothes, photos and gifts from foreign dignitaries and all to do with the recent royals. The path through the palace museum is clearly marked and wends its way around from the lowest room to the highest tower – which is a little unnerving as it goes up some pretty rickety stairs to a fine view of the city from the topmost point.

After the Palace we went looking for the erotic temple, a replica of the more famous temple by the Bagmati river, supposedly widely noted for the erotic carvings on its struts which to be honest didn’t seem that pornographic given the internet. There is an old joke – that if all the pornography was removed from the internet there would be only one site left – and that would be calling for a return of pornography. Equally, if they had rebuilt the temple without the carvings i wonder how many people would come to see it.  We walked around it a couple of times until a guide chased us away with his offers of help.

Having had enough for the day we set off back to the hotel.

Day 44 – Hers.

We have discovered a way to navigate this city – or at least the routes to the main sights.  The ways you are meant to walk are paved with neat block paving.  It has made finding our way around a lot easier – and removed some of the more unpleasant smells and squalor from our walks.  It has meant, though, that we are even more removed from the lives of the local people.  We really only come across shop owners, beggars and rickshaw drivers now – everyone wanting to separate us from our money.

We stopped at a local supermarket on the way back to our hotel.  I have gone off eating anything we buy except packaged food.  We bought provisions for lunch – some lovely date and fig things, cheese biscuits and coconut ‘crunchies’.  It was a very happy picnic – and I don’t have to worry about how many flies tasted it first....

We spent the afternoon repacking our bags in advance of our treks  - and then chilled, reading and chatting until dinner.  The daily rainstorm hit just as it was time to go out – so dinner in the hotel it is!