Nepal With World Nomads
Our Colombian Production Company Explores Nepal
WhereNext collaborated with our client, World Nomads, on their "Discoveries" online travel video series, filmed across four continents. We've roamed the streets of Tokyo, sampled Mezcal in the Mexican badlands, studied penguins in Patagonia, and delved into the depths of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.
In this season of World Nomad's Discoveries, our production team embarked on an adventure into the multifaceted nation of Nepal.
Filming Beauty and Chaos in Kathmandu
Our Nepal journey began in the capital city of Kathmandu, a chaotic, sensory overload of a city, where narrow, winding streets open suddenly onto wide squares and towering stupas. It's a baptism of fire, where all the intensity and hardship of life in Nepal is laid bare, where joy and despair rub shoulders like the shoppers at the Asan Bazaar on market day. Kathmandu is intangible, vibrant, in your face, unapologetic, ever-changing, and gets under your skin in no time at all.
Our good-humored Australian host, Will McCloy, was dropped headfirst into this beautiful chaos on his first day in the country. After exploring Durbar Square and the Royal Palaces, where he enjoyed a chat with an on-duty Gurkha, he headed towards the claustrophobic alleyways of Asan Bazaar, one of Kathmandu's most well-known marketplaces.
Jostling Our Way Through the Asan Bazaar
Will was keen to point out that he likes his personal space. He doesn't need much; 30 cm will do, but that's out of the question in Asan Bazaar. Shoppers and vendors jostle shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists, locals, and pedestrians, like a fantastical Kathmandu reality directed by Steven Spielberg. But there's a striking beauty, a sort of organized chaos, to the madness of the bazaar.
Do Not Step Over a Sleeping Dog
At this point, Will found himself on the receiving end of some choice words in Hindi after stepping over a sleeping dog sprawled in the street outside a temple. It turned out that this was a strict no-no, and the same rules applied for goats, chickens, cows (if you're very tall), and monkeys (if you're fast enough to even get near one before stepping over it). He was on the end of some local ire for this sprightly hop over the catatonic mutt, but he brushed it off in typical Aussie fashion and learned something at the same time. Sometimes, those awkward moments of cultural confusion stick longest in the memory when you're exploring a new country.
A ‘Friendly’ Game of Cricket
As an Australian, Will was naturally keen to get involved in a sporting contest with some locals. As in his native land, the people of Nepal are cricket-mad, so the production team jumped into a local cricket game with a skeptical gang of local kids. At least, they did once they had convinced the none-too-sure Nepalese folk that they could bat, bowl, and field to a reasonable degree of competence. Nepalis don't muck about when it comes to cricket! Our production team was at a highly unrespectable 1-for-10 when Will stepped up to the crease. And let's say that there were no Freddie Flintoff-esque heroics on display from our star that day.
A Cultural Culinary Trifecta
During his time in the country, Will was keen to experience Nepalese food as "locally" as possible. Nepalese food is the result of the cultural melting pot (or should that be 'cooking pot?') of Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan influences, and it turned out to be an unexpected highlight for our host.
This trifecta of culinary influences results in gastronomy, with hints of each distinct food culture but with a distinctive Nepali stamp. Will described it as a big plate of warm happiness.
Lentils and Rice with Extra Spice
Most of Will's early exposure to Nepalese food involved being scorched by a series of increasingly spicy chili powders. Still, he was game for anything and kept diving manfully into the mystery bowls of suspiciously bright red powders. It certainly made for an entertaining sequence in the final video.
Our culinary highlights in Nepal included momos, a Tibetan steamed dumpling that Will consumed in industrial quantities (60-80 in 10 days at a conservative estimate), and Dal Bhat, a lentil and rice dish served morning, noon, and night across Nepal. Quite literally – at one point on our trip, Will ate Dal Bhat for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and as a pre-bed snack. He called it the McDonald's of Nepal – reliable and the same wherever you go.
While we were in the town of Bhaktapur, we learned how to cook traditional Newari food. The Newar people are the Kathmandu Valley's historical inhabitants and are seen as the creators of its historic heritage and civilization. They are famed for their cuisine, especially Chhwela, a dish that consists of spiced grilled buffalo meat. Our hosts taught Will to cook this dish – it involved skewering the buffalo meat, setting fire to a big bunch of dried wheat stalks, and scorching the meat until it was done. What's a bit of light lung damage when the result is so delicious?
Experiencing a Traditional Wedding
A Nepalese wedding is what all weddings should be like, no matter the time of the day; it's always a party at a Nepali wedding. And we found that out firsthand when we were kindly invited to share in the experience of a traditional wedding ceremony during our time in Kathmandu.
Weddings in Nepal take place at 'Party Palaces.' We were invited to the wedding on a Monday afternoon, but you would have thought it was a Friday night by the raucous celebrations. Will was initially reluctant to take the many proffered shots of whiskey during the middle of the day. Still, he soon relaxed into it, intoxicated by the loose, laid-back vibes and the explosion of color and noise that characterizes a Nepali wedding celebration.
Weddings here aren't just for the bride and groom; the whole extended family is part of the celebration. The parents typically organize the marriage if the couple's characteristics match well with the thirty-two divine characteristics.
The Yin and Yang of a Nepalese Wedding
We witnessed both sides of a Nepalese wedding. The first part involves the bride's side of the family – they gather together, seated on the floor, and make a succession of offerings while a priest intones an endless series of local prayers. It's a profoundly spiritual affair, the quieter 'yin' to the raucous 'yang' of the groom's family.
The second part is entirely different – the groom and his family arrive in a loose parade down the street after walking for a couple of hours to arrive. There's music, drinking, and dancing. Eventually, the two sides meet, and the couple sees each other for the first time. Then, the celebration truly begins.
Our Nepalese wedding invite was a great success: Will had a little dance and a lot of whiskey. By the end, we were all exhausted by the rollercoaster of emotion we experienced. But what better way to get under the skin of local culture by participating in a traditional wedding?
Religions in Harmony
As with the gastronomic culture, religion in Nepal is a complex cultural blend of different spiritual influences and traditions. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Tantrism are the building blocks upon which Nepalese society is built and functions to this day.
Naturally, three religions with such a complicated and ancient history can hardly hope to be understood in the course of a short visit to the country; Will sat down for long chats with various religious experts and probably ended up more confused than when he started. The only way to honestly attempt to comprehend these belief systems' roots was to get out onto the streets and into the religious festivals and experience firsthand the deep vein of spirituality that courses through Nepalese society.
Devotion and Melancholy at Boudhanath Stupa
The 1,600-year-old Boudhanath Stupa on the outskirts of Kathmandu is a calm oasis in the hectic desert of the Nepalese capital; it's where thousands of locals come every day to make offerings as they walk clockwise around the great stupa. There was such a deep strength of feeling and spirit to this place that Will felt quite overwhelmed and a little sad. Nothing a cup of tea couldn't fix, of course, but allowing the emotion to surface will forever anchor this beautiful moment to memory.
Worship and Fairground Rides
We timed our Nepal trip well for learning about religion: February marks part of the month-long Hindu Swasthani Festival, one of the most important dates in the Hindu religious calendar.
We took a crazy "hours-long" drive northeast of Kathmandu through a throng of buses, tuk-tuks, street vendors, and pilgrims until we reached the banks of the sacred Salinadi River. Here, thousands of people come to bathe on the river banks a day and offer prayers to the goddess.
From a distance, there's no sign of quiet spiritual reflection – the crowds swell around the river banks, bands play on every street corner, and dancers gyrate and twirl in every available space. There's even a fairground ride at the heart of the madness: the "Welcome Super Dragon Train." Will took a spin on it, naturally.
However, Will made a surprising discovery on heading down to the river banks, the festival's focal point. There might have been no physical distance between one bather and the next, but each person was in their own deeply personal headspace, experiencing a profound connection between them and the goddess they had come to worship. It was the first time that Will felt like he was almost intruding on something sacred.
Tracing the Dalai Lama’s Footsteps
The final stop on our religious tour of Nepal was a Tibetan monastery in Pokhara. This was essentially a refugee camp, having been founded in the early 1960s to cater to Tibetan people fleeing Chinese persecution in their native land, following in the Dalai Lama's footsteps. This monastery was like an encyclopedia of hundreds of years of Buddhist culture and history, positively dripping with ancient iconography and colorful tapestries.
Our guide had characterized Buddhism as the ideal religion for Western cultures due to its basis in reason and critical thinking over faith and belief. He described it as "a science of the mind" rather than a religion.
Finally, Will sat down with a monk to chat about Buddhist practices. It was impossible not to covet at least a fraction of the peace and calm this man radiated. He described enlightenment as a mind free of suffering and illusion. That, for him, was the ultimate goal of Buddhism. He seemed to be moving swiftly along the path to enlightenment.
Religion in Nepal is a complex blend of feelings and emotions – it's at once joyful, personal, reflective, outgoing, and harmonious.