Nepal - The Reception!

The great benefit that our hotel had was a comprehensive and delicious $5 breakfast. Home-baked bread all crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside with a mango spread and topped with a sharp cheese was my personal triumph but they also offered eggs, muesli, fruit, and thick tangy Nepali yogurt. (I wanted to show you the menu at Ting's but it doesn't really work.) So the morning of A's reception, N and I padded down to the dining room, snuggled into our respective piles of cushions and had a leisurely breakfast  before heading out for a high-stress day of shopping.

Our first stop was the tea store. Evidently tea yields several harvests a year and each 'flush' has distinctive taste characteristics. To illustrate this, the chai wallah brewed us a few cups which we gladly sipped daintily (because it was in glass cups that could burn your face off.) Thus caffeinated we fell into an empty fair trade shop and bought everything under the sun. I very much like the idea that my purchases are going to benefit specifically low-income, low-opportunity communities and am willing to pay more for the experience but this store was surprisingly inexpensive. I'm convinced that every item in there was cheaper than it would be on the streets. I think that in the absence of set prices, foreigners are often fleeced a bit. Note: The store was called Folk Nepal which almost caused an international incident when, at the wedding reception, people misunderstood N's Korean accent as she described our shopping luck.

We then hopped in a cab and headed off to Boudanath, Asia's largest stupa and center of TIbetan Buddhist worship in Nepal. (Also had low-stress shopping.) I had been to Boudanath in 2015 and was curious to see how it had been rebuilt after the earthquake. Almost immediately upon existing the cab we were set upon by a close-talking guide and I am CONVINCED that it was the same man as last time. (Read about that here.) This time we politely ignored him, if you can politely ignore someone, and were not approached by ANY other guides. Hmmm. This time around, we were able to go into the shrines attached to the stupa itself and climb up to the second tier to do our three laps around it.

We tried to follow the tourist map but it didn't seem like the numbers on the map matched up to the numbers on the descriptions so I can't honestly tell you which monasteries we explored. We ate lunch at a chain pizza place between a table of white monks and a table of brown monks with a little baby monk! Unfortunately I couldn't hear what the white monks were talking about; I was so curious what someone who has vowed to have limited possessions and live a life of mediation and chores talks about. Do they gossip about the other monks? Do they discuss politics? Do they plan events?  Had they just met or were they old friends? N did say that one was Canadian and one was European so they evidently discussed a bit of their personal histories but she did not eavesdrop beyond that.

We shopped a little bit after lunch but the mood was spoiled when someone addressed N in Chinese. You would think a fellow Asian would know better. We stopped into Ghyoilisang Peace Park because I thought it might be peaceful - it wasn't - and then headed back towards the hotel so N could continue her quest to find cashmere scarves. She spent a ridiculous amount of money.

At this point I voted for napping and being late for the reception but N wanted to go on time and leave early. She won. We made a beeline to the happy couple and immediately had our photos taken with them even though we hadn't taken our coats off or had opportunity to fix our newly moisturized faces. So N and I sat for a bit and took advantage of the roaming waiters before opting for a photo redo. We did a quick lap of hellos and goodbyes and then left before the dancing started. On the way back to the hotel we bought a chocolate cake which we didn't actually eat.

Stay tuned: we take our chocolate cake across the country!

Nepal - THE WEDDING!

After several conflicting electronic communications regarding the timing of the wedding, the Yale crew descended on Ryan's family's hotel room at about 8AM to have our saris wrapped by the aunties (none of whom were wearing saris because they're too smart for that.)

A has taken a page out of my sister's book

Our saris, a gift from A, were of a light, thin, silky fabric that was much harder to pleat and wrap than the traditional stiffer fabric (and didn't look quite as regal). Cinched tightly into our petticoats and with a startling lack of sparklewear (I don't travel with the amount of gold expected for a Nepali wedding) we left the hotel with the groom's family to process around the garden. We were accompanied by a band of drums and horns, one of which sounded like an elephant trumpeting (and periodically scaring the bejeezus out of me). The men were also decked out in suits and topi (the traditional Nepali hat) and carried in trays of bread, coconut, and oranges.

As we entered the seating area we were given a garland of marigolds, a prayer scarf, a tika on our foreheads, a red envelope containing money and had flower petals thrown at us. N said it made her feel like a movie star.  Evidently we were supposed to dance in to show that the groom's family was exciting and fun-loving but I'm not sure we made the best showing -- perhaps because we had little idea of what was going on and us girls are actually from the bride's side.

We weren't alone in our ignorance. Our cultural guides explained that each ethnic group has their own wedding customs and traditions and that since they were Sherpa and Newar respectively -- and the bride was Gurung -- they were less than enlightening. They did say, however, that this was the smallest and best organized ceremony they had ever seen. 

We were told to sit men and women separately but this might have been a mistranslation of groom's side/bride's side. It didn't matter much because after about fifteen minutes of chanting an auntie was dispatched to send us to breakfast. I was a little surprised at the break. Since we were told the ceremony would last from 9 until 1, I had brought snacks. So after a lackluster breakfast we returned to the ceremony. For a while we stood near the wedding platform and took close-up pictures of the bride and groom. Even one of the chanting monks took a picture. Then we were dragged off by the aunties to dance for a bit -- until we were yelled at by the monks for disturbing the ceremony.

Post-chanting the men in the groom's family were each given white turbans to wrap around their head and the women were given wool shawls as they blessed A. Then everyone and their mother were given prayer shawls -- first the family and then the bride and groom. After about an hour of blessings, the groom's brothers were dispatched to negotiate the successful return of the groom's shoes from the bride's girl cousins. Despite having a professional litigator and negotiator on their side, the American men were no match for the savvy ladies who came away with $850!

After this showdown we were escorted back into the hotel. I, and at least one family member who had unwrapped her sari, thought the ceremony was over but with petticoats digging into our full bellies we went back outside to see the bride and groom be fed yogurt and take pictures with family. The final event was the kidnapping of the bride. A was carried into the hotel to start her new life as part of R's family.

I will note that it was now 3PM.

This was the first wedding that I didn't cry at! I don't know if it was because I didn't know the groom or because there was no exchange of vows or public profession of love. The bride and groom were more figureheads, literally unmoving and unspeaking as they were blessed for hours.

Post-wedding we split a bottle of wine at our hotel and went out for momos and, again, were asleep by 9.

Nepal - family visit

The thing about having henna-d hands is that it marks you as one of *those* tourists like elephant pants or greasy hair does. And not only was I henna-d but my hair had transformed into a weird sticky mess. It felt like none of my shampoo had washed out and it was just glopping together. (N touched it and said it wasn't as bad as she expected -- which I suppose means that it looked terrible.)

On New Years Day, we (and our bad hair) were invited with all of the out of town guests to A's mother's house for lunch. Luckily we were passed by the groom's family's bus as we walked to the house; otherwise we would have been lost in the pleasant suburbs. Lunch was daal and rice, spinach, turnip pickles, bitter melon, spicy potatoes, carrots, cucumbers and a variety of desserts that tasted surprisingly like incense. The only thing I didn't enjoy were the peas that I laboriously separated from my rice and the bitter melon which tasted intensely green. (For those of my family members reading, bitter melon is that spiky cucumber that TiAn would grow and Gram stole until she realized it was gross.)

After lunch, we met up with Dipak (D), his friend Raj, and his daughter Aarushi for second-lunch. D is the husband of our friend Ambika from grad school. We drove up past Swayambunath to a place overlooking the city where people come to enjoy the fresh air. I'm not sure it's high enough to be fresh air but it was a pleasant enough place to catch up and chase Aarushi around. Then we went back to D's house where his mother had prepared us a delicious meal of rice and daal, chicken, spinach, and spicy potato. My apologies to Mama D but I couldn't finish my rice. She served us more and more despite N using the most Nepali phrase we know: "pugyo!" "I'm full."

Then we distributed presents which was a little bit awkward because both N and I had forgotten that D lives with his extended family and we hadn't really brought easily shareable gifts. It seems like the most talked about gift was a lime green snake that went "chomp." Aarushi chattered on the whole time (after the first silent half hour) and the only words I recognized were "Mama's English friends", "snake chomp!" and "baby monkey sleep"

Then N and I returned tot he hotel to prepare ourselves for the wedding. Evidently my head is smaller than the average Korean's and doesn't absorb moisture as quickly.