At the hotel, a huge 36 storey affair, not all the rooms are ready. We are hungry and want to eat, so we when Bhanu asks us if we can wait, we agree and go in search of food. The lobby cafe is lovely, but they don’t serve alcohol, so we head to the Opium Den bar for a drink and some nibbles. I don’t remember exactly what we get – I know there was a platter of guacamole and chips, but whatever else we had wasn’t all that memorable, and I know it wasn’t a crazy amount of food or drinks – but the bill came out to almost $150 US for the 4 of us. Totally crazy! It’s a big city and a huge corporate hotel and all, but talk about highway robbery!
That negative experience aside, we get our hotel room keys, freshen up and then hit the lobby again to talk to the concierge about the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Ed read about on the plane. It is billed as the country’s “largest multicultural festival” and it sounds right up our alley. We get directions as to where to enter, call an Uber and are off on our adventure in a jiffy.
Well at least the ride was a jiffy, the entrance line is another story altogether! The ladies line stretches for blocks (seriously) down the street. The guys line isn’t anywhere near as long, so we tell the boys to just go in and wait for us and we do a European queue busting thing, just sort of joining the line a ways back from the entrance, but no where near the end. It felt really, really weird to just cut in line like that, but we’d never have made it into the festival if we hadn’t. Ok, so I’m rationalizing, but still… The guys got lucky and some guard came up to them and said “English"?” and they were taken to the front of the line. Not so lucky for us as we had to wait until our turn, which took about 10 minutes or so, but the wait was worth it. This place was hopping – and it was all young people – there was hardly anyone our age at all.
The festival was set up in the Kala Ghoda park, Kala Ghoda meaning black horse, with vendor stands lining the edge of the park and different venues for comedy, music and dance performances. It is a great way to spend the afternoon wandering around, looking at local art (even buying some cool bamboo coasters) and simply soaking up the happy, vibrant atmosphere. There is a pottery section that I want to see as well, but somehow manage to miss it hidden down one of the fenced off alcoves at the back of the park. Oh well – another time!
After getting our fill of wandering around, we figure we should start to head back, finding our way through the maze of stalls and people to the exit, then walking down the street a bit to the Prince of Wales Museum (and sneaking into the toilet there) to get an Uber to take us back to the Hotel.
Later at the hotel, we have our farewell dinner which is held for the 6 people who are not coming with us to Nepal. It’s a nice convivial evening, and we say goodbye to our new friends, wishing them all safe travels. Maggi and Richard and Ed and I repair to the expensive freaking bar for at least one night cap, because once again we have a 3 am wake up call for our flight to Nepal.
This time in the bar we only get drinks, but to add insult to our afternoon injury, when Maggi asks for a taste of the wine, the guy gives her a little bit, then when she approves, he barely fills her glass to 1/4 way. She motions to fill it up a little more and he says, you paid for the taste, this is what you get. Oh my God! Take us back to Udaipur or Jaipur or Agra please!!!!
On that unpleasant note, we finish our drinks and head to our respective rooms to try to get some sleep for our early morning flight to Kathmandu.
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