Namaste Nepal En
My grandfather always used to say: “There's no better sauce than hunger to make the food appetising!” I think this is exactly my case right now. I decide to go and have something to eat and drink at K.C. In fact, apart from the bones of the tandoori chicken and a little rice, I didn't have anything to eat at Janakpur.
At the table next to mine there's one of those tourists that begs the question: What on earth do these people come to Nepal for? Why don't they go and have a nice holiday in Switzerland?
This one is French. For one thing K.C. is a restaurant tailor-made for tourists; in fact you see only tourists here. International cuisine, drinks in sealed bottles or cans, disinfected vegetables; in short nothing to complain about.
This French tourist starts by asking for a fruit juice and then when it arrives wants to know what make it is. The waiter obligingly brings the tin for her to see. She takes a look, shakes her head and sends it back, ordering some mineral water instead, but provided the bottle is well closed, for goodness' sake! The waiter returns with the mineral water. She feels the bottle: “But it's too cold!” The waiter, with admirable patience, takes this bottle back and returns with another at room temperature. She looks as though she is about to remark that this bottle is too warm but bites back her words only because the friend who is with her is clearly extremely embarrassed at this point. Then begins the 'window test' on the glass. Clearly the result leaves a lot to be desired regarding the cleanliness of the glass seeing that she picks up her napkin and starts rubbing the said object both inside and out with determined energy.
I have seen other tourists like her around here; they stay in Katmandu for their entire holiday or, at most, they venture as far as Pokhara in the tourist minibus. They get up around ten in the morning, breakfast in the restaurants of Thamel, then, all dressed up, wander around the shops looking for some exotic object to show off at home, or a bargain to boast about with friends. They leave Nepal with a very limited experience of the country, an experience which, furthermore, is misleading and false, and having caused harm more than anything else.