L'Arte di Viaggiare - Art of Travel - Francis Galton

Eight delightful hours spent in conversation with Werner, a German from Stuttgart and a teacher of religious education in a secondary school. I already know the road as far as Mugling as it's the one I travelled along on the way to Janakpur. This time, however, it's drier and travelling is easier. The second part of the journey is through a beautiful area of hills, trees and paddy-fields.

Being with Werner on arrival means I am able to avoid being subjected all alone to the assault of guest house vendors. A man on a cart pulled by a horse is passing at that moment and Werner stops him and negotiates a price for a ride to Lakeside. I'm amazed yet again: this man looks more like a peasant who was going about his business, rather than someone whose job is taxiing tourists around on his cart. Anyway, we get on and the old jade sets off at a pace which is little more than standstill! Along the road we meet a Japanese man and ask whether he is heading for Lakeside too, and would he like to share our rather unusual means of transport. He joins us and we set off again. Both the Japanese man and Werner have various guest house addresses. The first address – one of Werner's – is not to our liking; the second – suggested by our Japanese companion – can't be found. In the end we choose the Butterfly guest house which we find in my guide book: very basic, inexpensive and with a nice garden. However, the Japanese man, whose requirements are more pretentious, opts for one nearby which is grander and more expensive. After a quick shower, I go out to a restaurant recommended to us by the guest house owner with our Japanese friend, while Werner stays behind to smoke hashish with an American girl who is another of the hotel guests.

The saying 'When in Rome do as the Romans do' might be re-phrased 'When in Japan . . ! with what happens now. From the menu we choose lake trout and a large bottle of beer to be shared between us. As soon as they bring the beer, my Japanese friend pours me a glass [which, once the froth settles, is only half a glass] and then proceeds to drain the rest of the bottle himself in huge gulps. When the fish arrives there is nothing left to drink. This fellow is not without resources, though, and heads determinedly for the bar, and while I mistakenly entertain the idea that he has gone to order another beer, he comes back with a glass of boiling water in his hand which he puts down before me. “What's that for?” I ask. “It's for you”, he replies, “to drink with the fish; it's safe!”
How kind! After devouring the fish at a speed even greater than that at which he drank the beer, he jumps up again, all of a sudden: it's his jerky way of moving; he either stays perfectly still or he suddenly springs into action. It can be quite shocking. Now he seizes the mosquito repellent spiral which is smouldering on the floor near our table, and lights his cigarette from it and while I am patiently finishing the fish, which is full of small fish bones [did they all end up in my fish? or is he perhaps immune to them?], he blissfully smokes his cigarette.

His show ends when it is time to settle the bill: extraordinarily quick to calculate our parts fifty-fifty – despite having drunk almost all the beer himself – he determinedly fishes the change necessary to make up the sum of the bill from the palm of my hand. Not for nothing is he a professor of mathematics in Tokyo!
They say that the Japanese who come here to Nepal are the not-so-well-off: those who can afford to do so come to Europe or go to the States. I don't know whether it is so, but what is true is that the Japanese one meets here are odd. There's the one who spends his days under the pergola of the Yeti restaurant drinking beer and wine from the early morning. Not very tall, but powerfully built, surely a practiser of martial arts. He treats his lovely five-year-old son arrogantly and sadistically. It is plain to see that the child is afraid of his father. This morning, while I was having breakfast, he arrived with his wife, his son and the taxi driver he has hired full-time. I was talking to a Nepalese boy and I stroking the kitten he had on his lap. The Japanese boy who, for reasons best known only to himself, did not like my stroking the kitten, gave me a karate blow on the wrist, right on my wrist-watch. At this point, the boy's father, wanting to show off the power he had over his son, dragged him over to a pillar, pushed his face against it and ordered him not to move. My attempts to intervene on his son's behalf only served to spark his anger. “Mind your cat!”, he yelled at me, “This is my cat and I do whatever I like with him!”
When breakfast was over and it was time to go, he called his son, making him jump to attention. He shouted harsh phrases, in military tone, to which his son replied contritely, his head bowed. He took hold of his son's head under the chin and lifted his face in order to give him two loud slaps before pushing him into the car. His son didn't shed a single tear him: it must have required a tremendous effort, the slaps were painful, but he plucked up courage and held back the tears. Fruit of a repressive upbringing or are we really genetically different?
I later learned that this man habitually used violence not only on his son, but also on his wife and on the Nepalese he crossed and with whom he used blows to settle accounts. One morning I saw the owner of this same Yeti restaurant arriving covered in bruises, with front teeth missing and without his usual sunglasses. He told me that the previous evening, being the worse for drink and drugs himself too, he had quarrelled with the Japanese fellow and they had come to blows down by the lakeside. The Japanese had thrown him into the lake and had held his head under the water in an attempt to drown him. “Dangerous man!” he added “very dangerous!”.

25 July

15 August Sarangkhot