7 do's for the Kathmandu night

1. Get acquinted with people who can take you to drink tongba. Razu at the Mount View guesthouse might prove to be your new best friend if he takes you to Dorje restaurant. If you can't find Razu, you can try locating Dorje yourself. Facing south, take a left turn from Jyatha road just past the Danish bookstore. Walk 20 meters. Dorje will be on your right in the tiny little alley. Say hi to Ases, Udey and Provin for me, okay?

2. Drink tongpa - probably the most ingenious alcoholic beverage in the world.

3. Here's how: Pour hot water over fermented millet seeds in a wooden bucket. Then suck the water out with a straw. Do it again. One tongpa is good for 3-5 rounds.

4. Order more tongpa.

5. When you've had enough tongpa, you've got three options. If you can avoid the obvious one, which is a) collapse you can either b)go see one of the Thamel cover bands play or c) go to a dance club.

6. In case you opt for b) both Namaste Cafe and TNT are nice. The bands all play the same stuff ranging from Arctic Monkeys to Jimi Hendrix but not all of them are good. (In fact, most of them are not.)

So before ordering an expensive beer (usually around 300 rupees) sit around for a while to see if the band is decent. If it isn't move to the next bar.

7. In case you opt for c), be prepared to see a grotesque striptease show in which the dancers don't strip. They just mull around the stage and sometimes take a shower. If you happen to run a fashion agency and have experience in training models to walk in high heels, then I think the girls in these bars could use your help. Oh, and bring lots of cash. You'll have to cough up at least 400 rupees for a beer here.

Bathing with elephants? No thanks

It's cruel. It's abuse. It's wrong. Elephant bathing is one of those things which in a guide book seem like the funniest thing you could ever do, but the reality of it is quite different.

I watched a few tourists "help an elephant bathe" in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal.

The procedure is simple. The dumbo driver tells the elephant to lie down in the shallow river. The tourists climb on and the driver tells the elephant to get up.

Then the biggest mammal in the world gushes water from his trunk to the tourist's face. Ha-ha.

Elelphant is told to go down again and splash, into the river the tourist dives.

Which would be very nice and funny if the elephant wasn't whacked and kicked to perform this tourist ritual.

"Helping an elephant bathe" a term used in the LP was one of the things I really wanted to do in Nepal. I get all silly around these massive animals. Their presence is so commanding, yet they seem so emphatetic as if their yielding to man's wishes was only because they wanted to help out. Elephants are my favourite animals.

A visit to the Elephant Breeding Center will clear one's head of such childish thougts. The croggy little informantion centers goes into surprising detail explaining how elephants are trained for taking tourists to tour the national park.

They start training the elephants when they are 2-4 years old. The young elephant is separated from his mother, and given very little food a water to make it weak. They chain its legs and then drag it around, using a particular little axe to force it forward. Worst of all they treat the elephant's sensitive skin (yes, the elephant's sensitive skin) with fire so that it gets hardened enough for a saddle. After a month's torture the massive animal has succumbed.

Not fun at all.

I've heard that there have been initiatives to find softer ways to train elephants. I really hope that they succeed.

PS.

The info center also tells the tale of wild male elephants who go to nearby villages in search of home brewed alcohol and get drunk. That part of the center I really liked. And the amazingly cute baby elephants who thump around freely in the center. If only watching them did not make one feel so guilty.