The importance of Hotel California

I may have mentioned to some of you that Hotel California was my theme song in China. This was because Chinese people seem to LOVE the song. I was always hearing it wherever I went. Sometimes I'd be sitting in a cafe and one song would finish and in the pause I would think, 'I bet it's Hotel California next' and often it would be...

I think what really sealed it for me though was when I was staying in Shanghai, the place I'd decided to go to for 2 days and ended up staying for 2 weeks. They were always playing the same mixtape in the hotel bar and I would start laughing every time The Eagles came round again. Although obviously, they meant you could check out but never leave because you were addicted to heroin, not because you were too hungover from drinking Chinese beer with Norwegian backpackers and didn't get up 'til noon.

And THEN I went to Yunnan province and the reception guy in the hotel I stayed in in Dali was trying to learn the guitar. Half a verse of Hotel California, with mangled chords, and misheard lyrics, over and over again for three days.

I've been looking for a a new hotel here in Kathmandu, as the one I was in was a bit gloomy. And, I discovered on Thursday night, right next to a bar with an incredibly loud covers band playing. I was looking through my guidebook trying to decide where to move to. One of the options was called Hotel California, and it sounded nice. I was fondly thinking of staying there, as a homage to my China trip. And then the covers band started on a high-decibel version of those distinctive opening chords and my soppy notion was revealed for the rose-tinted nonsense that it was.

So, today, after much traipsing round to see rooms, general indecisiveness on my part and eventual coin tossing, I moved to The Tibet Peace Guest House, where I expect to be for some time. It's a bit more expensive than lots of the hotels, but this is basically because he showed me a perfectly nice and very cheap room, I asked if they'd got anything with a bit more light and he took me to a turret. My turret now.

OK, it's not exactly a turret, but it's beautiful. I'm on the top floor, with loads of light and loads of space and a view, a private roof terrace, a double bed and even a wardrobe. I can put stuff away and feel like I'm staying! And sit reading or writing on the terrace looking at the Himalayas and getting a tan without offending local sensibilities with my undress. It's gorg. And the hotel's got a beautiful, chilled garden to hang out in and quite a few travellers staying (the last hotel had no communal area which was getting annoying).

This is all quite handy as it looks like no-one's going anywhere for a while. They've had another bandh today - with most places shut. And apparently there's a curfew for most of the day tomorrow. No buses are running anywhere, and apparently, there's so many buses and trucks stranded in the roads around the city that even when things can start going again buses aren't going to be able to get down the roads until it's all sorted out.

But again, it's really nothing like all that makes it sound. There's still loads of tourists just walking around like nothing's happening. Sturdy German families with three blond-haired kids. Elderly American women with walking sticks. Large rafts of Israelis bartering away. And even at the height of bandhs some shops and restaurants are open.

And there's still this surprising openness - if you ask the Nepalese staff about the situation they are very open about saying they want democracy and they hope all this trouble will be over soon because it's bad for tourism and their businesses. It was Nepali New Year's day yesterday and Nepalese people would say 'Happy New Year' to me and when i said it back they would tell me how this is not a good New Year and no-one is celebrating like normal.

I was sitting today in the fragrant garden of my new hotel and the hotel's owner (A French expat married to a Nepalese woman) was talking about the political situation and it just seemed so incongruous. Even though occasionally we could here chanting (there have been more demonstrations today) it might as well have been a million miles away.

Other things from the last couple of days, 'cos I need to go soon:-

British Embassy chat
I got chatting last night with someone who works at the British Embassy. They said 'it's all gone a bit weird the last few days', but they reckon it's totally safe, 'We have to do those travel advisories like that for really stupid people'.

Weird deja vu
I found the hotel I stayed in 15 years ago here by vaguely recognising places and going to where I thought it would be. It's called the Mini Om Guest House, which I remembered as soon as I saw it. It looks a lot more dingy and scabbit and the alley it's on looks much narrower. I decided not to stay there again.

California airheads
Pleased as I am to have more people to hang out with now, etc, I briefly wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake in choosing this new hotel. The first woman I spoke to said the words, 'healing' and 'finding myself' within the first minute of our conversation. As I started to panic she even added the phrase, 'I guess here was where I was meant to be right now'. Fortunately she went away quickly. And the other people seemed to have brains that worked.

Posting comments
Can anyone who's good at techy stuff tell me why people still don't seem to be able to post comments? I thought I'd changed the right setting but I have reports of still not being able to post without being a member of blogger. Also - is this hidden from google, etc like apieceofus, if not, what do I have to do to make it so?