Himalayas or Playa Las Américas?
Our style guide editor JILLIAN O'KEEFE visited the land of the giant Honey bee, Nepal, and found a refreshing alternative to the average package holiday.
Everyday Holiday
The charter plane touches down in Dublin, Cork or Shannon, and your pockets are empty. “Where did all that money go? I was on a cheap holiday!” you say, wondering aloud to your equally broke friends.One know-it-all buddy with a burnt nose pipes up from the window seat. “You spent it on drink”, they say, nodding wisely and annoyingly. “No I couldn’t have” you think, and the memory of all the expensive clubs and all the multicoloured drinks that tasted like ribena comes flooding back. “Uh oh”.
And then you spend the rainy journey home alternately imagining what your bank balance looks like and shuddering.
Himalayan Alternative
After that, all you have left is the fading tan and the niggling hangover. For the same amount of cash, why not have spectacular photos and wonderful memories and maybe even visit Base Camp?
As long as you’re willing to part with most of your cash upfront for plane tickets – about a grand (It sounds a lot but when you add to the apartment cost what you spend on drink in Santa Ponsa it’d be the same), you can then stay in Nepal for peanuts, about five to ten euro a day. Land of football-playing monks (I’ve seen them – they hold up their robes to run) and spectacular sunsets over Sagarmatha, Nepal is a vibrant and fascinating place to visit
Cheap as Chips
Since it’s in the developing world, hotel stays are less than two euro a night. Granted that usually doesn’t include a hot shower but nobody ever died of a quick cold scrub, or of using a hole in the ground toilet, well maybe that one could be true.
It is true that until recently the country was in a civil war, but happily the democratic process is developing smoothly so there are no more Maoist rebels extorting passage money from hikers. Nepal being the funny place that it is, the rebels, in preparation for becoming part of government, were equally as polite to tourists as the system they were fighting.
This is because both sides, even while at each others’ throats, knew that the tourist industry was the source of revenue that kept the country afloat, especially the profits from those mentallers who liked climbing up and down mountains for fun. The country is trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps economically and the former guerrillas haven’t lost their sense of humour. The former king, Gyanendra, was booted out nicely from his palace more than a year ago but the new government then sent him an electricity bill. He says he doesn’t have the €183,000 now that he’s not divine anymore.
But even though the Maoists are sharing government, Nepalis definitely have capitalist inclinations. You can get cups of tea for three cent on the roadside and tasty food too; it won’t always give you food poisoning, only sometimes.
Souvenirs and Cheap Beers
Although you might be a poor Irish person, you’ll be rich in Nepal so you can still pay a little over the odds for khurta shalwars and kukris (long curved Gurkha knives) in tourist areas so the locals can benefit from your extra pennies.
Renting transport is cheap, but you’ll need to be able to drive a motorbike, and also be able to dodge them when walking on narrow streets. Getting through Kathmandu is like human Tetris but still good fun.
However, there are two drawbacks to swapping a package island for a small mountainous country. One, there are no beaches. Two, nobody can afford to get stotious drunk, so you must find tourist friends with which to get locked.
But the drink is still cheap compared to what you’re used to, and the setting is wonderful. I recommend drinking Nepali vodka with local friends for a sunny Christmas Day picnic. The soccer-playing Buddhist monks in the background simply add to the atmosphere.
