Garden of Dreams, Kathmandu, Nepal

The Garden of Dreams at the entrance of Kathmandus tourist district, Thamel, is the most unrepresentative place for Kathmandu, but the only place where I found the quiet to do a drawing.

It is neo-classical, originally private garden from the 1920s.

After arriving from Tibet I spend some time in the Kathmandu Valley, waiting for my Indian visa. The whole of Nepal and especially the valley with its three main cities Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur was shut off from the western world until the 1950s. During the past 70 years a lot has changed in this country which, until then, was still „medieval“ (according to some western commenters). A lot of the traditional artwork disappeared from the temples and appeared in western collections later. The cities where adapted to cars and motorbikes and countless NGOs made themselves comfortable. Capitalism brought another layer of disparity to the country, additional to the cast system.

According to some of the senior citizens a lot was better in the past: the rivers where clean enough to drink from, the air was clean, people walked everywhere instead of taking cars and people where happier with less, growing their own food and keeping few animals for occasional eggs and meat. Children still learned proper Nepali instead of english as they do now (which on the other hand is very convenient for us westerners).

After a week in Kathmandu, Gaëlle, a belgian woman I was travelling with since Tibet, and I headed to Pokhara and started the Annapurna Circuit Trek a few days later. We hiked for ten days amidst some of the worlds highest peaks, enjoying splendid landscapes and picturesque villages. After the trek we spent a few days in a homestay in a small village near Pokhara doing yoga and meditation. 

Before we met, Gaëlle was travelling through China. At one point she missed the last bus from the Great Wall back to Beijing. She was lucky and met a group of ceramic artists who were in Beijing for a conference. They took her back to the city in their car. One of the artists in the car was Risitas, a young woman from Nepal. 

When we first came to Kathmandu we visited Risitas in the studio of her teacher, ceramic artist and sculptur Gopal Kalapremi Shrestha. When I saw the studio I instantly knew I wanted to stay to learn. A few days later, when Gopal was back from his exhibition in Vienna (a coincidence) I asked him if I could be his student for some time – and he not only accepted, but even offered me a room in his house, just above the atelier.

Since I returned to Kathmandu, two weeks ago, I spend most of my days learning to work with clay (a material that is abundant in the Kathmandu Valley) – making sculptures (portraits) and pottery, living with Gopals family. The plan is to stay until the end of January, with a mediation retreat as a break over christmas.