the nepali girls have been developing a taste for western fashion for the past 15 years, but it has reached a critical mass just recently. now it is common to see beautiful young things striding about in tight shorts and mini skirts. lovely things. innocent in many ways, but also wanting to sin and and willing to get tattoos to prove it. stay clear of them though, as under the outer wrappings they are still girls just out of their high school exams who have to be home at 7 pm to cook dinner for the family.
massage parlours are still the best way to get your jollies in the limited scene of kathmandu. you might score a tourist chick, or meet a semi-pro in a disco, but these things are chancy at best, and given the ease of the parlour, unless you are just out for sport, go for the low hanging fruits.
as always, when i get to the valley i spend the first few days visiting every likely place i can find. if the girls look at all worth sampling, i will ask the price for a massage, then inquire about the price for that special thing. the term 'sex garne? ' is understood by all. the quality of girls was down this visit; a lot of these places were stocked with middle age women who had been at this game far too long. they looked worn and desperate. but some places had younger, prettier girls who had likely come in from the village to find the city lights not too long ago.
just about every place that hangs a sign that says massage will provide sex. if the sign says spa, then it is maybe a 50/50 chance you will or will not get what you want. avoid spas, stick to massage places. if you do not like the look of the girls, just say you are looking for another place know and came to theirs by mistake—july / august is the off season, so they are desperate for business and unwilling to let a potential customer go. i am annoyed when i go into a massage parlour and see a half dozen thamel boys hanging around wanting to practice their gutter english. 'hey brother. you want sex, yes? nepali girl very pretty, you do massage, good massage. ' so when i found them milling about in the rooms i would usually just back out and perhaps come back later if i spied a pretty girl in their midst. plenty of places, so no lack of new shops to explore.
if you like a girl, and unless it looks really like a spa (along with the sign, it will be cleaner, white coats on all staff, towels stacked neatly and a real counter at the front) , just ask straight up for a special massage, or for sex. they will understand, this is their business. they will also want a lot of money. nepali guys pay about 500 rupees a pop. i can get this rate sometimes, but i usually end up giving 1000 rupees (about 14$) , with a 100 rupee tip. the girls have condoms, but i often bring my own which are of known quality.
they might want you to go to a room in the guesthouse away from the parlour itself (usually up a floor) and pay an extra 300 rupees. the pretence s that it is safer from any police action, but they pay off the cops through a boy who visits every shop around 5 pm to collect the 500 rupee baksheesh. so i don't go for the 'safe' room and just prefer the massage room areas which are private and usually clean enough. the girls are often not enthusiastic, meaning they are willing, but they look at their watch, ask if you are done and generally just want to lay there while you do the work. there are exceptions, but few.
you might want to bring some wet wipes to clean up with as you will rarely find functioning toilet facilities with soap and running water. tipping is optional, but 100 rupees buys this girl a pair of shoes, while it buys me one forth of a beer. they also remember and respond to kindness, so i try to spread it around.
brothels, street walkers, girl friendly hotels and a narrow escape.
i had picked up streetwalkers in kathmandu in the past, even before mongering was such an open sport. they were typically a bit dirtier than other professional girls, and were not always easy to notice. but with the right sort of eye you could see a prospect, get a brow raised with eye contact, and then after following them for a few minutes find a comparatively quiet place to discuss business. it helps to speak nepali and have a place to go, but they usually could find a spot if all else failed where for an extra 500 rupees the help would open a dank room just clean enough to not put you off the business at hand. they usually charged between 500 to 1500 rupees for the actual service.
in the kathmandu of 2011, along with the transvestites, street walkers are more around and active in the thamel area starting around 9 pm. you can spot them easily, as not many nepali ladies feel this is an appropriate place to spend time at this hour, looking bored and making eye contact with wandering foreigners. so just about any girl that does make eye contact in this atmosphere is approachable. i would not suggest this option to the casual mongerer, as the girls do not usually speak english, are more likely to be addicts or be socially challenged in any number of ways, and the whole logistic of getting to a room is a hassle which involves walking around in front of police, getting a taxi perhaps, chatting with hotel clerks and so forth. they also want to charge a lot more than the massage girls.
but it had been some months since i checked out the scene, so i shunted my companions off into the darkness towards their hotel in a rickshaw and i aimed toward the thick of things. immediately a very pretty tibetan looking girl took my arm and asked where she could get a drink, and expressed her disbelief that all the bars were closing at 11 pm. i had taken a bottle of whiskey with me on a drunken riskshaw parade through old kathmandu, which is a fun way to show my friends what the place could look like with no people. the rickshaw drivers were content with the 500 rupees we promised and knew what to do. they took us to all the right places, the old temples, up freak street, down winding little back roads. my friends who were new to the country loved it. on the way back, after i sent them scuttling to their hotel, i felt i had to do my own exploration. they would not understand, and shouldn't, really.
the rickshaw driver i had the whole time was alluding to his vast knowledge of carnal delights in kathmandu, and after the others left i let him take me to a guest house where he promised me beautiful girls would make my dreams come true. we had to clang on the gate to get the boy's attention. he asked how many? one ghora (white person) was the reply. we went up two flights of stairs to some rooms where about three rather haggard working girls came out, flying their tattoos, and encouraging me to strike a deal. not interested, not now, but maybe tomorrow? keep this place in mind as it is definitely girl friendly, and you never know when you might need a room quick.
but i wanted to walk the streets a bit just to get a feel for things. i was right in the heart of thamel near the pub maya and kathmandu guest house when in an instance i had this woman on my arm, with her friend next to her, lamenting in fluent english her lack of access to hard drink. i still had the bottle of whiskey with me which i showed her as i indicated that the only place i knew of the get some liquor was up in my room. she was shocked, and i figured she would peel off or take the bait. either way was fine. she told me she was chinese and proceeded in a sing-song dialogue with her friend who then got into a cab. 'she has to go home, work tomorrow. ' she informed me.
now, where to go, back to my room? i decided to try as i was just near the hotel in which i had rented a room. the upper and middle class hotels get a bit sticky about bringing girls in at night. not a problem in the day, but at night you need to be in one of the smaller guest houses run by young boys who would ask for seconds if you brought in a street girl. i figured i could bluff my way in though, or at least try. the guard would not even open the gate. 'she cannot come in here! this is my hotel, my management will not allow! ' i pleaded that she was my friend, but i knew it was hopeless. i had failed at other hotels before, and knew even if i got by this fellow, the night manager would be an even harder case.
so i felt i was done. screw this girl. get some sleep. i had been hard drinking and mongering for days now. but she said she had a place to go, a hotel her uncle from china ran. we walked about five minutes down a back street and there was a building with a sign in chinese. she seemed to know the boy at the counter who gave us a key. no need to show i'd, and even better, no room charge. we climbed up the stairs for what seemed a long time and found the room. she asked for some money to score cigarettes and mineral water. while she was gone i rummaged through her purse to get some clue as to who she was. she spoke the lingo and looked chinese, but she also spoke nepalese too well. no clues in there. just tissues, some small cash and a phone. no condoms either.
she came back with the loot and disrobed. it took all of about 30 seconds before we were going to business. she had more energy and commitment than me, which is something 19 year old girls (her claimed age) seem to possess when the mood strikes them. i cooperated until i was too exhausted to keep going, then soothed her bites, gropes and clings with calming caresses to lure her to sleep. it was after all nearing 2 am.
when the thrashing finally stopped and i could feel her breath even out into long, deep draws, i knew it was time to make my move. the first quiet slip of the leg from that tangled mess under the covers. move the body over to the edge, listen for any change in breathing or posture that would indicate waking and the real threat of a drunken spurned working girl seeking immediate revenge for current and past insults that had nothing to do with me, but for which i would pay a huge price. now the arm, smooth withdrawal and in sync with my body edging off the bed and arranging itself in a standing position.
pitch dark, got to find the clothes. i had prepared for this moment and placed all my garments in a heap on the other single bed. feeling my way through to the underwear, find the tag, feet through. then the same for pants and shirt. too dark and quick to deal with socks, so into a pants pocket. shoes on and to the door. quietly unlock it and i am out in the hallway. how many flights of unlit steps to the ground floor? three, ah, hoping the hotel door is unlocked as i cross the lobby through piles of sleeping sweeper boys and elderly guards. open the unlocked door and into the driveway.
the gate i knew would be chained with a sleepy watchman tucked under some shelter nearby. i had paid attention to how it opened, and saw how the chain had just enough play for the two metal doors to stretch apart and leave room enough just for the size of my frame. i unlatched the noisy metal gate lock, and opened the doors that squeaked like a crowd of banshees coming home from a feast on unbaptized children. out through the slit with no sign of the guard. i was free.
i immediately made friends with a pack of street dogs who would normally have gone mad for anything with warm blood. they were so astounded with my clicks and furtive pats on the nose that the lead alpha male, a large black beast that had led a hard life, would shift between running point to keep danger away and coming back to see if his new reality was true, would i still pet him? a quick scratch behind his filthy ear and back to run point. another member of the pack kept doing flips in attempts to get my attention and find another petting. they eventually got bored, or knew the end of their territory and watched me disappear into the night.
the streets were dead by now except for a few rickshaw drivers who felt any single male wandering at this time was looking for trouble, so they tried to provide it with offers of just about anything you could want. i made it back to the hotel where the gate keeper seemed to have calmed down. he must have remembered me and the perverted sin i had tried to visit upon his hotel, on his watch! but he didn't say a word when i rapped on the metal to wake him. he opened the doors, 'namaste sir. ' into the hotel and up to the room. safety, whiskey, a quick smoke and the finish of another day in kathmandu.