I was sorry to read about the unrest in Kathmandu this week. As a kid in the UK during the 1950s I used to daydream about far away places with strange-sounding names. One of those places was Kathmandu.
It sounded mystical and exotic with a Shangri-La aura about it. Just a glance at the atlas was enough to confirm its credentials. It looked like an exciting place perched on the edge of the formidable Himalayas.
The 1953 expedition to Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay added to the appeal of Nepal. The summit had arguably been the last place on Earth untouched by mankind.
The best thing about the expedition was that a couple of months later all us kids got the afternoon off school to go to the cinema and watch the film, Conquest of Everest. Hillary and Tenzing became legitimate schoolboy heroes -- anyone who could get us an afternoon off school deserved such an accolade.
Little did I know that 16 years later I would be sitting in the back of an open truck for the nine-hour ride from the Indian border at Birganj to Kathmandu. That journey in itself was a revelation with wonderful panoramas as we approached the Himalayan foothills. I can still picture the hillsides covered in colourful rhododendrons, the national flower of Nepal.
The week or so in Kathmandu was the most pleasant period of our three-month overland trip from London. It was all the more remarkable considering we were almost broke. Having the majestic backdrop of the Himalayas helped of course. It definitely made you feel that you were somewhere special. We were on top of the world.
Flower power
My stay in Kathmandu coincided with the time "Flower Power" was at its height in the US. There weren't that many foreign travellers, but there was a smattering of "hippies" wandering around, and the smell of marijuana was never far away. It all added to Kathmandu's laid-back atmosphere, making it an ideal place to chill out.
We rented bicycles and came across some extraordinary temples while riding in the foothills which was a magical experience. Alas, we never found the legendary "one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu" which features in the J Milton Hayes poem.
Evenings were spent in cheap cafes, eating banana pancakes and listening to rock music on vinyl records. Hendrix, Dylan, Cream, the Beatles, and Marvin Gaye. What more could you ask for?
I would have liked to have stayed in Nepal much longer, but rapidly diminishing funds meant it was time to hit the road again. Before we left Kathmandu, I purchased a bamboo flute and succeeded in driving everyone nuts by attempting to play it on the way back to the Indian border.
'Eat your greens'
I was at a Bangkok supermarket recently when in the middle of processing my purchases the check-out girl suddenly scampered off. I was still puzzled about what was going on when she returned with a smile holding a large bag of vegetables and explaining in her best English "two for one". I hadn't been aware it was a special promotion and was impressed by her helpfulness, even though I didn't really want an extra bag of veggies.
It also served as an example of how English expressions creep into the Thai language, especially at supermarkets. Even people in Nakhon Nowhere know what "buy one, get one" means.
Since then, I've endured a couple of weeks of munching away at mountains of veggies, which can't be bad. As my mum used to say "eat your greens".
On a more philosophical level, author Terri Guillemets observed: "Vegetables are the soul's food, the poet's inspiration, and the chef's canvas."
Making waves
As regards English cropping up when you least expect it I recall going into a 7-Eleven in Bangkok during the early 1990s and selecting a couple of slices of cheap pizza. When I went to pay at the counter, the girl asked "way?"
I wasn't sure what she was talking about but she repeated "way?". I looked around and spotted a microwave oven in the corner. She was actually saying "wave?" asking if I wanted the pizza to be microwaved.
One English word that made a surprise entry in the Thai vocabulary about a decade ago was "over" as in "over-the-top". I'm not sure what first triggered it but for a while, anything regarded as very exaggerated or hyperbolic became referred to in Thai conversation as "over". It was often directed at local celebrities who were prone to doing or saying something regarded as particularly silly.
There's a word for it
In last week's item about the long words Leonard Sachs used when introducing performers for The Good Old Days, vocabulary experts have pointed out that I could have summed up his speaking style with just one simple adjective: "sesquipedalian."
It is certainly an eye-catching word and with 14 letters not that easy to spell or even pronounce. So I think I will stick to such words as "verbose" or "long-winded" for the time being.
For those not impressed by this word, you might be suffering from "sesquipedalophobia", a fear of long words. Don't worry, you won't find too many in PostScript. That's why I always lose at Scrabble.
Roger Crutchley is a long time popular Bangkok Post columnist. In 1994 he won the Ayumongkol Literary Award. For many years he was Sports Editor at the Bangkok Post. A version of this article first appeared in the Bangkok Post and has been reprinted under special arrangement.
