Coffee in the Garden of Dreams

“One moment in annihilation’s waste,

one moment of the well of life to taste –

the stars are setting, and the caravan

starts for the dawn of nothing – Oh, make haste !”

Once again I was enjoying a quiet moment at the “Garden of Dreams” – one of my favourite places in Kathmandu.

Sitting underneath the sacred words of the Persian Sufi poet Omar Khayyam, I was appreciating how true they still felt even after a thousand years had past and how relevant they were for my own journey to Nepal.

The “Garden of Dreams” had fascinated me, as soon as I had set foot in it at the beginning of my trip.

To understand this, you need to understand Kathmandu.

Nepal’s capital is dirty, noisy, chaotic, at times confusing and yet…beautiful!

It has nothing of the wide spaces of the countryside of Nepal’s borderlands to India. The perennial smog obscures the view of the tallest mountains of the planet and the fumes constantly attack your airways, resulting in a chronically blocked noise and a lingering cough.

But then, Kathmandu is so different, so unruly and in that aspect so entertaining, compared to any place you might find in Europe or in North America. It is no surprise that this was one of the favorite hideouts for the hippy generation, half a century ago, which still is fondly remembered in places like Freak Street.

However, walking through a small opening in the wall of Kaiser Mahal on the outskirts of Thamel, you find yourself in a completely different world.

Suddenly you notice birds singing, there are less traffic fumes and the greyness and the dust of the streets is replaced by the green colour of a nicely maintained lawn and of the leaves of trees, by colourful displays of flowers and by the calming effect of the clear water of beautifully arranged ponds and fontaines.

When sitting down for a drink at the colonial cafe

a chipmunk might be running over your shoes on its search for the odd bread crumb and you start noticing a strange crop of bats in the trees above you , waiting for the sun to set at the other end of the Garden.

Exploring further the playful beauty of the place, you will come across a hidden water cascade behind a false perimeter wall

and you will find a statue of Vishnu’s consort Lakshmi, promising worldly riches just around the corner, once your have passed a decapitated sphinx…..

Not far from there, a quote from Voltaire’s “Candide” reminds us of the importance of cultivating our gardens and it appears that here even the walls have made room for the trees….