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 It’s not often Nepal sees interna­tional bands coming specifically for a small, one-day festival. It’s even less often we see a woman on bass who literally rocks the stage. This is what happened last Satur­day, Sept 29, during the Kathmandu Blues & Roots Festival.A psychedelic/rock/blues band from Austin, Texas, The Well were the only band of the day that got the crowd on its feet. Performing their own originals, they describe their influences as early metal, the likes of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, and 90’s bands such as Nirvana, The Melvins and Sleep. Jason Sullivan, drums, and Ian Graham, guitar and vocals, shared “Our music genre is in the seed stage. When we started it was incredible small, with mainly older, and only a handful of younger, bands. And then it just took off and we are kind of popular within the genre now because we have been there forever.”

I asked them how a band from Austin ended up at a Blues festival in Kathmandu. “We were playing in Chicago with a band called Midnight Wolf from Dallas. Kiran Byanjankar, who has an entertainment company in Chicago, came to see Wolf, saw us and asked if we would like to come to Nepal. We spoke to him just that one time and a year later it went into motion,” says Sullivan.

With only a few days in Nepal, The Well was keen to see as much as possible of the country and cul­ture. Just as well, (no pun intended!) as prior to playing at the Blues & Roots Festival, The Well were thrown headfirst into the Nepali music scene when they took the stage in Butwal along with Kathmandu’s Shree 3 and local Butwal band, Rock Gene. “They had a really cool setup there, the sound was crazy awesome,” says Lisa Alley, bass and vocals. “Every­one was stoked and wanted to take photos with us, and the environment was really comfortable for the audi­ence and us.”

So, aside from Butwal, have they managed to see anything else of the country? “This is our first time to Asia and we have seen Butwal and every little place in between there and Kathmandu! We have also seen the Indra Jatra festival, the chariot, which was impressive, and masked dancers. This is what I came for,” says Sullivan. “Aesthetically Nepal is beautiful everywhere you look. They have an eye for shape and colour and architecture… even the way the trucks are decorated. It’s like a car­nival,” says Sullivan.

“We visited Lumbini. It is awesome that Buddha was born there. We also eat a lot of local food, learned how to eat with our hands, and saw buf­falo brains being served at Satish’s house,” says Alley. (Satish Sthapit, Newaz, is a founder of the Blues & Roots Festival.)

Why such a short time in Nepal? “We are going straight from Kath­mandu to Rome for the start of a month-long European tour from October 3 to 28. We are hitting it hard right now as we have our third album coming out with Riding Easy Records. We just finished record­ing and mixing right before we left (for Nepal),” says Alley. “It's always nice to get out there and remind people you exist before releasing another album. In February we will tour the US to coincide with the album launch.” Back at the Blues & Roots Festival, I caught up with Kiran Byanjankar whose company Tarang Entertainment both hosted The Well and sponsored the Blues & Roots festival this year. “We are based in Chicago and showcase events for the Nepali diaspora.

Our motto is “let’s have fun”. If our involvement in the Blues and Roots Festival goes well this year, we will continue to be involved and help the festival grow,” he says. The crowd at this year’s festival certainly had fun so here’s to seeing Kiran, Satish and the rest of the gang bringing us more cool music in the future !

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country of 163 million people with only small pockets of Hin­du communities, comprising around 14 percent of the population. Hin­du-Muslim relations are generally good in Bangladesh and during my five years there, I felt right at home, even during Dashain. Planting jamara in my Asian Uni­versity for Women (AUW) hostel, getting tika from my professors and seniors instead of my grandmother, playing cards with my friends instead of my cousins, and eating Nepali food cooked with friends instead of with my family—there were some variations, but we tried to celebrate the festival pretty much as we would back in Nepal.

We did not get long holidays for Dashain but on the night of Dashami Nepali students gathered and played the Mangal Dhun, sang Nepali songs, and danced and played cards. Some even cried as they missed Nepal. There were students who felt lonely during Dashain, especially those celebrating it for the first time away from their families.

Hundreds of Nepali students will celebrate their Dashain in Bangla­desh this year as well. Currently, around 400 Nepali students are studying medicine in Bangladesh. The number of Nepali students in other technical subjects has been increasing as well. Besides them, there are around 10,000 permanent­ly settled Nepalis in the country.

“This is going to be my first Dashain away from family”, says Archana Suwal, 20, a current stu­dent in AUW Chittagong. “But I am not sad as I have found many senior Nepali sisters to celebrate Dashain with.” Sanjay Karki, 25, who studied MBBS in Bangladesh and is now working in Maldives, says that he gets excited when he remembers Dashain celebrations in Bangladesh.

“During Dashain, we used to gaze out at the flock of Hindus going for Durga Puja at a nearby temple from our rented apartment in Zam Zam building [in Chittagong]. We Nepalis too formed a group to go visit local temples,” Karki says. Reminisc­ing the moments spent celebrat­ing Dashain with his Bangladeshi friends, he says, “Despite being a Muslim country, Bangladesh knows how to respect and value other reli­gions. I am thankful to my Bengali friends for being there for us.”

There are also working profes­sionals who feel right at home in Bangladesh. One of them is Biswas Kafle, 32, a tour operator who has been staying in Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka for the past one decade. “I visit Shakti Peeths and go to Durga Pujas organized by Hindus in Ban­gladesh. In my view, the Hindus here feel a little dominated by Muslims so when we foreigners visit the temples and meet the local Hindus, they feel good and proud to be a part of the bigger Hindu community.”

When asked if he misses Dashain celebrations in Nepal, he answers “Not really!” as he frequently visits Nepal. “For last Dashain celebra­tions, I along with some other Nepali students in Dhaka had reserved a whole ship for a DJ party.”

But alcohol was not a part of the party. The absurdly high tax, as high as 605 per cent, and Islam’s ban on alcohol makes it hard to get in Ban­gladesh, even for foreigners. Howev­er, most Nepalis in Bangladesh that APEX talked to seemed to have no problem celebrating without it.

You cannot experience in Ban­gladesh the kind of Dashain vibe that sweeps Nepal this time of the year. There are no swings or kites in the sky. But Nepalis, who have been staying in Bangladesh for some time, have found a way to connect with their Nepali roots during this festival: dancing to the rhythm of Sugam Pokharel’s “Dashain Tihar” and cooking masu bhat and tarkari.

The third edition of the Kathmandu Blues and Roots music festival is all set to take place this Saturday, Sept 29, at the Tangalwood premises. This time, the orga­nizers promise a bigger and better edition of Kathmandu’s homegrown homage to the music from the Americas. With an international act The Well, all the way from the US, the Kathmandu Blues and Roots this year boasts of a versatile lineup of local musicians tak­ing the stage to play the blues. Nepal’s folk-blues legends Mukti and Revival will be headlining the event with Newaz, TMR Trio, Illusion, Kathmandu Cats and Millions Addicts—the winners of the Blues and Roots online contest—slated to perform at the all-day affair.

The event, organized by Tarang Entertainment, will begin at 12:30 pm with the tra­ditional Gulan Baja from Ason opening the event. The Distin­guished Gentleman’s Ride hap­pening on the same day is also sharing the Tangalwood venue and the riders of the DGR are expected to merge into the audi­ence of Blues and Roots, making it even grander.

Tickets (Rs 300 each) to the event can be purchased at the door  

 If you are looking for a quiet week­end getaway then Om Adhyay Retreat Resort in Tistung-Pa­lung is the place to be! Located 65 km north of Kathmandu, it is an adventurous four-hour drive. Try to avoid the bumpy Kulekhani road though. Instead take the one that goes from Naubisey to Daman (on the old road to Hetauda). On the way to Daman, there are plenty of pointers to the hotel. Meanwhile, en route, you can enjoy some ultra-clean air, which is increasingly a luxury for people in Kathmandu. When you reach the hotel, which was established in 2015, you will find peace and serenity. The place is nice and quiet, too, with farms on three sides and a hill on one, and with the calming sound of waterfall in the backdrop to boot.

The name Om Adhyay sug­gests a meditative retreat, and the place seems to reflect this. Even if a noisy group is in the vicinity, you will easily find a corner inside the spacious property where you can be by yourself.

There are 42 tents with very good mattresses in case you want to experience living in one, while you have all modern amenities at your doorstep. You can also hire a tent to set it up in the hills nearby. What’s more, these tents are Rs 300 cheaper than normal room fares in the resort!

You can enjoy in-house activities such as snooker, table tennis, vol­leyball, badminton and also relive your childhood by playing slides and swings. There is a plunge pool too, where water flows in from a ‘dhunge dhara’ as you relax. From this place, you can go explore other destina­tions as well; Markhu, Kulekhani, Chitlang, Unamatteshwor Mahadev, Bajra Barahi, Kulekhani and Kunch­hal village are within short distance. Some of them can also be reached on foot, if you prefer to walk it.

The meals at the resort are a tasty affair—the a la carte snacks and the main course “Nepali dal bhat” buffet are both so good you might want to go back just for them. The in-house restaurant also serves var­ious liquors as well as shisha. The staff is friendly and helpful.

Fridays and Saturdays are usually packed so for those days booking should be done three weeks prior, according to Deepak Bidari, the director of the resort. Otherwise, you can book a week ahead or just drop in. One-day stay package here costs around Rs 3,000, which is a good deal considering many facili­ties such as free Wi-Fi.

As this place is cold throughout the year, the best time to visit would be during summer or late summer. Director Bidari says large groups from companies and schools often come visit.

Om Adhyay is recommended for those who want to travel a little dis­tance from Kathmandu for a retreat experience, writers who want some alone time for creative energy to flow and people who want to med­itate. A weekend there promises to be a great retreat for your mind, body and soul.