Kathmandu - 22 years on......

I have wondered many times what it would be like to come back to Kathmandu, the place I’d enjoyed the most when I took a year out in my twenties. Would it have changed much?  How familiar would it be? Would it still have the same friendly vibe?  

Our plane arrived at Kathmandu from Kuala Lumpur and after leaving the plane, we embarked on the process of getting visas sorted out.  We feared a lengthy administrative ordeal with forms and photos needed - it turned out to be a very straightforward process thanks to the friendly and least officious border staff you could wish to meet - they even entertained the boys while we went through the forms!  Passing customs, we saw our name on a placard - excellent - the taxi we’d arranged with the Garuda had turned up.  The older looking chap seemed vaguely familiar and I wondered if he was someone from the Hotel Garuda from my last visit.  It turned out he was an airport porter and it wasn’t entirely clear how he’d got our placard.  Clever trick though, and caught me out, as thats the first time, albeit unwittingly, I’d used an airport porter.

Busy streets, everyone edges into the gaps, no-one gives way!

The journey to Thamel was a very immediate and stark reminder of just how much Kathmandu has changed. But the change didn’t reflect the modernisation you might have expected, rather the mismatch between the road infrastructure (which, if anything, looked worse than before) and the volume of traffic chaotically exploiting it; cars, buses, motorbikes  - and so many people - and carving each other up to a cacophony of blaring horns.  It was almost like being in a crazy video game, but one you’d find to be unrealistic because it would seem improbable that cars could pass so close to pedestrians without hitting them. Motorbikes swerving at high speed between pedestrians, passing within centimetres, taxis honking furiously as their wing-mirrors threaten to at least break a few arms here and there.  But the really surprising thing is not that they get away with it - there is virtually no visible enforcement of traffic discipline - but that pedestrians just take it in their stride as being entirely normal. No-one seems in the slightest bit bothered that they come so close to being hit. You don’t even see anyone looking annoyed with other drivers. Imagine if this happened in Weybridge.  Even one of the lesser near-misses we saw would have attracted a small crowd of people, generally shaking their heads,  tutting and muttering disdainfully “What a nutter” in the direction of the perpetrator. 

So when I met my old friend Tseten Norkyel the next day, head of the Garuda Hotel where I’d stayed both previously and on this trip, his explanation that Kathmandu had grown from less than 1m to over 6m people in the intervening period helped account for the change I’d observed on the roads. 

Some of the things are similar; there are still a plethora of colourful signs vying for your attention, up above the street level nestled amongst an unbelievable tangled web of cables. And there are still plenty of shops selling Nepalese clothes - although it does feel that they are more likely to be bought and worn by visitors than locals these days.

Colourful streets........

..........especially with the prayer flags

I remember sauntering down the middle of the roads (can’t do that anymore) as there were few cars off the main roads back then.  You could strike up conversation with shopkeepers, there was a relaxed pace and tone.  Now people are keener to sell to you, taxis, rickshaw drivers in particular stopping to ask you to take a ride; whilst occasionally boys still in their teens furtively whisper to you what drugs might be on sale as they pass by. The script about friendly locals is not as obvious with the present generation of young men, not unreasonably, perhaps, given the troubles the country has been through in the last 15 years.

Overtaking rules are a little different

driving on the left is a fairly loose concept....

On our first afternoon, we walked to Swayambunath temple, famed for the presence of many monkeys (possibly rabid and aggressive according to the guidebook, so don’t get too close.) It was a 90 minute walk across Kathmandu, taking in busy and some quieter areas, but in the city all the way.  Ironically in my trip there previously, by bike, I remember cycling across the countryside and passing through little villages along the way, when the city boundary was far nearer the centre.  Now its been enveloped by the city.  We passed the river Bagmati - the guidebook warned of the most polluted river on earth.  Actually, you can barely see the river for the rubbish, although you can start to smell it from half a mile away.....

You can hardly see the actual river......

When you look out from the top of the temple (after climbing 365 steps) you see one huge sprawling city of Kathmandu, whereas before, it had been three distinct cities - Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur - with countryside in between.

That said, it’s just a first impression from a primarily city based experience so far. We’ve also had some very pleasant exchanges with people at the hotel, shops and restaurants we been to, and over the next 3 weeks or so here, as we get out to Pokhara and go trekking at Gorephani, we’ll gain a more balanced insight of Nepal today. 

As we gazed out to the horizon at 5am this morning from our hotel “At the end of the Universe” in Nagarkot, we had spectacular views of the Himalayas.  

No change there then, at least.