Durbar Square, Patan
As my plane descended into Kathmandu that late March evening, I peered out the window. The sun had set some four hours previous and we were another fifteen minutes away from landing. My watch read 2145 Nepal Standard Time. Looking down onto the Nepali landscape, I spotted runway lights as we circled towards the airport, and streetlamps clearly marking Kathmandu’s main ring road. There were other flickers – dim emanations from windows and doorways, plus occasional beams cast down by cars and motorcycles still travelling through the city. But I couldn’t help but notice that entire swaths on ground below were pitch-black. I’d boarded that flight in Hong Kong; a city bright and vibrant even in the dead of night. By contrast, I was landing in a city that, at first glance, looked to wear its darkness like a cloak; a place that, to me, wafted of melancholy and foreboding.
Kathmandu at Night
(this photo is not intended to be factual; in fact, this photo might not be photo)
I had been forewarned that Kathmandu shuts down by ten o’clock at night. By the time I emerged from the terminal building, at a little past eleven, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my late arrival meant trouble, despite the logical half of my brain reminding me that I had a confirmed booking for an airport pickup. With enough ample experience to know the Universe abhors letting a good worry go to waste, I can’t say I was surprised when I found no sign of that pickup.
Ten minutes later, I gave up on the searching and made my way over to a small booth with a faded ‘Taxi’ signed etched into the wood overhead. As I approached, one of a trio of men standing out in front broke away and started a fast trot towards me, loudly asking if I needed a place to stay for the night. My aversion to touts lead me to dismiss him by saying that I already had lodgings booked, and was just looking for a taxi into town; I almost knocked him over getting past him on the way to the booth. I was tired. I was cranky. And at that point, I’d been awake for over twenty hours, and feeling particularly drained due to a bout of food poisoning suffered the previous day. When the tout got into the cab next to me – insisting that since the driver spoke no English he would make sure that I got to the right place – I was too tired to argue; even as the unwanted stranger prompted visions of robbery and assault and waking up facedown in an alleyway to flash through my head.
As we started into the city, my overactive imagination was further fuelled by the fact that the streets of Kathmandu looked even darker at ground level. Aside from the occasional other vehicle, the streets were ominously empty too. And it was silent, or it might only have seemed that way as any ambient sounds were drowned out once the tout started in with endless natter about how he was the man to see if ever I needed to be hooked up with the best guesthouses or restaurants or travel companies in town. Once it was clear that we were headed into Thamel, Kathmandu’s traveller’s ghetto, I relaxed; but my ire was quickly approaching a tipping point over the fact that the man next to me would not shut up.
When we pulled up to the address I’d provided, we found the front gates of my guesthouse securely chained-up for the night. No amount of banging or rattling elicited any response. Despite the urges to shove him out of a moving vehicle felt just minutes before, I gave silent thanks for this unexpected Plan B – who was now standing next to the taxi, looking on with a toothy grin. I sighed, and asked him if any of his recommended guesthouses were close by. He said one was just a few streets over.
I soon found myself standing on another dark side-street; staring at another large, barred entranceway. This time, the banging produced a bleary-eyed attendant who offered to show me a room. As I climbed the stairs up to the fifth-floor, hefting over 30kg of gear I was not about to leave unattended in the cab, I knew there was little chance that room was being refused. But I left my mind open to the possibility that the Universe’s sense of humour would greet me with a cockroach infestation; or urine leaking in from the ceiling; or a dead animal lying rotting, right there on the bed. I was relieved to step into a relatively clean offering; that I quickly secured it for a price below what I expected to pay was merely a bonus. I took my leave of the tout and the attendant, and collapsed into bed a little past midnight.
A Sunburst Over Kathmandu
I awoke eight hours later, to sunlight streaming through wafer-thin drapes that would be generous to say covered the large window next to the bed. When I emerged from my room and looked upon the city from that fifth-floor terrace, I was greeted by a view of busy streets and a cacophony of sounds. The city was alive; and I was about to learn that Kathmandu by day was as different from Kathmandu at night as, well, day and night.
Before I arrived in Nepal, my plan was to spend a few days in the capital; to allow time to sort out arrangements for a trek up to Everest Base Camp. All research I had indicated that treks were cheaper to book whilst in Nepal, rather than pre-booking from outside of the country; and I anticipated that comparing and to negotiating with multiple trekking operators, getting flights booked and permits sorted, and making sure I had both a guide and a porter available, would be a quick proposition. What I found out was that Thamel is absolutely lousy with trekking operators and three hours was more than enough time to get in a leisurely breakfast, to sit down with the owners of three different trekking companies, to make a decision, and to get an itinerary fully sorted for a next-day departure. I was done before lunch.
Early the next morning, less than thirty hours after arriving, I left Kathmandu bound for the high Himalaya. The development of a less black-and-white understanding had to wait until my return.
Related Entries:
1. The Everest Base Camp • Gokyo Trek: A Wrap Up
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