in which the heroine goes for a walk.

puru, the business manager for TMI and one of the nicest people you could hope to be greeted by upon arrival in a foreign country, met me at the airport. after we maneuvered my approximately one billion pounds of luggage (75% shampoo and bras by volume) into his car, we began the process of actually getting out of the parking lot. “it is too bad that this is the first impression people have of nepal,” he lamented, as we dodged loiterers, seemingly randomly placed traffic cones, and cars oncoming from no particular direction, “there is no order.”

with respect to puru, it wouldn’t matter if the parking lot of tribhuvan international ran with the precision of an austrian music box. assuming visitors actually planned on leaving the airport, the game would be up within ten yards of the gate. although puru clearly had things well in hand, it was only my jetlag that kept me from becoming seriously alarmed as we plunged headlong INTO a chaotic stream of cars, motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrians…or as they plunged into us. it’s a little hard to make that call when there are no speed limits or right of way. on the other hand, as there are relatively few fiery wrecks littering the side of the road, i suppose the system works

after sleeping for about 20 hours straight, i figured i’d head out from my hotel for an early sunday morning walk to explore the neighborhood*, blithely disregarding my brief experience with traffic from the day before…and this is when I discovered that one of the most radically immersive, and seemingly most death-defying, experiences you can have in kathmandu is just walking down the street (an experience you probably couldn’t avoid if you wanted to). and of course, perversely and in defiance of all sense of self-preservation, it’s one i’ve come to relish.

really, you need no fewer than six sets of eyes and ears to comfortably navigate the streets of kathmandu. first, there’s the terrain. "sidewalks" range from uneven brickwork (around the palace/museum complex) to the unofficially designated pedestrian strips of varying and insignificant width situated next to open gutters filled with unidentified brown and green fluids (everywhere else). underfoot, you should be aware of trash piles of varying sizes, which get collected relatively regularly with wheelbarrows pulled or attached to bikes, and prolific droppings from dogs, cows, and the occasional goat, not to mention the actual animals which wander, sleep, and eat relatively free range.

as you pass other pedestrians (in both directions), you never, EVER step out without checking over your shoulder. the lack of traffic laws, as well as lanes that seem to function as the merest of suggestions, mean that traffic comes from any direction, including over actual sidewalks. the solution that’s evolved, especially turning corners, is to honk loudly and constantly to alert the other drivers of your presence. cars and taxis abound, as well as full size buses and shorter micros, but by far the most popular (and probably most practical) are the scores of motorcycles and scooter weaving at high speed in and out of all other vehicles. crossing streets is like trying to jump in on a game of double dutch played with razor-embedded jump ropes. hesitation is not an option. it’s incumbent on the pedestrian to walk confidently but unhurriedly across a perilous hellscape of black-masked**, shiny-domed, two-wheeled demons bearing down on you at high speed while belching smoke, amidst a cacophony of blasted warnings. i’ve resourcefully adopted the strategy of following the little schoolgirls and cane-using old men who do this with an total lack concern.

the trade-off is, y’know, being in kathmandu. the sensory experiences of being on the street more than compensate for the perceived threats to your life (which, after a couple of weeks, actually go from terrifying to thrilling to almost mundane). i’ve heard an expat acquaintance who spent most of his childhood here wax rhapsodic about the “spiciness” of the air. i would say that doesn’t really do justice to the, mm, say, “robustness” of the mix of odors that permeates the city, not all of which you always want to take a deep inhalation. my reluctance to romanticize the difference overmuch aside, i’ll say: even in cities in the states, you just don’t get the dizzying combinations of sensations that you do here. there’s exhaust and garbage and excrement, but there’s a cloud of cumin from a spice grinding shop mixed with motor oil from the cycle repair shop next door. there’s the back of the mouth tangy smell of blood from the goat’s hindquarters flopped over the butcher’s counter, with its hooves sticking out into the street, and the smoke from the incense at the hindu sidewalk shrines, where commuters ring the bells and mark themselves with tikka powder as they do morning puja on their way to work.

“spicy”, “robust”, or whatever you want to call it, the jumble of odors, both identifiable and unidentifiable, really do require a certain intentional shift in attitude. it’s sort of hard to articulate clearly, but, in the states, for instance, you can focus on a single set of sensory inputs, by virtue of them being comparatively few. if they’re bad, you register that, and if they’re good, you appreciate that as well. here, if you did tried to single out, or identify and process all the sensory input you get all the time, you’d strain your ability, and your nerves, to the snapping point. the trick to the sensations, just as the traffic, seems to be unconscious awareness. you have to relax your brain enough to absorb what’s going on without trying to actively foreground or background anything. it’s not like commuter autopilot, or really like anything else i’ve had to do in the states, it’s a new and not entirely easy process, especially when you realize that the goat’s (?) blood’s dribbled on your foot, but like so much else in kathmandu, i find that the more time i spend adapting to the different way of being that the city inspires, the more i come to appreciate it.

*a brief note on directions and neighborhoods in kathmandu: there are (almost) no street names in the city. well, there are designations of sorts on the blue and white signs posted around, but these are almost universally ignored. to get around, you generally ask for landmarks or major intersections, which do generally have names. for instance, right now, if i’m lucky, i can get away with saying i live near tangal marg (minor intersection)…but more likely to get me where i need to go is saying i live across from the police station near bhat bhateni, next road down from the ganesh temple, across from the trekking company parking lot. neighborhoods, like baluwatar, where my office is, are loosely defined areas which take the name of the largest proximate street or intersection. maps. they would be essential.

**many people, especially riding bikes or motorcycles, wear black woven masks to filter out the pollution.