Perambulating in Kathmandu

nothing to see, everything to notice

After a week of being unwell—not seriously but enough to keep me mostly horizontal for the past eight days—I am venturing out into the world again. Yesterday I wanted to go to Ranibari, but settled for a few loops around the neighbourhood, picking up some shopping and a sandwich. Today I seemed even more exhausted, and had to push myself out this evening with the self-bribe of a plate of my favourite momos and the determination to walk at least a little farther than I had yesterday, so I can get work on getting my strength back.

The air has been unusually bad of late, thick, heavy, smoggy—we’ve been somewhere in the top five or ten on the worst air index for the last week—and while that’s not completely unusual at this time of year, it’s been exacerbated by fires throughout the country. We could use some of those wild storms of last month, but unfortunately there do not seem to be any on the horizon.

On a normal walk, I like to keep a brisk pace, but what I did today could only be described as ambling. I reminded myself that it’s not a good idea to exert yourself too much when the air is this bad, even though that was not the reason for my snail’s pace.

As I’d left it late to avoid the worst of the heat, my path transected a rush-hour jam. This particular short cut has recently been paved, making the road much more pleasant, but parts have no sidewalks, and when everyone’s heading home one section becomes a literal river alternating between motionlessness and movement: motorbikes, scooters and bicycles filling up the spaces between and alongside cars and buses, pedestrians slipping through whatever gaps remain.

On a corner on the edge of the traffic, a woman was roasting corn over coals. Cutting through a small square, passing children in matching white outfits enthusiastically and badly following their martial arts teacher, along a stretch that did was both less crowded and and equipped with a sidewalk—in worse shape than the road in places—and finally a narrow miss with some expertly-aimed shop-to-road phlegm before reaching my destination. And throughout, glimpses through the bustle of a spectacular sunset beyond.

Once fueled up I continued my amble, moving slowly, watching people. The woman with the bright red cheeks and nose of high-altitude sunburn, another tourist sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with Good Morning Vietnam in a sort of slasher-movie font, the tall striking gentleman with a long, carefully wrapped tube strapped along his backpack, leading to me to wonder as I walked. A musical instrument? A precious work of art, perhaps a mandala?

Heading back in the direction of home now, I stopped at the DDC (Dairy Development Corporation) to pick up some butter, having read that a milk shortage is in the offing, and if so butter’s always the first to vanish from the shelves. Truthfully, I feel like living here, we’re all hoarders in one way or another. Not in the sense of crates of anything, but rather the mentality of always keeping a little extra to hand, because items regularly become temporarily unavailable.

Before going home I stopped off for a fresh juice, running into a friend at the little cafe. She’d been one of the friends who’d called me up and dropped off groceries when I wasn’t well, but before that, she’d been traveling, and we hadn’t had a good talk in a while. As we caught up on each other’s recent lives, the sky darkened to a rich aubergine, and it was fully dark as we eventually meandered down the main road in the direction of both our homes, chuckling as a tourist couple, divided by the stream of vehicles, attempted to navigate the traffic to get back to each other. Or rather I chuckled, and she said, We should help her, which made me smile because that’s the sort of person she is.

I was still smiling as I turned down my alley home, because I get to live in one of my favourite cities in the world, the sort that steps in and lends a hand when you’ve gone too long without catching up with a friend.