Kathmandu should come with a health warning. If you have high blood pressure, prone to anxiety attacks or suffer from headaches then do not visit this place. The cacophony of car and motorbike horns rise to this migraine inducing crescendo every ten minutes or so. It is like they are in some sort of competition to see who can honk the most times in the most obnoxious way.
It looks like the place has been bombed but no one has told the residents here. Uneven rubble lined roads where just a five minute walk involves an assault course of dodging cow and goat poo, trying not to lose your footing on wobbling broken slabs and frequently pressing yourself up against shabby shop doors to let stony faced locals past.
But mixed with this mess are beautiful winding streets adorned with multi-coloured bunting and tiny crooked houses. Men sit under huge old oak trees which double up as a base for a makeshift barbershop as women sell ripe delicious fruit and vegetables through wooden shutters. Power cuts are frequent and street lights are nonexistent meaning that as soon as it gets dark you will need your travel insurance emergency number on speed dial if you are going to venture outdoors.
The closest restaurant to my hostel is a tiny Nepalese joint that serves amazing vegetable chow mein for just 40pence.The place is packed with teenagers huddled around a small TV watching some comedy show that has them in fits of laughter. Walking back to my place is another assault course and I have taken to wearing my hiking boots to help with not breaking my ankle on these roads, I see a tramp lying in the sewage strewn gutter fast asleep with his trousers down to his ankles and no underwear on. It is 7pm at night. Families are walking past like it is totally normal and no one bats an eyelid.
But instead of feeling lost and vulnerable as I did in North Goa I got angry. I felt like the incredible hulk was rising inside me as I looked around this place. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything about this? Why were children playing in mounds of disease laden rubbish, why were the locals sitting back chewing on tobacco whilst animals pooed all around them, why were kids sleeping rough on dirty crumbling streets? I am all for charity but there is a time when it has to start at home, people here just seemed lazy or maybe unaware of the mess. Coming from Delhi where poverty is on every corner but it had a diferent atmosphere like people there were trying to make a better life for themselves, compared to here where I just got a distinct sense that people couldn’t give a damn about the state of the place.
I am not expecting it to be as clean and sanitary like back home but surely rubbish can be collected somewhere, the government can give money to modernise the roads, add a noise curfew, install the odd street light and ensure children can play in a safe environment. Just typing this out I am banging at every key on my keyboard in frustration. I don’t know if the problem lies with the people who live here, the government or other countries not helping enough but I just despise this place and the way it makes me feel.
I don’t want to judge a country on just one place as I am usually a positive person but I have to get out of here before I lose my mind, or break my ankles, so I have booked on a tour to see the nature and beauty Nepal supposedly has to offer. After my time here just to see some pot plants would be an improvement.
