First Arrival

Jan 9, 2012

We spent a total of 24 hours in flight, in movement, from Portland to Kathmandu.  12-13 hours were on Korean airlines (coming highly recommended!) from LA to Incheon/Seoul, and another 7 hours from there to our final destination.  Seven, Alison, and I thoroughly enjoyed the multiple servings of bi bim bap ingested en route!

The crazy taxi ride through the winding streets of Nepal's capital city was a wet one.  Rare to have rain in the winter here, it felt as if it were a true 'Portland' welcome, as if the weather gods wanted to ease us into the adjustment to our new environment.  Still, the gasoline and dust-filled air made me thankful for the cloth dust mask gifted from a dear friend recently returned from her Nepal trip and clinic stint this fall.  After dodging hundreds of other vehicles, people, and a very close call with a woman pushing a vegetable cart that made my heart skip a little beat, we landed in Thamel, at the Wonderland Hotel.

Outside the constant honking of horns greets our ears, then the stray dogs in the lot outside our window (home to a green pond, dirt piles, and a smattering of trash) hold a howling caucus.  A few minutes later the crows hold conference as well, adding caw caw caws to the incessant bray of taxi and moped horns surrounding the block and neighboring streets. 

Jan 10

Today we are overstimulated, having walked the cobblestone corridors of the Thamel district in Kathmandu.  People approach from everywhere, asking for purchase of their wares.  A layer of invisible dust covers almost everything.  A mother with a young girl at her hip approaches, holding up an empty bottle, attempting to guide us into a store to buy milk for her "baby".  Shaking our heads and avoiding eye contact become the rule.  A moped, taxi, bicycle, or multiples of each in succession whiz by as we try to stick to the edge of the street so as not to be run over, meanwhile avoiding a brown puddle of water from yesterday's downpour, or a small pile of muddy trash that has been swept together for the morning cleanup and awaits a shovel into the back of a garbage truck.  It is impossible to walk the streets and return to the hotel without feeling the grime of the city layer itself onto our skin.  The air smells of incense, like nag champa, with a significant undertone of dirt and human grunge.  The horns don’t stop.  Respite is found in a tea house, or back in the hotel room where the lights work sometimes, and sometimes not, and rarely all at once.  If the electrical socket on this side of the room doesn’t work, try the other on the opposite wall.  You just might be lucky.

Last night we ate dinner in an upper level restaurant, curries and dal, served in brass goblets surrounding our plate of rice.  Midway through the meal, the lights flickered and went dark, the live rock band down the street quieting for a moment.  Over the next ten to fifteen minutes, electricity came back, left, came back and left again.  The waiter came with candle in hand, lit the top and then melted the bottom so it would stick to the table.  John Lennon’s “Imagine” wafted up from the street. Perhaps the blackout was really only on our block.  Somehow, magic here doesn't come and go, but is a constant presence, a reminder that this is my place in the world right now, and beauty is everywhere.

Right now, just past 5 o’clock, just past sundown, the electricity has conveniently gone out.  The single bare bulb on generator power lights our chilly room.  The window view is completely black, save for only a handful of similarly generator-lit rooms across the way.  The dogs are still barking.  This time not howling, but barking in conversation.  “Yep, things are great over here...”  “Let’s meet and run in a pack later on, how about?”  “I’ll be on my way in a little while!”  They are quiet.  My computer battery has nearly run out. 

Viiew from Wonderland Hotel window, midday