Kathmandu — DAVID YARBOROUGH

Our view of Mt. Everest as we approach Kathmandu on DrukAir

Our decision to return home from Bhutan via Kathmandu turned out to be a good one. Two days is by no means enough time to do a city, much less a country, justice, but it did give us a good overview of the capital and largest city of Nepal. Our early morning flight from Paro afforded us a spectacular view of the Himalayas for which Nepal is so well known. Driving into town from the airport, we immediately realized that Nepal is far more like India than it is Bhutan. Back to polluted, noisy chaos!

My gut reaction to Kathmandu was one of sadness. Despite the fact that the people continued living their lives and following their religious customs with determination and resignation, if not contentment, there was an unmistakable sense of hopelessness. Nepal has a long history of hardships but has been hit by a double whammy of new trouble in recent years. A series of devastating earthquakes shook the area in 2015. The physical damage to property is still visible nearly everywhere. There are still people living in temporary shelters today, five years later. The water system has not yet been repaired. The many damaged roads remained to be patched or repaved.

The second blow was a self-inflicted one. Though it came to power via democratic processes, Nepal is now firmly under the control of its recently consolidated communist party. With this development has come the things that always follow communist control: inefficiency, corruption and de-motivation. Infrastructure projects move at a glacial pace, alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant. Other than the construction of a few new hotels, there was no evidence of the economic dynamism seen in India. Nepal remains one of the most under-developed countries in the world. Its GDP per capita is a tenth that of China, half that of India and less than a third that of its neighbor Bhutan.

Nepal has a lot in common with Bhutan. Both are landlocked, mountainous countries that are situated between two giants, China and India. But Nepal is far larger, with 28 million people and triple the land area. It is also officially a Hindu country, not Buddhist. It is similarly blessed with Himalayan rivers, but it has not been able to position itself as a major supplier of hydropower to its energy-hungry neighbor to the south. Nepal’s tourism industry consists largely of backpackers, trekkers and climbers taking advantage of its access to Everest and other of the world’s most well-known peaks. And it is now a communist country, and, despite its constitution, communists are not known for giving up power easily, or peacefully. Like Bhutan, Nepal exists in the shadow of Indo-Sino relations, but as a communist country, it finds itself increasingly under the influence of Beijing.

The colorful domed Boudhanath Stupa in Little Tibet

We found more than enough sights worth seeing during our two days in Kathmandu. Nearby Bhaktapur and Durbar Square in the old city are full of ancient marvels, but nearly all are still in some stage of restoration following the earthquakes of five years ago. An interesting footnote is that as World Heritage Sites, all repairs must be done pursuant to UNESCO guidelines which forbid the use of modern cements, nails and other materials that could improve the monuments’ ability to withstand future earthquakes.

We found the glimpses into daily life gleaned from strolling the maze of narrow streets and alleys more rewarding than the temples and shrines. Visiting the market area of the Thamel district, on foot and via rickshaw, was also enjoyable. We enjoyed our visit to the colorful domed Boudhanath Stupa, a Buddhist site located in an area referred to as Little Tibet. We ate a pleasant lunch overlooking the scene, watching the worshippers practicing yoga and walking their 108 clockwise laps around the giant structure. Though the stupa was originally built in the seventh century, it was destroyed by Mughals in the 14th, so what we were seeing was, like many of the ancient treasures here, a re-construction.

A cremation ritual at the Pashupatinath Temple on the very polluted Bagmati River

The most fascinating visit during our tours of Kathmandu was at Pashupatinath Temple. Only Hindus are allowed to enter the Temple itself, but the ghats immediately behind it on the banks of the Bagmati River are very much open to the public. This is a local equivalent of Varanasi, where Nepalese Hindus come to cremate their dead. There is an endless stream of mourners arriving with the bodies of their loved ones, preparing them for their ritual ends and the delivery of their ashes to the filthy but nevertheless holy river. The scene is surreal, with gawking tourists snapping photos while bodies are being cleaned, anointed and shrouded before being placed on a wooden pyre for burning. All the while, swarms of not-too-healthy-looking monkeys scurry about screaming and fighting. Fake holy men with bizarrely painted faces, in reality, imposters who shake down tourists for posing for photos, pretend to mediate.

Our safe haven in Kathmandu was a brand-spanking-new Marriott hotel. It offered everything we could have asked for. Though new, it has obviously become a venue for high-level meetings as we saw many Nepalese government officials coming and going. There were even a few minor celebrities—both Miss World and Miss Nepal were in the house. We also saw a large contingent of US military personnel there, in uniform. Despite the dominant role of China in Nepalese affairs, the US has provided significant assistance to the country since the 2015 earthquakes and maintains an ongoing military assistance relationship.

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Viewing the suffering and the hardships of the people was a large contributor to my sense of sadness here. Driving by block after block of buildings still showing visible scars from their most recent shaking by mother nature, with walls propped up by bamboo struts, was another. Even the simplest of the people going about their lives here has to know at some level the brutal reality of what the future holds. It is only a question of when, not if, the earth will shake and bring this place to its knees once again.

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