Through Kathmandu

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Here I am in Kathmandu ! Temples, crowd, traffic, bazar... Clamors, turmoil, serenity... Life...

To my taste, my steps are leading me through the city. I'm staying at Tibet Holiday Inn , a comfortable small category hotel in touristic district Thamel, both attractive and disheartening by its excesses. I've not come to Nepal for thirteen years ! Nepal that is changing from many angles, but remaining timeless and everlasting from others.

I'm used to get up early according to the Nepali rate. Besides, as early as five and half the first street's murmurs awake me. I make my way towards the bazar and drink my first milk tea, provided by a small saleswoman, settled on a street corner. The common double-ringed kerosene stove lies flush with the ground. The nepali tea is boiling in a battered aluminium pan. Glasses are set out on a tray while just near a water-filled basin is used for rinsing. Some passers-by and residents crowd around, sipping or waiting their glass, with who I exchange some words and smiles. A glass of tea costs five rupees - about three US cents ! - much cheaper than this served in restaurants, tea-shops or bakeries, where its price varies between twenty and thirty rupees. Of course it's a very small difference for well-off westerners we are !


I do like these beginnings of morning through Kathmandu. It's fairly cool, hardly moist, the sky is milky-white. Tea - the best in the day - is warming me.
Frenzy is not yet spreading upon the city, peacefull I proceed with my urban hike.

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