Near Kathmandu, the road suddenly becomes excellent as it winds up into the clouds beside endless terraces before descending into the Kathmandu Valley. The capital of Nepal is to be home for the next two weeks or so, so I believe, enough time to secure sponsorship for onward passage. I set up in the quiet recesses of Hotel Shakti in the heart of the ancient city. While rural Nepal seemed virtually untouched by the outside world, Kathmandu has the look of a decaying Shangril-la with the twentieth century forcing its way through the cracks in its walls. Cows rest where they want, even in the middle of busy streets.
Modern hotels sit on manicured lots along the cluttered byways and sprawl on the outskirts.
Kathmandu whipsaws my senses in a bizarre carnival of decrepitude, confused ambition and western excess. On the filthy crumbling streets, there are small ancient temples with ochre-pasted stone idols. There are crowded pie emporiums on Pig Alley. There are substantial new office buildings with rubbly overgrown courtyards and rubbly empty rooms. The Ministry of tourism has a mouse-ridden waiting room with a single bare light bulb in the waiting area, dirty walls and old mismatched chairs.