Footloose in Kathmandu (Nepal post 2017-04)

Kathmandu view northeast from Thamel district from roof of Moonlight Hotel, Paknajol Marg (road). Yellow filter to increase contrast.

Oh oh, something has happened, Kathmandu is a big city now. And as of late 2017, it looks like a construction zone. Buildings are being razed and replaced, or rebuilt within their historic facades. Scaffolding, piles of brick, concrete mixers, and dust are everywhere. The 2015 earthquakes caused terrible damage to historic sites, but the palaces and temples are slowly being repaired. I think Kathmandu is on a cusp or transition from an old Asian city into a new commercial city. We will take a short walk around town; no real theme, just a tourist exploring, smelling, watching, and enjoying.

Rooftop laundry, Thamel district.

Some families live in older-looking multi-floor buildings. I am not sure how they responded to the earthquakes. Did engineers inspect each and every house?

An old, but still maintained and active English Cemetery is near the UK Embassy. For over a century, the Empire did not have an ambassador but instead had a Resident. He consulted with the Nepali government and had some of the duties of a true ambassador. The cemetery contains graves of some of these ambassadors as well as their families and the occasional English traveler and mountaineer. And, most unusual, there are Russians here, possibly refugees from the Bolsheviks.

Workers still demolish buildings the old way, by hand. No hard hats, eye protection, or steel toe boots here.

The wiring at the Chasibari Marga area is somewhat of a mess. Well, all the wiring in Kathmandu is a mess. You see the same in Hanoi.

Despite the construction and commerce, the gents still have time to sit, play chess, smoke, and gossip.

Chhetrapati area, Kathmandu, October 2017

Near Asan Chowk, Kathmandu, October 2017.

Whatever you may think of the state of the infrastructure, it does not deter people from shopping, trading, selling, shoving, walking, eating, yelling, and sort-of sniffing the fumes. I see crowds like this in cities like Arusha, Athens, Rangoon, Cairo, Lodz, Hanoi, or Mandalay. Why are American cities like Jackson such deserted wastelands?

The Asan Chowk (or marketplace) is always interesting. This where you can buy spices, vegetables, fruits, legumes, dried fish, Himalayan salt, and other consumables. Chickens and meats are sold somewhere else, but I am not sure where. In Nepal, Muslim men often work as butchers. I have written about the Chowk before, and it remains as much fun as ever.

This is the 4th in a series on my 2017 Nepal trip. To be continued....

I took these photographs with my Leica IIIC 35mm camera with 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens on Kodak TMax 100 and 400 film, with exposure measured with a Gossen Luna Pro Digital light meter. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol developer.

Update May 2018: Unusual or gourmet salt has become trendy in USA. As an example, here are jars of Himalayan salt in a Big Lots store in Vicksburg, Mississippi. These jars were labeled Product of Pakistan but Packaged in China. So the poor Nepalis have been bypassed again.

Update October 2018: Well, it looks like Himalayan salt is trendy in Brasov, Romania, too. The brand name is "Eurosalt," but the contents are from the Himalaya.

Come to the Supermarket (in Old Kathmandu)

Well, maybe Cole Porter did not write exactly these words in Aladdin (see the full lyrics below), but he was probably thinking of a place like the Asan Chowk market in Kathmandu. According to Wikipedia, "a chowk (Urdu: چوک) is a Town square, an open area commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings, market square, or simply traffic intersection."
The Asan is a short walk from the Thamel tourist area of town, but it can be an adventure getting there and back. The first thing that struck me was the crowds. Late afternoon, the streets were mobbed! Where are all these people going? It's such a contrast to many American cities, which often are deserted downtown after 5 pm. In the second photograph, you can see the fabrics hanging along the buildings. This is one of the fabric areas that I mentioned in the previous Nepal article.
Once you reach the Chowk, it's as crowded as the surrounding streets. Watch your feet or you'll step in a vendor's merchandise or in a hole in the sidewalk.
This is the famous salt from northern Nepal and Tibet. For hundreds of years, workers mined the salt in Tibet and traders/merchants carried it south to India (sometimes on goat back). In return, traders brought rice and other products north through the Himalaya. Towns like Lo Manthang and Kagbeni became prosperous salt centers. This commerce finally diminished in the mid-20th century when factory-manufactured salt containing iodine became readily available in India. But the traditional salt is said to bestow medicinal properties. Who knows about that, but it tastes good in cooking. The black salt has a strong H₂S aroma when you grind it up, the pink much less so.
Do you want spices? Here you can find them, anything your cuisine needs.
Nuts and beans? Anything you want.

Roots, garlic, ginger, and ginseng? This is the place.
Fruits? Yes, indeed.
Many of the vendors bring their wares to the Chowk on sturdy bicycles. I think most of them are from India and have only one gear. They also have rod-operated brakes rather than cable, like most modern western bikes.
Do you need some incense, bells, or other religious supplies? Come to the Asan Chowk.
These leaves are woven into little boats. Hindu pilgrims place food offerings in the leaves and float them down the Basmati River, which runs through town some distance from here.
These vivid powders are also used in Hindu activities.
Need a chicken or a mallard to go with those vegetables and spices? Plenty from which to choose.
And plenty of paper goods on which to serve your feast.
How about a kite or kite string? This fellow will help you.
Finally, how about some elegant flip-flops for your party? Cole Porter never anticipated these....

COME TO THE SUPERMARKET (IN OLD PEKIN)

From Aladdin, music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Aladdin was originally broadcast by CBS as the "Du Pont Show Of The Month" on February 21, 1958. First LP release: February 10, 1958.

If you want a fancy fan
Or a turkey born in Turkey-stan
Or a slave that's awf'lly African
Or a Teapot early Ming,
Come to the supermarket in old Peking.

If you want to buy a kite
Or a pup to keep you up at night
Or a dwarf who used to know Snow White
Or a frog who loves to sing,
Come to the supermarket in old Peking.

They have: sunflow'r cakes, moonbeam cakes,
Gizzard cakes, lizard cakes,
Pickled eels, pickle snakes,
Fit for any king,

If you want a bust of jade
Or an egg that's more or less decayed
Or in case you care to meet a maid
For a nice but naughty fling,

Come to the supermarket,
If you come on an ostrich, you can park it,
So come to the supermarket
And see Pe-
King.

If you want a gong to beat
Or a rickshaw with a sassy seat
Or a painting slightly indiscreet
That is simply riveting,
Come to the supermarket and see Peking.

Well, If you want some calico
Or a gentle water buffalo
Glow worm guaranteed to glow
Or a cloak inclined to cling,
Come to the supermarket in old Peking.

They have bird's-nest soup, seaweed soup,
Noodle soup, poodle soup,
Talking crows with the croup,
Almost anything.

If you want to buy a saw
Or a fish delicious when it's raw
Or a pill to kill your moth'r-in-law
Or a bee without a sting,

Come to the supermarket,
If you come on a turtle, you can park it,
So come to the supermarket
If you come on a goose, you can park it,
So come to the supermarket
And see
Pe-
King!

(I have a 1960 recording on LP from the London Coliseum performance - brilliant.)

Ladies of Kathmandu, Nepal

As I walked around Kathmandu, I kept encountering these lovely ladies who looked vaguely familiar. They had that funny hair like European women from the 1960s. Well, sure enough, a local friend told me they WERE European ladies from the 1960s! They have aged quite gracefully (unlike me). Local clothing vendors bought second-hand European mannequins and still use them to show their wares. Why change a good thing?

In the photograph above, notice the gent in the background digging out some debris from his proboscis. The fabrics that the Nepalis create are terrific.

This one was a bit worse for wear, possibly not one to encounter in a dark alley.


Cloth and fabrics are sold in clustered areas, like many consumer goods in Kathmandu (the vegetable area, the cloth area, the metalwork area, the electronics area, etc). These vendors and mannequins were near the Asan Chowk market, a short walk from the Thamel tourist area.

The street vendors set up at an open spot and pack up at night. It is a lot of work, but everyone seems to work hard in Nepal.

Some of the fabrics are a bit strange. I'm not sure of the symbolism of these examples.

Photographs hand-held, taken with Fuji, Olympus, and Panasonic digital cameras.

Urban Adventures in Asia: Kathmandu, Nepal

This Urban Decay decay essay will take you about as far from New York City as possible: about 180 degrees in longitude around the world, 1300m higher in elevation, no ocean, 2000 years older, and vastly different in culture. Our destination is Kathmandu, the bustling landlocked capital of Nepal, a mountainous country squeezed between Tibet and India and dominated by the Himalaya. Kathmandu is an urban area of about 1.5 million inhabitants in the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal, along the Bagmati River. Because of the fertile, well-watered land and the relatively comfortable climate (cooler than the sweltering Indian lowlands and warmer than the high Himalaya), the valley has been inhabited for millenia. As you can see from the signpost (photographed at the Kathmandu Guest House, a fun place to stay in the Thamel District), it is a long way from anywhere.

To reach Kathmandu, you fly from a US gateway city, cross the Atlantic or Pacific, wait at an Asian gateway city for hours, and then fly again, on and on and on. You finally reach Tribhuvan International Airport very grubby and jet-lagged and feeling pretty beat up. Your fellow passengers largely fit into three groups: local citizens (often workers on their way home from jobs in the Gulf states), hikers and climbers, and "adventure" travelers. The latter are the type who wear safari clothing and multi-pocket travelers' vests (but nothing is in the pockets), and have more luggage than the true climbers.


Most tourists stay in or congregate in the Thamel District. This was a popular stop-over on the Asia circuit in the 1970s. Hippies loved it because living was cheap, drugs were cheap and readily available, and it was trendy ("I'm going to be creative and unique and go to Nepal along with thousands of other hippies."). Oddly, some are still around, but a bit grayer and chubbier now. The district throbs with discos (yes, disco still lives), internet cafes, restaurants, shops, and bars. They even have their own Barnes & Noble book house. The pharmacies are well-equipped and most chemicals are sold without prescription. The supermarkets sell chocolates from around the world; the bookstores stock magazines and books in many languages. Another oddity: Nepal's time zone is GMT +5:45 hours (15 min different than India). This is the link to Google maps: Thamel.



Everything about Kathmandu is a visual delight. The buildings are colorful, rather funky, and have a somewhat makeshift look to them. Parts have been added to parts, colors are all over the spectrum, and the glass box monstrosities of US and European cities are largely absent.

Don't look too closely at the electrical wiring. Some of the outlets are the odd triple prong type used in India, others are the narrow dual-prong from Europe. The electricity was dependable during my visits.

The people are absolutely wonderful. This little girl kept her father company in his fabric shop.


Kathmandu is a city of shops, and you can find almost anything you need with a bit of hunting. But many vendors are out in the street. Pay attention when you walk on a sidewalk or you will fall over a merchant or stomp on his display.

The people I met were unfailingly friendly and gracious. They are alert and energetic. The ladies are petite and sophisticated.

(More Nepal in future essays. All 2007 photographs taken with an Olympus E-330 digital camera or a Fuji F31fd compact.)