3/21/2016
Not much previous evening. Three-quarters of a bottle of
wine, read until sun faded. Crashed, woke up at 4:00a. Cold shower from a
bucket, laid in bed till 7:30a. Off to Patan.
Pretty par for the course getting out of Thamel. “No, no
rickshaw.” “No, no trek.” “No, no hashish.” Thick of traffic already but still
the lone white devil out roving the streets of Kathmandu. Pass by Ratna and the
military practice field and the “bus” station.
Make it south of the Bagmati and notice much more
construction, wider streets, consistent sidewalks, the whole nine yards. Hear a
STOMP STOMP STOMP of someone running up behind me. I turn my head and see a
lady in red sari and robes standing behind me. I keep walking. STOMP STOMP
STOMP. I step up onto a closed shop’s steps and motion for her to go past me.
She starts speaking to me and counting on her fingers so I wave my hand along
with my well-rehearsed “no, no.” She turns away and I continue walking. Then I
hear glass rebounding off of brick behind me. I turn around and see that she’s
throwing two coke bottles against the shop steps. I figure this bitch is trying
to make a shiv and decide to pick up the pace.
Luckily coke bottles in Nepal are made from that same
bouncing glass shit that all the smoke shops brag about. I still wasn’t going
to chance it and I was not going to have the first place I get stuck like a pig
be Nepal.
STOMP STOMP STOMP. I practically jumped into the next shop
front and waved my hands at her. She winked, picked up a rock that probably
weighed a good eight pounds.
“This is it,” I thought, “I’m findally going to have to
punch a woman in the face.”
Then she threw the rock in front of a bus and ran about 50
feet ahead of me, knelt down, and started digging through her bindle.
This culminated in a proper “fuck this shit” moment and I
turned around, crossed the street, and soldiered on. Got some pitying looks
from the ladies at the crosswalk who had watching this all unfold.
Continued on to Patan Durbar Square without incident.
Beautiful, beautiful. Probably the better of the two durbar squares. More open,
mor interesting architecture, and cheaper, althought I didn’t see the ticket
boot till I was on my way out. Local school kids in uniform were playing Holi a
day early. You know how it is a day before Christmas, you just wanna dig in
early.
Marched east instead of looping around like I had planned
since I had reached my monthly quota of crazy, shiv making, rock throwing bitches
(Limit: 1). Weaved my way through throngs of friendly folks and came out into
the dust and haze of the choked motorway.
Turned north and I think I could see where all of the money
for repair and reconstruction went. No sidewalks so I trotted along what I
assume will be the spillway for the expanded road. Filled with trash and dust
already, of course.
Couple of the cement tablets were broken. Noticed a young
kid smashing trash down into a huge burlap sack on the back of a three wheeled
bicycle. Walked another broken section as the head of a boy, probably 10 or 11,
suddenly poked out with a lit cigarette between his fingers. What the fuck, lil
homie? Best I can figure is that he and his friend were paid to clean out the
trash, where only their tiny bodies would fit into the spillway. This took a
second to process and I turned around. He saw my camera, and we took our
chances.
Other than that, standard long slog back. Coughed
involuntarily and my back cried a bit. Bought the next mask I could find. It’ll
come in handy tomorrow. Bout to go eat some momos.
Also, hair on the top of my thighs and back of my calves are
noticeably shorter. – 12:54p
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