KTM Update: Dudes With Guns When I looked out my window this morning I saw a military truck with 6 armed soldiers in full riot gear pull into the parking lot of our hotel. Our hotel is gated off from the rest of the neighboring community and locals are not allowed onto the property unless they work here. This is what they call a “Tourist Hotel”. At 8am the parking lot was bustling with activity as loads of carts full of North Face Expedition duffles were being wheeled out to the various team trucks getting ready to be transported to Lukla. I watched the activity for about 45 minutes with great interest as to why the armed police. The parking lot was also full of buses picking up tourists for the various sightseeing tours throughout the city. Those buses all say “TOURIST”… Literally painted in giant letters on the sides and backs of the busses. Once all of the climbing teams had loaded up and headed off and all of the buses had departed, the armed police loaded themselves back into their truck and parted ways as well. It seems that this country and this city are well aware of who their golden gooses are and they will protect them. Fascinating to watch. The only real danger for tourists in Nepal is if we end up getting in the way of demonstrations or anything political. When I was out walking around town earlier today I ran across a crowd of people jammed into a small area outside the gates of the Royal Palace. I didn’t think much of it so I just keep squeezing my way through the crowd… And bumped into a guy in camo pointing his AR in the general direction of the yelling crowd. Oops. I guess that’s not how you stay out of the demonstrations. The funny thing is that he turned around, looked at me and saw $$$TOURIST$$$ written on my forehead. So he smiled. Motioned for the crowd to part, blew his whistle and let me through the crowd. Crazy. I sat in my room looking out the window for a long time this morning. Watching the people in the streets here is fun. Like trying to get a glimpse inside a typical day for the people of Kathmandu. At one point this afternoon I heard what sounded like a large group of young people laughing. I took a look out the window and noted that the local high school must have been released for the day. A couple of school buses passed and probably 50-100 teenagers all in the same school uniform came around the corner from the school. And they dispersed throughout the city. I couldnt help but think “where do you live? What will you do when you get home? Where are your parents? What do they do? Do you have dreams other than this? Or is this the dream?” I went walking through town earlier today for the first time. Although this place is dirty, polluted, sometimes stinky and there is so much dust in the air that it stings your eyes. There is also something ridiculously attractive about it. Maybe its the culture that I have always been fascinated with or maybe its the Indiana jones quality of the whole city and its people or maybe its just fascinating to watch a large population of people survive in ways more reminiscent of 1950 than 2014. The shops are not “stores” rather they are stalls on the side of the road. The biggest grocery store around here is about the size of a small gas station back home and its called “Bigs Mart”. I chuckled at that. There are lots of businesses with names that are knock offs of well known American names. Today I sAw “Pier Imports” for example, note the missing “1”. The logo was as even the same font. One scary thing is electrical/building codes. Of which I would guess there are none. I will try to get photos of some of the jumbles of data and electrical wirings hanging up and over or across the streets, attached to the sides of buildings, running along the road and across road. While walking today a wire dropped from its precarious position and hit me in the arm. I have no idea if it was a power line or what, but it freaked me out. You have to see it to believe it. It’s really insane. Almost as insane as the size of the bats hanging in the trees outside of the Royal Palace. They are at least the size of an owl. They are scary! And speaking of electrical, I had heard… Doh, there it goes again… That the electrical grid here is so vastly underpowered that there are constant blackouts. And yes, the power actually did go out again as I started typing this. The power is fine during the day, but once all the locals get home from work and, quite literally, head out back, grab a couple of giant “power hijacking cables” and toss them up so they hook onto the main power lines… All hell breaks loose. It would drive me nuts if I was anything other than a visitor. Another thing that would drive me nuts is the fact that there are no street signs of any kind. None. No stop lights, no speed limit sights, no street names or addresses. Nothing. The streets are absolute chaos. And nothing here has an address, you just have to either know where things are or remember how to get there or know someone who has been there before, wherever there happens to be. Fascinating.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 15:11:15 +0000
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