...failed painter

© L.M.Noonan 2009

"Kathmandu is even more rundown at the heel than I remember. The city evergreens are coated with a thick frosting of dirt the colour of crematorium ash. The smog obscures all; we can feel the sun but we cannot see it. The first pleasant surprise is the International Guest House. Though only a two star hotel—unlike the three star Vaishalli we stayed in last visit—it is an oasis in the concrete and rio rods that is Thamel. They have reserved three modest but clean rooms stacked on top of each other like a cake.: Josh and Bas on the fourth floor, Nic and Oli on the second floor; Fong and I the cream between. The food—so far; is better than I recall. More expensive, but generally better quality. We thought it would be colder. It’s quite warm in the middle of the day, only chilly in the mornings and evenings.
During the taxi ride into town from the airport we saw a ‘silent’ protest march that almost brought the traffic to a complete stop. I wondered what it was all about. Today the shops are all closed, the hotel’s gates locked and there is an uneasy quietness in the normally bustling tourist hub. We met our guide, Pemba Sherpa at 7.30am and he says that it is a national strike, a protest against the new Maoist government. Some student activists have disappeared, presumed dead. He says that we should stay away from certain areas like Bodinath and Bhaktapur so we walked for five hours—in a meandering sort of fashion; to Durbar Square and back. We ate lunch at our favourite momo restaurant during which the place was locked down twice. The first time because of young men running down the street outside brandishing long steel bars; the second, a short while later because of police and soldiers. Here they all carry guns, big guns. We decided to go back to the relative safety of our hotel. What should be a panoramic view of the Himalayas from the Hotel’s rooftop terrace is instead oppressive grey cloaking. The smog is so thick I can’t see the mountains that surround the city but nevertheless with a little from my inner eye I imagine how magical it was to visit the valley of the gods before the invention of the internal combustion engine."

I try to walk and swim every morning. This is when I clear out the cobwebs,sometimes I read aloud from my  journal--to kickstart some creative juices; or my prose to see how I can improve upon it. This morning it was from the little notebook I carried in Nepal and India. The excerpt above seemed appropriate because I've been trawling the thousands of photographs I took during that trip.