From Curry to Cremation: A Conniption of the Senses

It has now been four days since we crossed the border into Nepal, and while it may sound like a hackneyed or romanticized tale of travel in a far away land, the drastic change in smell and surroundings that happened on crossing the Friendship Bridge between Tibet and Nepal was striking. After coming from the high altitude of Mt. Everest I was surprised to find that I still couldn't seem to fully catch my breath. The thin air of the Himalayas was replaced by dense humid air, further thickened by a combination of exhaust and curry.

Most of the Tibet side of the Friendship highway is paved, but there is a 1 km stretch that is unfinished. Between the truck in front of us that seemed to be on the verge of tipping over, the shear drop off, and the fact that the rain coming down had turned the road into a muddy mess, there was a good chance that someone was going to have an accident in their pants before we reached pavement again.



We were sorely disappointed to find that on the Nepal side a much more significant part of the road was not paved, but at least the landscape was interesting to watch - even if Nepal thinks it's too cool for guard rails. As we went bouncing down the road we watched as vertical corn fields, terraced rice patties, jack fruit and banana trees, emaciated cows, ducks, and trash seemed to appear and disappear in fitful waves. And as we got closer there were the brick factories. I'm not sure if we were supposed to ooo and ahh or gasp and shake our heads in disapproval when our guide pointed them out. Luckily, the unevenness of the road made the question of the head shake moot as they were already bobbing up and down, and in the end I think we all settled on an ahh, except instead of it being a statement of wonderment it was expressed more as a question... "ahh?" The involuntary head bobbing turned out to be good practice for when we arrived in Kathmandu as it is an important part of communication here.



The first thing I came to terms with after walking half a block in Kathmandu was that there is a realistic chance that I may loose some toes. I feel pretty resigned about this as long as I keep enough to maintain balance. I figure the baby toe is really just for show anyway, but please spare me my big toes. I think I need those.

A few days into my time here I am still struggling to understand why people are trying to sell me Tiger Balm on the street. I mean I can kind of understand the little chotskies, but Tiger Balm? Never in my life have I been walking down the street and thought to myself "gee I could really go for some Tiger Balm right about now." I guess in retrospect I do have aches, and it would help in covering up some of the other smells, but still, I can't imagine that it's a very lucrative business.

Our days here have been packed with activity. Between roundtable discussions on contemporary politics in Nepal and intensive language classes we have gone on a number of sightseeing excursions. I'm learning that nothing seems to say you’re relaxing in Nepal like harassing monkeys and taking in a few public cremations as you wander through a UNESCO world heritage site does. There is also a lot of give and take… I feel like I am giving by leaving a trail of sweat in my wake, but I also feel like I am gaining because I take with me bites from the fleas that have found a hospitable host on the backs of stray dogs.

As I do not feel like I have been here long enough yet to be comfortable leaving my trash in the neatish heaps that line the streets on one particular excursion I somehow found myself reluctantly carrying around a hard boiled egg in fear of being smelled out by the beady eyed devout monkeys that seem to worship at a number of temples around the city.

I’m not exactly sure how this trip has come to involve so many eggs, but it is fast becoming a theme that I am a bit weary of. No good can come from this. I’ve come to realize that there is no point at which pulling out an unpeeled egg from your purse and eating it feels right, especially when walking around ancient religious sites. As a result, I have now, on more than one occasion, had on my person something that would most likely lead to a very unpleasant afternoon spent in the bathroom. And if that were to happen, I would have a very hard time explaining how, despite having worked around food long enough to easily be able to identify when my food has entered the “danger zone,” I still thought it was ok to eat a day old egg out of my mary noppins bag. A bag so named because while I can, similar to Mary Poppins, pull out a ridiculous amount of stuff from my purse, unlike her I have absolutely no control over what I find, and I always seem to find the lamp when I’m looking for the pen.

Similarly, I feel like Nepal is going to be like dipping my hand into an unknown bag of tricks. There is no doubt that this place is as overwhelming and unpredictable as I was warned it would be, but I must admit I am looking forward to seeing what I pull out. Even if it turns out to be an old forgotten egg, at least it will be the egg that I can say I discovered during my summer in Nepal.