Kathmandu- The City of Senses

Living in Thamel is a fully sensory experience. Every time you step out the door, and often before you’ve stepped out, there is a great barrage of sights and sounds, of smells and feelings and, quite frequently, tastes.
The colours of Kathmandu, as one might expect, are enchanting. Shops are filled with the most varied and beautiful coloured clothes, tailors display a multitude of fabrics, even the scenery saturated with colour. Lush, green, forest-covered hills are interspersed with the golden peaks of temples glittering in the sun and striped with multi-coloured prayer flags whisper gently in the wind.
You can also see some pretty strange things around. On my first day I saw one sign claiming that an “All New Condom House! First In Kathmandu! Coming Soon!” (none of us have quite managed to work out what, exactly, this is) and another sign for a “Teenage Dance Bar with Showers” which we were told was exactly what it said- a place where teenage girls go and dance in showers an people watch...
When I think of the sounds of Kathmandu I think that they leave a lot to be desired. I think that every place has a background noise, something constant and, often, quite local. Kathmandu’s background ‘music’ is the relentless, perpetual beeping of horns. The high pitched horns of scooters, the low horns from cars, the strange noise that protrudes from the homemade horns from the rickshaws and the varied but all the more annoying bus horns, which play a short tune of beeps.
Added to this is the thump thump thump coming from the nearest dance bar, getting louder and louder as the day progresses. Then in comes the sounds of a hundred different people; some loud, “Namaste sister”, “Come and have a look inside”, “Taxi?, “Rickshaw?”, “One Rupee?”, “Tiger Balm?” (which is knock off Tiger Balm called Wild Tiger, not the same thing), some almost imperceptibly, “Hashish? Marijuana?”, but all persistently annoying no matter how many times you say “No”. And if you should be seen to the others to say “yes” to any of them, well then you’re in trouble.
It doesn’t matter where you are, whether you are inside or outside, walking through the streets or in the hotel lobby the smells will always fluctuate. Sometimes you will be besieged by the warm, sensual smell of incense that seems to float from every shop and every window. Sometimes you will salivate at the spicy smell of cooking from a restaurant. Then suddenly you will smell sewage, sweat or over-ripe cheese that has been sitting at the counter in the supermarket for far too long.
There are two main sources of feelings. The first is the beggar population and the second is the weather. When walking through the streets you may be bathed in beautiful sunshine, the weather so warm that the dogs will move out of a premium shady spot for nothing- not even a bus hurtling towards them beeping its horn excessively. (Most bus journeys include swerving to avoid some animal or other in the road; cows, dogs, goats, chickens). If it is not sunny then it is most likely raining torrentially, soaking you through the few layers that you put on half an hour ago when the sun was shining. Fortunately the showers don’t seem to last long, you just have to go and have a cup of ginger tea in the nearest retreat.
The beggars, on the other hand, provide a much less welcome feeling, physically and emotionally. There are quite a few guest houses on the street where I am staying which makes our front door prime begging real estate. Standing at the door of the guest house it is most likely that you will be grabbed by an affectionately named ‘glue kid’ asking for rupees, or a mother wandering the streets with a baby on her hip waving a empty bottle at you, or possibly even a member of a particular caste that maim themselves and their children to get more money from begging who have been exiled from India.
Kathmandu is a spicy place. Most food is filled, or at the very least sprinkled, with chilli. I am really trying my hardest to get used to it, but I’m not a big fan of sitting, glowing red, downing my drink not being able to enjoy my meal. Hopefully by the end of this trip I won’t be such a spice coward, but only time will tell. I did manage to buy candyfloss though, which pleased me a lot, although it was far more fluorescent than any food I have previously bought.
I think that going on the bus is perhaps the most fully sensory feeling that I have experienced so far. One of the first times that I got the bus back from work I remember looking out of the window (which James was half poking out of because the bus was so crowded) watching the scenes of everyday life go past and feeling something on the back of my head. It turned out that not only was I right next to some guys armpit, but it was so cramped that he had to bend over me to fit in and I what I felt was his nose on the back of my head.