Having been back in Kathmandu for a couple of days the thing that sticks in my mind most is the road. Not all of it. The section from Tingri to the Tibet/ Nepal border was magnificent for the views it gave of the massively wide plains in the north to the views of Shishapangma at the Thang La pass and on to the dizzying steepness of the Matsamg Sangpo gorge as the Friendship Bridge is approached. The section of the Aranico Highway that leads into Kathmandu is notable for the madness of the traffic, or more precisely of the drivers, who live on their nerves and their vehicle horns. I could fill chapters on these but to do so would omit the section that is most engaging: that from the bridge leading south. The first 15 miles or so of the Aranico Highway.
The road begins at the gate on the Nepalese side of the Friendship Bridge. It is concrete here although little of it may be seen as there is constant unloading and reloading of trucks as customs officials check and recheck the contents of endless trucks queuing to cross into Tibet. As the road heads southwards through the border town of Kodari it very soon becomes crazy paving: the concrete surface being unable to withstand the constant battering of heavily laden trucks. The north side of the road, that being the side backing onto the gorge, is lined by a single row of assorted buildings each built in a different style to the other but which have an almost Dickensian charm about their juxtapositioning. None are new. Most are shabby shops or cheap hotels. All are grey from road dirt. The Buildings on the southern side are similar although there are gaps where the steepness and proximity of the side of the gorge renders there no space for buildings. In place of buildings there are occasional car parking spaces - not that you will find such spaces marked out - Kodari is not that kind of place. This is a frontier town without the time for such frippery.
So, the road. Barely a few meteres wide contained between shabby buildings on the north side and either equally shabby buildings or the steep upward swoop of the gorge side on the other. It's surface wrecked by over-laden trucks. There is not enough parking so one side of the road is permanently occupied by trucks waiting to be checked prior to crossing into Tibet. Their drivers sleeping or washing or dealing with other needs as and where they can.
Add to this mix the people. Not only those on foot, for example those recently disgorged from various buses at the park and ride (ha ha - park and ride). Needless to say there is no such thing so the buses clog the road too. But back to the people. Porters struggle up the hill towards the gate laden with packs significantly larger and often heavier than they are. Predominantly women these amazing people use head-straps to balance their loads as they drive themselves forward in their flip-flops or bare feet.
When the road is wet, while stopping short of becoming a mud-bath it nonetheless resembles a chocolate treacle mess. When dry it is a dust-bowl.
The picture I paint is essentially static, each element; the road, buildings, traffic, and people in their own space. Let us now crank up the motion and add 2 final elements, or lack of. There are no pavements and no control systems such as traffic lights.
There are trucks going up hill and some going down what is, due to the parking issues, a single lane road. Then there are vehicles turning and unloading too. There are people going hither and thither and without pavements they use the same road space as the trucks.
The exhaust fumes are deadly. These are not modern emission-controlled load carriers but old-fashioned Diesel engines whose fumes would clog a lung at 100 paces. And the noise! THE NOISE! Not just the crash of gears inexpertly changed from the drivers of those grinding uphill but the squeal and release of air brakes of those going down. The shouted instructions of parking guides. Finally, as the loudest and most strident element of cacophony of all, there are the horns. From single 'parp' to the fanciest and loudest of air-horns, the horns take pride of place in this Babelesque tower of din. The Nepalese driver loves his hooter. Never hooting once when 10 will do eardrums are assaulted by this incessant barrage.
Eventually, and with patience and nerves frayed, it is possible for vehicles to progress out of this cauldron of dust and noise and begin to head towards Kathmandu. The road surface does improve although the frequent landslides and subsidence means that most forward motion is but a temporary state of affairs. As before there is no pavement and any pedestrian foolhardy enough to prefer the relative ease of passage afforded by the road over the thick probably snake-laden verge of thorns or other skin removing forms of vegetation (one side of the road) or the sheer drop (other side of the road) is treated to an air-horning of prodigious dimensions. As are any stray cows, dogs or other unfortunates that happen to be on the road. The reaction from the people thus advised of the oncoming storm is broadly the same as for the cows. Utter indifference. Or at most mild irritation indicated by a very gentle and oft-hidden fluttering of the hand nearest the vehicle. Nonetheless the hooting continues well past the point of any warning benefit that might have prevented a sudden lurch sideways into the path of the hooting vehicle. But then the vehicles hoot at each other too. To indicate an approach, a wish to overtake, an intention to overtake, a successful overtake, etc. Of course an actual overtake requires no complicity from the vehicle overtaken, nor from any oncoming vehicle. Just sit on the horn and overtake, including on blind corners. Foot down, horn finger down, head down, and hope for the best. The horn is used as both talisman and armour.
Apparently invisible to the drivers who so clearly own the road are those who dwell at the roadside. And I don't mean set back from the roadside behind picket fences and little gardens. I mean those whose principal living rooms are open fronted, and who have at most a step or two between those rooms and the road. Customarily seen wearing masks or holding material to their mouths these poor (for they is how they appear to me) people live their lives, bring up their children, cook and eat their food, and sleep in an atmosphere of choking dust, the screech of brakes, and a discordant symphony of air horns. Living openly with neighbours, sharing a joke or a family story over the chores of washing cleaning and cooking could have been idyllic when oxen were the principal form of transport. Children playing together in the street is not a problem when life passed the door at walking pace. Now that the road is owned by the shining and bedazzled knights of Tata (or whichever brand is so desperately needed in Kathmandu) those who live it it's slipstream suffer. Clothes are dried by the whoosh of trucks hurtling by and sprayed with dust. Children sit in doorways peering fearfully into the light. Old men with dirt-grey wrinkles, hats and sticks taking on the hue of the road-dirt sit and stare from their chairs seemingly unable to fathom the legacy passed to their children. The women crouch on the stoop washing themselves, their children, their clothes, their food and the outwash is the same hue - that of the road
The road begins as life bringer at the gates of the Friendship Bridge where the hubbub is confined to the commercial areas and while strident is almost joyous in its exhuberence. But within a few miles the exhuberence has become indifference; indifference to the people who lives are daily devastated by the road.
I have no solution, I offer no insight, nor do I criticise. But while most people were sleeping or reading in between the hooting and squeaking on the Aranico Highway I was watching and I was moved to tell you what I saw; on the road.