Kathmandu

The mad jungle of unpaved roads, piles of bricks, and constant honking unravels before us as we head toward Nima's house in the valley. There are no stop signs, no traffic lights, and sometimes hardly anything that could be called a street. I want to drive the cab and honk that horn 4,000 times. The genial Nima, Sherpa guide, boxer, proudly showed off the baby kittens under the desk and draped us with prayer sashes. He somehow managed to get our bags through the Kathmandu airport, which had no logic of organization that I could see, and they appeared again like magic at the hotel. Nima's two sister in laws made the lunch, but I was so under the weather I could hardly eat. Kathmandu, where the power shuts off three times each day, where the shop vendors pursue without mercy if you show the slightest interest in their tawdry collection of dusty Buddhas, where just above the dusty street a thousand birds gather from tree to tree, it is springtime in Nepal and I just want to get on the plane to Paris.

in Nima's house

Kathmandu hotel

lunch at Nima's

Me and Nima