A
crid, pungent-smelling smoke
drifts across the dark and dingy
room, where a long-haired,
bedraggled man slumps in one
corner. Outside the low-ceilinged room,
open to the street on one side, grubby
children play with a tobacco wrapping
from a traditional beedi, the poor man’s
smoking choice. The bedraggled man, a
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the perfume of marijuana drifts to our
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pies in its calming vapour. It’s 1974, just
off Durbar Square, down Pig Alley, better
known as Pie Alley, in Kathmandu. (1)
The sleek grey minibus pulls up behind a
gate that leads into a dream-like garden,
surrounded by Rana inspired colonial-
style facades that host a plethora of plush
boutique-style rooms. Having consumed
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smartly dressed trekkers, closeted in bright
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air, excitedly grabbing the best seats in the
vehicle. They are off to the domestic airport
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Everest region and the Base Camp they
hope to reach. It is 2018 in Thamel, the
district in Kathmandu that currently hosts
most overseas visitors. (2)
Two visions spanning over forty years
of the once-fabled Kathmandu Valley,
a valley so drastically changed that
even an intoxicated hippy would surely
notice. Before the seventies it was mainly
mountaineers who frequented Kathmandu,
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Himalaya. A few invited VIPs managed
to enter the valley before 1950 as guests
of the ruling Ranas, taking just enough
photographs to arouse interest from the
outside world. We too glimpsed such
images, along with the old Pathe News
reels of some of the early Everest attempts- enough to awaken a curiosity that would
become an addiction.
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lush vegetation and fairytale thatched houses;
temples, stupas and shrines outnumbered the
travellers who made it this far east. We had
driven an old Land Rover from the UK across
Europe to Istanbul, then across the Middle
East to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India
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Kathmandu Valley was intoxicating; the great
Himalayan barrier was hidden by monsoon
clouds, concentrating all our senses on the
valley below. (4) & (5) Anyone with a vehicle
then camped at Withes Hotel in Teku (now
the Valley View Hotel and still just visible,
almost buried by a sea of commercial high-rise
structures). Across the road farmers worked
LQWKHPXGG\ÀHOGVE\WKHULYHUThe old city limits were barely two minutes
away and Freak Street (Jochen Tole) just 10
minutes’ walk, below dilapidated temples,The Kathmandu that
we first visited in
1974 was a small
town surrounded
by rice fields, lush
vegetation and
fairytale thatched
houses; temples,
stupas and shrines
outnumbered the
travellers who made
it this far east.http://www.travelhimalayamagazine.com TRAVEL HIMALAYA SPRING 2019 | 47