Heartsick Wanderlust

I had three different drool stains on my shirt by the time we landed in Nepal. I was also sweating from my hair. The Visa process in Nepal operates on Nepal time. As long as you are armed with a small photo and the visa fee -and at least forty-five minutes to kill- it is quite a simple process. Simple doesn't necessarily mean quick. Walking out from the baggage claim, you are hit with a wall of, "MY FRIEND! MY FRIEND! Come, come with me. I will take you where you want to go. Very good price for you. My FRIEND!"

Two minutes in the taxi with no seatbelt and I was struggling to pick my chin up from my lap.
"Your travel bubble has been popped," my husband said.
I could only nod.

Children playing in garbage. The old and sickly leaning heavily on their canes as they try to move on their own. Animals covered in sores. The haze of pollution. My world felt infinitely smaller and yet simultaneously boundless on the thirty minute car ride through streets never meant for cars, over a road that is really more a matrix of potholes clotted with plastic bags than a discernible driving surface. And yet the people are so kind, ceaselessly kind, and eager to be so. I felt dizzy.

The streets of Kathmandu are the definition of chaos. Past smouldering mounds of garbage and packs of stray dogs lazing in the heat, you are sold everything from knock off mountaineering equipment to custom made suits to ropes of Tibetan prayer flags. Crates of eggs jostle precariously in cardboard nests upon the handlebars of bicycles while others hawk tins of Tiger Balm.
"Namaste, man. I like your tattoo."

With each step your senses are confronted with something new and overwhelming. The first step is of rotting garbage. The second is of heady nag champa incense wafting in lacy strands into the street. The third is fried pappadums and the pungent smells of cinnamon and fenugreek. Each scent is distinct and seem to cycle in repetition, each street similar but yet its own version. Cows, sacred to the Hindu religion, wander unhindered through intersections and along walkways, chewing on straw or something else bestowed upon them by worshipful families, who likely could have used it themselves. Dogs fare less easily, sniffing through garbage and piles of rubble. Construction sites are comprised of workers hunched over a partially disassembled section of brick wall, slowly breaking it apart with other bricks, likely bricks they broke off earlier.