The Arrival

I am dreaming. It begins outside an open air airport sometime after midnight. Electricity has been down for hours. A warm sticky rain falls. Dark children arrive in swarms with shouts for candy and rupees. Others insist on carrying my bags. Young men, boys really, offer "special" taxi service or "real limousine" to Thamel "verrrrry cheap". Fires burn on street corners across the way. Women cooking meat over the flame offer no more than a glance as my weary feet find their way into a taxi.

It is darker than dark, the roads are not paved, and the driver, lacking a working headlight, points a small flashlight out the window; its beam growing dimmer by the mile. He holds up his side of the conversation well: Ma ali Nepaali bolchhu tapai bistaarai bolnuhos. Jaane bato kata parchha najikai gaun parchha… I drift off.

There is no sense of time. Suddenly the car halts. The driver spins around and flashes his off colored teeth. "Kathmandu Guest House" he slurs. What smells like rubbing alcohol emanates from this mouth. Struggling against the vapors I spill out of the car into mud ankle deep. I argue with the driver. He wants 500 rupees. I give him 100. He curses my name, takes another drink from an unlabeled bottle. I give him one hundred more before he is satisfied. One last curse and he is off. I trudge into the lobby where candles burns low. Save for a small straggly dog the place is deserted. The sofa turns out to be fairly comfortable so this is where I choose to sit waiting for the dawn to arrive.