Quick stop in Nepal
I'd been hearing stories all spring about the situation in Nepal.
Minimal electrical production was commanding load shedding of 18 hours
or more each day, water shortages, social unrest, government failure
to form a coalition, continued failure to integrate the Maoist and
royal armies, or to create a new constitution.
Flying to Kathmandu on Monday, the plane crossed the rural and
mountainous areas of Nepal, which look almost empty from the high
vantage point of the plane. Then, dropping into the Kathmandu valley,
it is all of a sudden back-to-back residential and business areas.
The whole valley is full. 2.5 million people now live here, compared
to a fraction a few years before.
The weather was blessedly cooler than the Indian plains, and in many
ways Kathmandu felt the way it has been described by foreigners for
decades: hospitable, friendly, full of culture and history,
interesting places, art and artisans.
In some ways, it is still all those things. But there is an overall
deterioration of morale and infrastructure too -- even since what I
noticed last fall. Petty money-making schemes are on the rise, from
the oldest cheap-taxi-ride-if-you-go-to-the-hotel-where-I-get-commission
scam, which was rare in Nepal and is now blatant at the airport, to a
new service tax at restaurants, which is compounded with other taxes
to bring the rate to 24% for every meal.
The biggest challenge right now is uncertainty. Day-to-day, things
may run as normal. But one never knows when that will change. A is a
universal truth, I suppose.
[Having started this post a few days ago but never finishing it, I am
now posting from Lhasa -- arrived here last night after a grueling
2-day overland trip here.]
