The city is going through a campaign of road widening, but they aren't doing one street, or one stretch at a time, they have ripped up the side walks and the roads all over the place - consequently walking down the street is like a cross country hike. Dodging the cows and dogs, the people and the bikes, the potholes and broken concrete, the piles of rubbish and the mud becomes like a dance on hot coals.
Above and along the roads the electric wires hang low and in chaos. Dozens of wires cross roads and terminate together from all directions at a post, every now and then a few cables hang down, terminating in mid air - like webs woven by a spider on steroids this could be an arachnophobes worse nightmare.
I turn the corner and almost get bowled over by a man carrying two plastic shopping bags. In one there are four small legs with hooves hanging over the sides, the other is red and squishy, filled with the intestines and other delicacies as as he carries a recently bifurcated goat to the butchers on the corner. Passing by the butcher shop the feathers are flying and the sounds of assassinated chickens fills the humid morning air.
Competing with the chickens are the peels of the ubiquitous bells rung as a devotee punctuates their pujas (prayers) at the Hindu and Buddhist temples that saturate every street and district. A woman in her exercise gear, stops, bows before an idol and lights an incense stick at the temple as I pass by.
The six way round about which marks my half way mark is beginning to fill up with people looking for transport. It's just after 6 in the morning and school children are walking to school. The girls, chatting on mobile phones are dressed like the boys, in pin stripe slacks with collar and monogrammed ties as they pass the security guard into St Xavier's College which proudly advertises that it is a 'chewing gum free zone'.
As I walk past the vegetable market that is already doing brisk business, I buy a mango for my breakfast and much to the amusement of the locals I probably pay twice as much as everyone else.
Completing the turn back toward my hotel I cross the road, dodging the motorbikes, the cars and the animals when I see a Ford pickup coming down the road with a dozen people, including children, sitting high on the back try. As the pickup appears to lose it's front wheels in a pothole as peep as the grand canyon, I notice that the platform on which they sit is actually composed of LP gas cylinders banging together over every bump.
I must look a little like those clowns with swivel necks and open mouths at the carnival - this is sensory overload. But this is just my small corner of the city during a 60 minute walk - cross the river, turn the corner and the kaleidoscope changes. New images, new smells and new tastes appear.
A little later in the morning I will be dodging monkeys as I visit the Monkey Temple, a Buddhist complex on the hill, and then as I walk the alleys and streets of Thamel I will be offered the best price, I will be asked to "only look sir", I will be asked if I would like some 'hydroponics', (hash or grass) - as I pass what must be hundreds of stores selling souvenirs and trekking gear.
This is a fascinating city.
