Raining Kath and Dogs

Our morning arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu was — to use a word popular among Buddhists — inauspicious. It was the start of the dry season in Nepal, yet it was pouring rain. A quick check of our weather apps gave us even worse news. The deluge would continue for another couple of days, coinciding with our entire stay in Kathmandu.

We were like, c’mon man. It’s supposed to be the frickin dry season! Granted, no one can control Mother Nature. And we’ve dealt with enough travel snafus to know how to roll with the punches. But it wasn’t just drizzling or raining lightly in Kathmandu. It was — well, you know what’s coming next — it was raining cats and dogs. A nonstop, drenching rain. The kind you don’t go out in except maybe for a funeral or a medical emergency. What the hell were we supposed to do for three days?

I’ll tell you what we did. After we checked into our hotel, we put on our rain jackets, bought a couple of cheap Chinese umbrellas, and went out in that goddamned rain. We wandered all over the touristy neighborhood of Thamel like a couple of stubborn touristy idiots. We walked around the blocks of shops and restaurants for hours and hours, doing our best to keep moving and ward off our jet lag until evening came and we could crash. We walked for so many hours in the rain that our umbrellas started to leak. (As I said — made in China.) We walked for so long that our waterproof hiking shoes got overwhelmed and our socks and feet ended up soaked.

Meanwhile, our friends who were arriving on a later flight couldn’t land in Kathmandu because visibility at the airport had deteriorated to near zero. We kept watching their flight status change. First they were arriving a half hour late, then they were arriving an hour late, then they were…diverted to New Delhi. Meanwhile, it just kept on raining where we were.

In the frickin dry season. C’mon man!

Eventually, evening came and we crashed. Outside our window, the rain kept pouring down.

But lo and behold, when we woke up the next morning, the rain was gone and our friends had made it to Kathmandu and the four of us went out and enjoyed two spectacular days of clear weather in Nepal’s capital city — a jumping off point before our main journey in nearby Bhutan.

The dry season, it seems, had finally arrived — just a little later than usual.

Kathmandu, which fills a valley below the Himalayas the way water fills a bowl after it rains cats and dogs, is a sprawling, chaotic metropolis of about 4 million peeps.

It reminded us of some of the cities we visited in India way back when I first started this blog. Kathmandu is a crazy cacophony of cars, motorbikes, carts, people, cats and dogs (of course), other animals, and probably more than a few mischievous deities. It has lots of historic old temples (Durbar Square is a UNESCO World Heritage Site). It has some great food, assuming you like Indian cuisine. (I’m sure the Nepalese people insist their cuisine is different from Indian food. And it is — in small ways.)

We only got a taste of Kathmandu and the surrounding region. And we didn’t get to go anywhere else in Nepal. It’s a land of mountain trekkers and mystics and ordinary people trying to get by while living in the shadow of the two Asian giants known as China and India. We hope to return some day and see more of the country.

Preferably with all the cats and dogs firmly on the ground.