Kathmandu, Nepal

10/10/06

We’re flying high above the clouds, India spread out like a wasteland, wormy streams weaving across the brown soils. They thread their way along grey valleys, fork off, and reconnect further along. On the horizon soft clouds are billowing in white and grey. A few moments ago I was watching these clouds, entranced by their cleanliness, their bulbous forms, their removal from the thick heavy smog below. They congregate like wizards. Wizards with pointy pinnacle hats. Hats of mountain. Hats of Himalaya. It doesn’t really seem possible to describe that moment, realising that the clouds were mountains. The sensation of leaning out over the middle aged man next to me, craning, straining to get closer to those peaks, those unbelievable mountains, peeking out above the clouds, almost in line with our aircraft. Those mystical, distant peaks of calm, grandeur, peace……it’s been a while between humilities.

Just sailing through the clouds in our winged ship, through pillars and turrets and castles of cloud, and we’re passing them, not a plane in a hazy fog of grey, but a streetcar, navigating through them like a new town. I don’t think I’ve seen this city in the sky before.

Entering Kathmandu Valley was leaving behind the grey brown plains of northern India. The faecal tributaries of the holy Brahmaputra. As we descended into the valley the hills burst into technicolour green, lush and full. Paddies carved into shallow hills breathed fresh, green corn and wheat. Bales of hay were lined up across fertile fields. Slopes farmed in neat contours like a map rolled down, immaculate. The houses surrounding the citythickened, little lego boxes in terracotta and white, as we descended into the colours of the city.