 |
|
Online FavoritesSpecial Issues
Photo Galleries |
The Last Days of the Mountain Kingdom Dateline: Nepal, 2001. The royal family has been murdered. Maoist guerrillas prowl the countryside, fomenting agrarian revolution. Kathmandu has succumbed to general strikes and indiscriminate bombings. And everybody's got his own pet conspiracy theory. Is this in the Himalayas, or the next Asian apocalypse in the making? August 10, 2001: Symmes reflects on the cease-fire. By Patrick Symmes
November 28, 2001: U.S. State Department cautions Americans about travel to Nepal. November 26, 2001: King Gyanendra declares a state of emergency as cease-fire comes to a bloody end. It is in the nature of communist revolutions, many scholars have noted, to screw up a good cappuccino. Lying on the hotel bed my second morning in Kathmandu, I find that the medicinal properties of caffeine have assumed heroic proportions in my jet-lagged brain. There was airport Nescafé in New York and London, anemic hotel java in New Delhi, and watery airborne muck everywhere in between. Now, all I really want from life is some strong coffee. While I wait for room service to deliver the cure, I try the phone number one more time. I've dialed it for a day with no results. The telephone system in Kathmandu is inexplicable. I can't tell if I'm getting no connection, or no one is answering, or I'm dialing the wrong number.
Most Western tourists and trekkers, including the 40,000 Americans who visit Nepal each year, have dodged the sharp edge of this unsheathed war. But that grows harder every day. In February, a Chinese development worker, the first foreigner, was injured when Maoists raided a dam project to steal dynamite. Still, in Kathmandu, there is denial.
It was then, with the heavy cup still in my hand, that words began to drift toward other meanings, that reality began to melt into new and unstable forms. Like Alice, I'd swallowed a potion that would take me into a Wonderland, a kingdom of retrocommunism unlocked by secret handshakes and punctuated by thousands of clenched fists. Time would now flow backward, the 21st century giving way to Year Zero, Boeings yielding to bows and arrows, video night in Kathmandu becoming firelight in mud huts. The forecast for the glorious future would look a lot like 1950. It is the same voice on the phone, but different. His English and his attitude have suddenly improved. "You want to meet the Maoists?" he asks. Voices argue in the background, and then he announces that it is time for a journey. He can't say what kind of a journey it is, whether it will be to the east or the west, into the Himalayas or down to the subtropical plains. He can't say how long we will be gone. He won't even tell me who he is. I write down an address. "You must be there in 15 minutes," he says. This is impossible, but we try. I run downstairs, rip photographer Seamus Murphy from the lunch table, throw money at the front desk, and we walk out with only the clothes we are wearing, spare socks, and the contents of our knapsacks.
A young man in a tan shalwar kameez—a Pakistani-style long shirt over pants—steps out of the traffic. His eyes are burning in his brown face, and his smile is a trick. "Hello, sir," he says. "Come with me." Without waiting, he folds back into the flow of people, walking fast. The rabbit hole opens up, and we, soon to be followed by the entire nation, fall in.
|
   
TODAY'S NEWS UPDATE!
Kelly Slater on His One Track Mind<... In One Track Mind, a film by Chris Malloy, surfing greats sit down to talk about what has ... 
The Spoke Word: New Winter Cycling ...
RAPHA Classic Softshell Jacket, $375 Rapha is quickly establishing itself as the Savile Row ... advertisement
Vacation PackagesMore Travel Deals |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Home |
- Travel |
- Gear |
- Bodywork |
- Culture |
- Videos |
- Podcasts |
- Photos |
- Archives |
- Feedback |
- RSS Feeds |
- Subscribe to Outside Magazine |
- Join/Login
Partner Sites:
- Away.com |
- GORP.com |
- Orbitz |
- Cheaptickets |
- ebookers |
- HotelClub.com |
- RatesToGo.com |
- asia-hotels.com |
- Outside's Go
©1994-2008 Mariah Media Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of material from any pages without written permission is strictly prohibited.
Reproduction of material from any pages without written permission is strictly prohibited.