6:00 AM. It was still cold on the ground, grey and foggy. A typical winter morning in the valley. Later the fog would fade away, revealing a brilliant blue sky and distant high mountains. The man walked past rows of small, dirty houses, their crumbling white plaster revealing dung colored bricks. For the last time he walked past the wonderful pie shops on Freak Street and the San Francisco Pizzeria with its Yak cheese topping. He entered Durbar Square, already alive with activity. An elderly man, bundled against the cold, pushed a heavy cart loaded with buffalo heads. Nothing is wasted. Near the center of the square, the street merchants were setting out their treasures. Fiberglass chessmen from Taiwan would be sold as bone carvings. Polished steel bracelets stamped ".990 pure silver". And precious "hand-woven" tapestries purchased at a local cloth factory. Small earth colored women, wearing dull, earth colored clothing, were laying food offerings at the foot of the great shrine that stood in the center of the square while at the back, woodcutters, burdened with great bundles of twigs and branches, relieved themselves on its walls. Soon the food offerings would be gone, taken by the early rising poor. Nothing is wasted.

Kathmandu?

Kathmandon't!

He had come seeking...what? Enlightenment? Renewal? Adventure? He had found an indifferent people, cheating merchants and terrible poverty. There had been a near riot in the city when the government had raised the price of milk by three cents a gallon. The square had been filled with people that day. The air had crackled with tension and a feeling that something was about to happen. Little brown boys in oversized khaki uniforms had faced the angry crowd with wooden sticks and bamboo shields. A holy man encountered at a nearby monastery had hit him up for the price of a blanket. Everywhere, he was met with outstretched hands. Sometimes, even the dead called out to him. One morning, while walking through the square, he had seen the body of a dead beggar. The man lay on his right side as if asleep. Ragged and barefoot, his worn features distorted with pain, right arm outstretched in final, ironic supplication. For three days he had lain there while passers-by dropped coins and bills on and around his body. On the morning of the third day, he was gone. In death the beggar had collected enough money to pay for the cost of his burial. There had been others. The wiry old man on the bus with two great sacks of potatoes. When the old man got off the bus, he hooked each sack to the ends of a wooden harness, placed the harness on his shoulders and walked off as if carrying two pillows. Ashok, the teenager, had been his guide for a day. Smart and quick, he was hoping to earn enough to pay for a year of school. The price for one day of guide duty had been $4.00, or just about half of his tuition. And then there was the beggar child. Perhaps eight years old. Boy or girl, he couldn't tell. Dirty and barefoot, with only a burlap sack as covering. He had given oranges and a few Rupees to the child and was repaid with a shy, haunting smile. The man flagged down a bicycle taxi and arrived just in time to catch the airport bus. The bus seemed slow and he worried that he would miss his flight out of this country. He was anxious to get home. As he stepped off the bus, a slender boy of ten or twelve neatly dressed in worn but clean cloths met him. Would the man be willing to pay a few Rupees if the boy carried his bag to the terminal? Three Rupees? A done deal! As they approached the terminal, a porter grabbed the bag and began arguing with the boy. It was his job to carry the bags and the boy should not be there. The boy looked up at the man with a worried expression and asked if he would still get his three Rupees. Of course! We have a deal. With his back to the porter, he gave the boy a ten Rupee note. The boy smiled and shouted, "Thank you, thank you mister!" as he ran off. Once they had entered the terminal the man gave the porter five Rupees. And now he had checked his bag. And now he had passed through immigration, with its military clerks and endless forms and regulations. And now he was standing in the passenger lounge waiting for the plane that would take him away. He began talking to a well-dressed gentleman whose turban marked him as a Sikh. "Where are you going today?" The Sikh asked. "To Bangkok for a few days and then home to Los Angeles." "Oh, you are from Los Angeles? Oh, I have been there many times on business." The Sikh replied. He then added, "And you of course are Jewish." The man, who looked like an average Protestant from the American mid-west, laughed with surprise and said, "Why, yes I am, but how could you possibly know?" "Oh I have many Jewish friends in Los Angeles", the Sikh answered, "And they all look just like you." The man laughed again. It was a laugh that rumbled from deep within his guts and brought tears to his eyes. One last absurdity from the land of the surreal.