Mother Goddess of the World

Mother Goddess of the World

By Kim Stanley Robinson

Kathmandu is a funny city. When you first arrive there from the West, it seems like the most ramshackle and unsanitary place imaginable the buildings are poorly constructed of old brick, and there are weed patches growing out of the roofs; the hotel rooms are bare pits; all the food you can find tastes like cardboard, and often makes you sick; and there are sewage heaps here and there in the mud streets, where dogs and cows are scavenging. It really seems primitive.

Then you go out for a month or two in the mountains, or a trek or a climb. And when you return to Kathmandu, the place is utterly transformed. The only likely explanation is that while you were gone they took the city away and replaced it with one that looks the same on the outside, but is completely different in substance. The accommodations are luxurious beyond belief; the food is superb; the people look prosperous, and their city seems a marvel of architectural sophistication. Kathmandu! What a metropolis.

So it seemed to Fred and me, as we checked into my home away from home, the Hotel Star. As I set on the floor under the waist-high tap of steaming hot water that emerged from my shower, I found myself giggling in mindless rapture, and from the next room I could hear Freds bellowing the old 50s rocker, “Going to Katmandu.”

Mother Goddess of the World. Photo : Elena

An hour later, hair wet, faces chopped up. Skin all prune-shriveled, we met Arnold out in the street and walked through the Thamel evening. “We look like coatracks!” Freds observed. Out city clothes were hanging on us. Freds and I had each lost about twenty pounds, Arnold about thirty. And it wasn`t just fat, either. Everything wastes away at altitude. « We`d better get to the Old Vienna and put some of it back on. »

A started salivating at the very thought of it.

So we went to the Old Vienna Inn, and relaxed in the warm steamy atmosphere of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After big servings of goulash, schnitzel Parisienne, and apple strudel with whipped cream, we sat back sated. Sensory overload. Even Arnold was looking up a little. He had been quite through the meal, but then again we all had, being busy.

We ordered a bottle of rakshi, which is a potent local beverage of indeterminate origin. When it came we began drinking.