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a damp, confused walk in katmandu

@Mila Sanders2/9/2026blog

i didn’t plan to write this post but here we are. it started with me staring at my phone at 3 am, weather app taunting me with 19.08 degrees and a feels-like that sounds like a whispered secret. katmandu, you know how to play mind games. i stepped outside and immediately regretted it because the air was that clingy, 67% humidity wrapping around my face like a bad decision. what even is this? a sauna wrapped in mothballs?

then i walked. not because i had a plan, but because my backpack tasted like freedom. first stop was a market that smells like wet dog and ambition. i bought a frilly sarong for 150 rupees because someone told me it was magic. turned out it was just cotton, but who cares? magic is overrated anyway. i heard that if you fold it right, it becomes a tattoo. haven’t tried that yet.

next was a coffee shop where the barista was clearly pretending to care about my order. i asked for a latte and he just poured me black coffee with a weird foam pattern. i think he was sick of Americans. or maybe he was a disillusioned consultant from the 90s. i don’t know. what i do know is that the drink was strong enough to power a tractor. someone told me that’s the real benefit of katmandu coffee-it fixes broken things. probably not true, but i’m adding it to my life hack list.

the neighbors were weird. literally. one guy next door was arguing with a pigeon about property rights. i heard that through the wall. another neighbor was playing mariachi music at 9 pm. i heard that too. i tried to tell them it was 3 am, but they said, "this is our culture, kid." i didn’t argue. i just took a picture of the mariachi cat and posted it to my instagram. got 12 likes. totally normal.

there’s this myth that katmandu is chaotic, but i think that’s just people who haven’t lived here. it’s not chaotic. it’s just... alive. like a pack of feral squirrels that also charge for entry. i checked yelp and saw a review that said, "the city ate my passport and spat it out." another one claimed the huts here are haunted by a guy who plays accordion at 4 am. i’m not sure if that’s true, but i’m 70% convinced.

i took a lot of pictures. too many. the first one was of a street that looked like a joke. the second one was a man selling dumplings under a neon sign that said "we don’t care." the third one was me trying to balance on a scooter while holding a sarong. i fell. i got up. i fell again. the sarong survived. maybe it’s magic.

if you get bored, the autobahn to lumbini is 300 rupees and takes 8 hours. don’t do it. i did. it was a mistake. i saw a cow eating a newspaper. that’s probably the best thing i’ve ever seen.

i also tried to find a place to sleep that wasn’t a hostel. failed. ended up at a budget student’s hostel where the bed was covered in used tissue paper. the owner said it was a sign of progress. i agreed. progress is just pretending you’re comfortable while secretly panicking.

ps. check out this map if you want to get lost: [insert iframe here]. also, if you’re into weird memories, visit this coffee shop: [yelp link]. or if you need sarongs: [tripadvisor link]. i’m not sure who runs these sites, but they’re good at it.

in the end, i just want to say katmandu doesn’t care if you’re a budget student or a millionaire. it just wants you to touch the walls and hear the ghosts. or at least that’s what the old man at the crossroads told me. he might have been high. or maybe he was a historian. i didn’t ask.

oh, and the weather? still 19.08. it’s like katmandu is trying to tell me something. maybe it’s the temperature? maybe it’s the humidity? maybe it’s that i should stop writing blog posts and just eat more dumplings. either way, i’m ready for tomorrow’s chaos.

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About the author: Mila Sanders

Believes that every problem has a solution (or at least a workaround).

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