Escape from Kathmandu Book

This book is four related short stories featuring a pair of American stoners living in Kathmandu in the mid-80's, and for anyone who visited or lived in Nepal anytime between the 70's and early 00's this is a real treat.

The stories themselves are best described as "absurdist humor" (stealing that from my friend Peter), and generally deal with [1] the search for yetis (aka, "the abominable snowman"), [2] the search for George Mallory's body (which culminates in an illegal summiting of Mount Everest), [3] the search for Shangri-la (which touches too-briefly on the tragic betrayal of Tibet's anti-China guerillas by Richard Nixon) and [4] a system of (I'm assuming fictional??) millenia-old tunnels running from the Tibetan border to the Terai (which involves a ridiculous kidnapping of Nepal's then-King Birendra; this last story is not only the weakest of the four but is somewhat uncomfortable to read, in light of the massacre of the entire royal family some 15 years later).

But for me, the stories - none of which frankly rate more than 3-stars in themselves - really aren't the point here. It's the combination of Robinson's style and voice (which perfectly captures the type of hippie-dippy American expat one encounters endlessly in Nepal - tour/trekking guide, Buddhist convert, trader/hustler/drug dealer, etc.), with the endless minutiae and memories of daily life at the "Roof of the World:"

Thamel and Freak Street; unexpectedly delicious Western food (either prepared by European emigres or former Gurkha army cooks); switchback mountain drives sitting in the luggage rack of rickety buses; deep valleys and forests of pink rhododendron; street-side vendors selling unused Western meds abandoned by returning trekkers (which helped me cure a nasty case of Giardia); Tibetan carpet shops and niche bookstores…the overwhelming poverty and corruption.

I love Nepal - have taken three trips and spent probably two months there between 1985 and 2013 - but doubt I have the fortitude to ever live there; sadly, at this age I love my comfort even more. But once COVID is resolved, I certainly plan to return. Kathmandu may not be the most beautiful city I've ever visited, but it's certainly the most photogenic, and while it's hard NOT to take a photo that looks like these:





…my all-time favorite photo is this one, which in my mind sums up both the backwardness and yet optimistically can-do spirit of the local people: