Word: kathmandu
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...night, a voluntary curfew envelops Kathmandu as its ancient alleyways and smoothed brick squares empty the moment the sun slips over the mountains. The fear is on everybody's lips: the Maoists are coming, the Maoists are coming...
...empty balcony above the hushed courtyard outside his deserted restaurant in Kathmandu, Gautam Rana sets down a heavy scrapbook on a cocktail table and slides open its leather fastener. Inside, newspaper clippings written by society columnists, restaurant critics and travel writers from across the world document how, six years ago, Rana opened the most chic and elegant collection of boutiques, bars and bistros Asia had ever seen, in the restored outbuildings of his family's former palace. There is praise from British historians, a rave review from Bombay's most acerbic social commentator, write-ups in international leisure magazines...
...reason private jets no longer skim the Himalayas into Kathmandu is not hard to fathom. There is little glamour in the daily bloody shoot-outs between rebels and government forces that dominate the news from Nepal today. Squads of armed police and Royal Nepalese Army soldiers in armored cars and mine-clearing vehicles now guard every street corner in the capital. Gatherings of more than five people?even, Rana assumes, his famous parties?have been outlawed, and the city grinds to a halt every few days as armed police cordon off downtown blocks and break up protests against the crackdown...
...disintegrating in civil war is starkly at odds with Nepal's enduring image as an enchanted Shangri-la, a place frozen in time. Yet it is the country's backwardness, so charming to backpackers, mountaineers and jet-setters alike, that lies at the heart of the deadly turmoil. Though Kathmandu has enjoyed steady modernization, in the rugged hinterlands the time warp that shrouds the Himalayan kingdom?according to the Nepalese calendar it is currently the year 2060?preserves a system of feudal landlords, bonded labor and a medieval level of destitution. The Asian Development Bank estimates that...
...first heard of Goa as a college graduate in the mid-'70s. It was a compulsory destination on the hippie trail, which led from Turkey via Afghanistan (for, um, essential supplies) to points east. Like in Kathmandu, kids came to Goa for a week and never left. The tradition of amped-up susegado continued in the '90s with Goa's famous full-moon parties?ecstatic, quasi-pagan raves. In Bombay, Indian friends told me matter-of-factly that "[authorities]cleaned all that up." I didn't like the sound of that?even aging hippies need a place to lay their...