Eager to explore the dark alleyways that had intrigued me since arriving in Kathmandu, I rode my rented bike down the winding, cluttered streets of Dilibazar. A brown canvas-hooded tricycle-taxi beeped as it brushed by and a passing truck belched black smoke that enveloped me. I cursed at the driver, breathing back into my lungs the toxins I was sweating out on my bike. A cow, its skin stretched taut over a bony carcass, sat placidly in the middle of the road, oblivious to the traffic jam she was causing, nonchalantly brushing flies away with her tail. These same flies then migrated to piles of garbage, to dung, to excrement and to vegetables being sold by squatting vendors.

A group of children watched in amusement as I manoeuvered around a sleeping dog and between the hordes of people milling in the street. A boy with a runny nose cracked the dirt encrusted on his face with a smile. His little sister crouched nearby in the corner by a wall, her locks of matted black hair framed the pain in her dark eyes – while a stream of putrid yellow-green bile trickled down her leg. I averted my eyes. I felt bad for her and walked on, but the impact stayed with me a long time.

Colorful images of Hindu gods were carved on the walls. Blue-skinned Shivas with snakes and pitch forks taunted me, Hanuman monkey gods, wearing gold crowns and loin cloths stared out at me.  I biked down a narrow pathway of old stones polished by ages of pedestrian traffic, past filigreed wooden windows, erotic carvings of Hindu deities with touches of Buddhism, stone elephants guarding dusty temples and tiered roofs covering steps rising to the gods.

An ethereal light illuminated the buildings as the sun began to sink behind the Himalayas.

Later I rode my bike to Freak Street, a Himalayan crossroad of cultures, named during the Hippie invasion of Kathmandu in the Sixties. A sadhu with a rat-nest of dreadlocks swayed down the street in a drug-induced haze. On both sides of the street, rows of small shops catering to tourists and mountaineers, sold ornate hookahs, statues of Hindu gods, silver and brass jewelry, parkas, hiking gear and woolen clothing.

A snake charmer sat on the sidewalk beside a straw basket where he kept his cobras. One cobra danced to the movement of his flute, one stood mesmerized by the music and another hissed and then swiped at the thick cloth of his pant leg. A tourist wearing an Indiana Jones hat walked by the Hippie Temple where a group of flower children of the Sixties still hung out on the steps smoking hashish, engaged in bleary-eyed conversation in the hot afternoon sun.