Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Nepal, Kathmandu: Markets

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No matter how impoverished a country, how slight its market, Coke and Pepsi can be counted on to battle for their share of it.

Of course, like any developing country, the street markets of Nepal, which mainly operate in the morning from say seven to nine, and in the evening about four to six, are gradually losing out to modern grocery stores and supermarkets with gleaming aisles and highly-organized shelves. In 2014, though, you can still get anything you need in the street markets of Kathmandu. Food:

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Spices, fresh or dried:

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Yak's tail brushes:

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Pottery . The little bowls are to burn oil in sacrifice during religious observances. This is an idiotic use of oil for a massively undernourished population, if you ask me. But you probably didn't.

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Banana leaf bowls:

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There's a section devoted to beads, where every stall looks exactly the same:

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Here I am at the Toothache Tree, where people nail to coins to an old log in the hopes that some god or other will make their toothache go away. Few more pointless antidotes have been devised by the minds of men. And as testament to that fact, the area surrounding this corner has grown into a sort of dental mall, with dentist shops all around. That's the remains of a mostly sweated-off tika on my forehead, the only one I managed not to avoid during my whole stay. I don't like to encourage that sort of thing.

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