Story & Photos by Leah Olson
There used to be countless mystical fortune-tellers lining the streets of Kathmandu. These men and women, dressed in rags with skindark brown from sitting for hours in the sun, crouched behind small tarps piled high with magical crystals and gems. They looked like gypsies, skilled at conjuring up visions for the customers who would squat next to them. At least that’s the transaction I told myself was happening over the “magical crystals.” Then, one fateful day, all the fortune-tellers disappeared. That was the day I found out they were not looking into the future at all. They were selling chunks of Himalayan rock salt.
When I discovered that these so called tools of divination were, in fact, rock salt, I was left in a state of shock. How in the world had I, for three whole years, thought these people were some sort of Nepali mystics? It’s like the feeling you get when you discover that for the past ten years you’ve been singing the lyrics to your favorite song completely wrong. My salt realization was disconcerting. It left me amused and slightly embarrassed at how long I had entertained this misconception in my head. To my credit, there are actually some people who tell fortunes on the side of the street to make a few rupees, but their setup is completely different. Now when I see sidewalk salt vendors it all makes sense, for along with their rock salt, they sell spices in bulk out of paper bags. Salt and spices. How painfully obvious.
But really, why did I think they were fortune-tellers? Well, because at home in the U.S., I had never seen salt in its large crystal form. I had only seen it in tiny bleached white grains that seamlessly flowed out of saltshakers or sat, unassumingly, in dainty bowls on the dining room table. I associated salt with grains, not with massive pieces of crystal. Also, in my Western mind, salt was white, never pink, yellow or black, as it is in its pure form in Nepal.
My salt discovery, however embarrassing it is to admit, epitomizes the pleasures of discovery while traveling abroad. Becoming an expatriate or a traveler automatically makes one an outsider, an observer looking in from the fringes. Almost everything is new, from sounds andsmells to sights and tastes. The unfamiliar lies around every corner: meanings and customs, manners and signs, food and drink, religion and government. This means every day is tinged with discovery and wonder, which is one reason why living in a foreign environment can be so engaging and just plain fun.
While the winding path of discovery can lead to some amusing realizations, like the “fortune-teller” fiasco, it can also make the intrepid traveler feel like a bumbling idiot, embarrassed to admit the misconceptions that initially engaged the mind. Take, for example, what I like to call “The Case of the Kathmandu STD Epidemic.”
When I moved to Nepal in 2007 I would walk and walk and walk some more, going wherever my feet led me: through temples, past vegetable markets, and around Mala-era Newari neighborhoods. On my city explorations, I began to notice the letters “STD” painted boldly on an alarming number of shops.
“Oh god. Kathmandu really has a horrible sexually transmitted disease problem,” I mused. “Well,” I told myself, “at least they have all these STD clinics for people to be treated. How very proactive of them.”
While I was noticing all these STD “clinics” I simultaneously observed that the ground was littered with small, discarded plastic wrappers, about the size and shape of a condom, covered in Hindi writing. I was perplexed. Why did Kathmandu have such an STD problem if people were obviously, judging by all these condom wrappers, having rampantly safe sex? It seemed an anomaly: a culture obsessed with condom usage, but with a multitude of sexually transmitted disease treatment centers.
Then came a day when I saw a Nepali man ripping open one of the “condom” packages, pouring the contents into his hand, promptly tucking the brown strands between his lip and teeth and then discarding the wrapper on the ground. As it turned out, the “condom packets” had nothing to do with sex. They were individual portions of chewing tobacco.
“Shit!” I thought, embarrassed that for so long I had thought they were condoms. I quickly scanned my memory, praying that I didn’t actually admit to anyone in the past months this laudable misconception.
Soon after this discovery, I came across an “STD clinic” in my neighborhood. I peaked in and, to my surprise, found that the shop was buzzing with copy machines, computers and telephone booths. Then, I noticed, etched in tiny writing under the letters “STD” in the front window: “Standard Telephone Device.”
“Shit!” I thought again. “These aren’t STD clinics, they’re phone booths!” Sheepishly, I walked away, again embarrassed but, at the same time, highly amused.
Discoveries while traveling abroad are not always so bumbling and awkward as the fortune-teller, condom and STD incidents of mine in Nepal. The pleasure of discovery lies in these revelations, but also in the more mundane, everyday aspects of life. For me, pleasure is stumbling upon a mosque in the middle of Hindu dominated Kathmandu, outside of which Muslim men gather around a street vendor grilling kebabs. It is finding a new variety of vegetable to cook with at the corner market, or locating a previously unknown shortcut through a winding back alley.
Pleasure is learning a new Nepali word, watching the sweat-fueled Gurkha soldier-training regime, learning the rice harvesting process and trying a new food. Travel is about observation, discovery and understanding. Living in a foreign country sharpens the senses of observation and curiosity, which lead to inevitable, and often hilarious misconceptions, and eventually to deeper cultural understanding. Discoveries, whether finding out the meaning of “STD” or learning how to count to 10 in a new language, are part of the immense pleasure of being an outsider living and traveling abroad.
To read more about Leah’s adventures in Nepal, read her first Kathmandu story with Ethos, check out her blog, or follow her on Twitter. See what other trips UO students are taking in our online series, Blogs from Abroad.
