Possibly, maybe, perhaps today there will be a bandh. A bandh is a day of political protest, often resulting in shop and street closures. Bandh days are like snow days; school gets cancelled and you lay low. Typical: my first bandh day happened on a Saturday….
Word on the street is that today’s bandh is in honour of a family whose son was killed by Maoists during the revolution. The family has been fasting and protesting that the people responsible had not been arrested, and an arrest was finally made last night. The streets are quiet(er) and Kathmandu is supposedly lying low.
Supposedly. Then I walked out my little alley to the main street, and BAM, it’s all torn up! Construction chaos. Over the past 2 years, Kathmandu has been widening it’s streets to deal with excessive traffic , and thankfully adding footpaths. Street-level buildings were required to remove the front face and rebuild their houses and storefronts to accommodate for the road widening. Those that did not follow the directions suffered the similar fates to the second picture below.
So what do I do on a bandh day? Meet friends for breakfast, hang out at places with fast Internet, and play cards on the rooftop. 🙂
Walking out to road construction. A little boy’s dream
What happens when you don’t move your house back from the road widening
Rooftop chillin’ on a bandh day
Voyidges 