On with the freak show

When I first visited Kathmandu 20 years ago, Nepal had not long been open to the rest of the world, and West and East stared at each other open-mouthed among 500-year-old brick temples. To a westerner the crowded Kathmandu valley seemed like a high-altitude human nest from the imagination of an Asiatic Mervyn Peake with more than its fair share of resident cuckoos.

Swirling early-morning fog was home to an extraordinary mixture of spaced-out hippies, barefoot sherpas, gaudy rickshaws, wandering cows, blank-eyed sadhus (Hindu holy men), Mongol-featured Tibetans and elephant god statues disfigured by centuries of worshippers. Travellers gathered in narrow guesthouses down Freak Street (its adopted name), a lane worked by whispering dope pedlars and desperate white druggies begging for the next fix or air fare home. A place to try everything. I did. Hepatitis was my reward.

Since then, I have heard various reports of Kathmandu's terminal decline - bloated, polluted, over-run with tourists. I've had press releases telling of the opening of a Hyatt, Radisson, Crowne-Plaza, etc, implying the arrival of upmarket package tourism. So I've just been back, this time with my family.

With great pleasure I can report that Kathmandu is still one of the most stupendously exotic, friendly cities in the world - but with less evident drug abuse and no begging hippies. The congestion is immense and traffic police wear face masks against pollution, but there is still no high-rise concrete or McDonald's. Central Durbar Square, surrounded by key temples and palaces, is showing symptoms of over-exposure to tourism. The poor Kumari, a flawless nine-year-old girl who had to undergo 32 tests culminating in a midnight walk through severed buffalo and goat heads to get the job of Nepal's living goddess, spends much of her day appearing at her window for the benefit of tour groups. "If I shout for her she will come," boasted one of several young men pressurising us to take him on as a guide.

Outside, the sadhus have wised up to the fact that having their photograph taken is more profitable than collecting alms, but the image of the family posing with two holy men was worth paying 40p for. Every building has a rooftop terrace; from on high, travellers dig into banana pancakes and read the e-mails they have just picked up from the cyber cafes at street level. We spent a happy couple of hours on a rooftop overlooking Durbar Square.

Freak Street is no longer a hippy hangout, and today the region called Thamel is the place to be. As a travellers' community it is bigger than Bangkok's Khao San Road, the opening setting for Alex Garland's The Beach. Among the craft shops, guest houses ($15 a double room) travel agents and Ayurvedic massage parlours are scores of shops selling trekking gear, mostly locally made big brand name imitations. Buy a Gore-Tex jacket or North Face fleece at a quarter of the price back home, and take a good sense of direction. "Looking for your family?" said a man selling Tiger Balm on the street outside Pilgrim's Bookshop, a fabulous labyrinth of obscure publications. I was - we'd got separated. "That way," he pointed down the street, and there was Rhena buying a postcard of copulating elephants to send to her primary school teacher.

That evening, in the Big Belly restaurant in Thamel, I came upon the following entry in the visitor's book: "It's me, somebody from Kenya. I'd never known about Nepal, but since I came here something pass in my Ubongo." He continued in a similar vein for the rest of the page.

So forget the reports of Kathmandu's demise. This is still one of the most charismatic cities in the world, and your Ubongos will inevitably be touched.