It is eight in the evening in Kathmandu, and I am sitting on the hostel rooftop watching the clouds decompose over the city. The humidity crawls up the walls like heavy spiders, and someone asks me what I want to eat. But I’m not hungry. Not because I’m worried, but because coming back to Asia always feels a bit complicated at first. My stomach is tight, my hair is greasy, and my backpack sits right beside me.
I think about wanting a shower and how many people will be in my dorm room tonight. Whether I’ll be able to sleep. Whether the bed will be comfortable. If I’ll find my people. “Where are you from?” someone asks from the next table, but I am so exhausted from traveling that the question doesn’t quite reach me.
I am tired, dirty, confused, and a little irritable. The noise swells, everyday honks that sound like roars in the night. Music I can’t comprehend. The smell of food, the barking of dogs. Everything screams that I am back in Asia.
The Western Gaze and the Need for Coming Back to Asia
Last week I was in Croatia, where everyone kept asking me why I insist on coming back to Asia. What it is about this culture that fascinates me so much. “I couldn’t do it,” they tell me repeatedly while I search for flight tickets to India. The answer isn’t simple, nor is it definitive. Because Asia isn’t a place; it’s more of a state of mind. The chaos, the collision, the clash, the destruction. The place I come to learn, to force myself to be uncomfortable, to die and be reborn.
“But it’s full of chaos and filth,” people explain to me without ever having been here. What they don’t know is that Asia’s beauty cannot be measured by the Western values we so proudly try to replicate. That behind the smoke and the chaos of street vendors lies a strange kind of order we cannot perceive. That if you manage to look past the annoyance of the noise and the traffic, you will find a tranquility that simply doesn’t exist in the West.
Between the Himalayas, the Kumari Goddess, and the Chaos of Kathmandu
How do I explain this country, Nepal, and the collision that exists between its mountains and its deities? The Himalayas worshipped as ancient gods, the dust of old-town Kathmandu, the power lines continuing to pile up without anyone doing a thing about it, the monkeys, the dogs, the shops selling trekking gear for those seeking to climb the highest mountains in the world. The crowd of believers gathering to worship a young girl goddess, the Kumari, gazing at them as if they were mere flies. Faith, faith bleeding out everywhere. The river, the ghats, Buddhism and Hinduism merging without everything exploding.
Contradictions I still cannot and do not want to explain. Because what I understood on my second trip to this continent is that Asia doesn’t need or seek to be defined or compartmentalized by us or our Western eyes. It doesn’t care to be explained through the perspective of a 31-year-old Argentine. And knowing that allowed me to let the place pass through me without the need to solve it. I simply observe the fire and attempt, with a certain clumsiness, to write down the experience in a few lines.
Finally, I don’t return out of caprice or boredom. I return because I believe that coming to Asia with a seven-kilo backpack is the fastest way to learn. Being with yourself in the middle of the fire. Observing without judging. Trusting the universe and whatever lies ahead. If you can do all this, maybe this could be your journey, too.
If you are interested in Asia, you can check out more articles in this cathegory 🙂