Honey, the road'll even end in Kathmandu

Janis Joplin, this song, this lyric will forever be entrenched in my mind as my teenage obsession moving from Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses and Ugly Kid Joe (*cough) to something more permanent, more fearless.

When I was 16, I obsessed over Janis Joplin. I didn't know anything about her--her habits, her career, her influences--but I knew she had a staggering voice, ripped to shreds by late nights, cigarettes and substance abuse. In her music, she made it out to be hard love and feelings of insignificance that had done her in. It worked.

This song of hers, Cry, Cry Baby, has always stuck with me. Her delivery of the chorus is always consistent, but she falls off the train during the final verse. Mostly though, it's the Kathmandu reference that gets me. It's always been a mystical, is-it-really-there kind of city for me. For an unhealthy amount of my childhood, I actually believed the road (the road being all of the roads on the continent, converging into one) ended at the loop turnaround at the end of the family cabin's dirt road. It took me awhile to figure out roads.

My air-tight theory begged the question, if the road ends at Floating Stone, Alberta, where does it begin? With a lack of real world experience, but an ever-sprouting imagination, I imagined a big, blurry city like Kathmandu. Far, far away, check. Forgotten by the rest of the world at large, check. Dirty, ancient, BUSY! Check.

Figuratively, you could say that Kathmandu feels like the beginning of the road. One discovers this city in a permanent state of weariness and awe. Flowers and holy men and tuk tuks and oranges and pashminas and incense and chanting and let's stop for milk tea, repeat. This is the old world with enough forethought to know the value of their ancient palaces and temples.

Humans are adaptable, more so than we give ourselves credit. At first, this is painstakingly apparent in Kathmandu. The people have evolved around the city. The narrow allies, mostly mud-packed, are so obviously meant for getting around by foot or horse. I can easily imagine this city hundreds of years ago, before the imposing buzz of mopeds and the eternal honk of taxis.

My first few days with Kathmandu are littered with near hits and misses. I don't step out an inch without turning to secure my life, and when I do, I'm surpassed by aloof Kathmandians. I'm a large, awkward caterpillar to their industrious, no-nonsense ants. I'm impeding the flow with my western awareness of space. Carrying on conversation while walking requires too much concentration and feels dangerously awkward. My many references to the city map necessitate a stop -- a get-off-the-road-and-into-a-cafe stop.

On our return to the city one month later, my backpack and I are one solid force. There are just as many hits and misses, but I stop noticing them, intent on going about my business despite the once-noise, now-charm around me. I'm an ant now. Out of necessity, we adapt.