Second only to our consistently sit-down TOILETS, I am of the opinion that the roadways in America are better than anywhere else in the world. And I'm not talking here about the state of repair or relative quality of the actual roadways themselves (although this is often superior, too), I am taking about the fact that we have a codified system of laws and rules that govern how we get from one place to another, and everyone more or less follows those rules. On my daily commute, honking your horn at someone is a rarity, and it's usually something that you hear right before the sound of a collision.

Where I live in Texas, you might on occasion consider honking to communicate displeasure, but only if you are prepared for the person you just honked at to then angrily follow you home to "discuss" why you did that. Maybe they will want to "discuss" this while waving their gun around in your face. You never know. So I, like most Americans, generally avoid ever touching my horn.

Honking is considered confrontational, and boy do we hate confrontation! The possible exception to this is perhaps a polite little honk, a "toot," if you will, to let someone at a stoplight know that it's turned green and they are being a dumbass. I found out the hard way that my new JEEP GLADIATOR isn't capable of making a polite little "toot" sound, like my old Wrangler was, and that some Texans don't appreciate being told they are a dumbass by a big, bellowing, foghorn-type sound. I wish my new Jeep had various horn sounds to communicate various sentiments, but since all I have now is this angry Fuck You horn, on more than one occasion I have had someone follow me FOR MILES, all because I absentmindedly forgot, and honked my Anger Horn at them from behind, at a stoplight.

The most recent encounter had me genuinely nervous that I was going to run out of gas before this maniac in his Hummer lost interest and finally decided to stop following me. I was so close to my house, and yet I didn't want to pull up in my driveway and let him know where I lived, so for the next 20 minutes I just tried to wear him out. I led him in concentric circles around my neighborhood, just waiting for all his fury and angry gesturing to subside, waiting for him to lose interest so that I could go the f*ck home! This is why you don't honk at people, especially not douchebags in Hummers. (And before you get upset, some of my best friends and family members own Hummers, so I can get away with saying this, as I can verify that they are all bona fide douchebags. In fact, I could totally see my brother following someone home in his Hummer, all because they had the audacity to suggest with their horn that he might want to wake the hell up and drive now that the light has turned green. Of course, my brother also has no job, so how else is he going to fill a day?)

The one saving grace about being chased by a Hummer is that it is guaranteed to run out of gas before you do.

I have kidnapped you on an indulgent digression, and I apologize, so if you need to remind yourself what photo I am supposed to be taking about, please do so presently. I will too.

But as we look at that clusterfuck of motorcycle madness, let's simultaneously imagine that we are shoving our heads into a veritable BOX OF CAR HORNS. That box of horns is strapped tightly around your head like a helmet, so that all the different varieties of car and motorcycle horns are relentlessly stabbing into your ears like knives. Add to this cacophony some additional sounds of shrill police whistles, people yelling, and children screaming— Welcome to Kathmandu. If you want to also involves smells, imagine that your dentist strapped that laughing gas mask to your face, but instead of nitrous oxide, he flipped the switch to the "Noxious Car Exhaust and Other Random Burning Things" setting. (People in Nepal are constantly lighting things on fire for various reasons, you can read about that HERE and HERE).

To the untrained eye, it might appear like what you are witnessing in the above photo is some historic showdown between two rival motorcycle gangs, or some other equally riveting confrontation, but no, no, you’d be wrong, this is just…. a Tuesday.

It was such a clusterf*ck I could barely raise my arms up to get my camera up to my face, and then when I did, the jostling was so intense that it became another whole feat just to take a photo without camera shake or unintentional motion blur. I have been in several other countries where I have thought to myself, “Man, I sure am glad I’m not trying to drive here,” but Kathmandu takes the cake. IRELAND was a nightmare because it was our first experience trying to drive on the opposite side of the road. Italy was terrifying because of narrow side streets and all the Vespa’s, and how close you have to drive to other cars and walls. In Egypt the highways looked to me like anarchy, with everyone seeming to completely ignore the lanes and lines painted on the roads. But Kathmandu was a different beast entirely, or if you prefer a reference much closer to home, it made traffic in Manhattan look like a well-oiled machine.

A lot of the confusion and bottlenecking simply has to do with the sheer number of people. You have all these people trying to use roads and alleyways that were only ever intended to accommodate a fraction of their number. It’s a miracle that anyone ever gets anywhere, and I remember thinking that the only way to navigate these streets and join this chaotic melee would be if you’d grown up around this kind of vehicular pandemonium since birth. Maybe then you'd have some kind of innate understanding of what exactly was going on. While trying to push myself through the crowd like an amateur, I started wondering what would have happened at the airport if I had tried to rent a car.

Even if it meant losing a sale, would the clerks have been considerate and forthright enough at the rental agency to let me know what a bad idea this was?

Or have they had enough calls from crying white people over the years, who’ve abandoned their rentals cars in the middle of traffic... that it’s in their best interest to talk us out of it? Similar to what happened to us on the island of Santorini in Greece (after trying to drive along the edge of that horrifying cliff), I could easily see myself becoming so overwhelmed and hysterical in Kathmandu, that after only about 5 minutes of trying to drive in their incomprehensible traffic, I just leap from the rental car and abandon it in the middle of the road. Unable to figure out what to do, I just leave it there and walk away, and call the rental company later explaining that I had a mental breakdown, and let them know where they can find their car. “It’s in the epicenter of a hive of swarming motorcycles, in a vortex of honking, I hope this helps? If you find it can I get my deposit back? If not that’s cool, just don’t make me drive in your city again, please…”

I’m trying to be better about including actual HELPFUL ADVICE in these photo descriptions, so I’ll sum up the takeaways for you: Set your camera on motion stabilization mode before you enter the mosh pit of people that is Kathmandu rush hour traffic; and if you are thinking about renting a car in Kathmandu, here’s a memorable, cheesy, little quip for you:

Just Kathman-don’t.