All Your Daily Needs on Offer in the Kathmandu Streets: In Photos

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Kathmandu Streets

With a population of just over 29 million, Nepal is a country of extensive diversity: it’s multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious and multilinguistic.

Nepal contains eight of the highest mountains in the world, including the highest point on Earth, Mount Everest, as well as low-lying southern plains.

The United Nation classes Nepal as one of the 46 least developed countries on the planet. So, for someone from Australia, one of the most developed nations, scenes on the Nepali streets can be a little confronting, especially as shops lack refrigeration, and can often be located on the ground.

Of course, when fruit and vegetables are sitting on a mat on the side of the road as traffic flies by, or the hacked bodies of animals are lying on wooden benches in the open sweltering heat, hygiene is near impossible to guarantee.

But as one strolls through the streets of Kathmandu, the vibrancy of life is astounding.

While the barbarity of the meat industry is not hidden in factory farms and abattoirs protected by excessive laws and draconian penalties like over here, and nor are the peoples of Nepal under any illusion that steak and sausages somehow miraculously appear in clingwrap on supermarket shelves.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers took a stroll through Kathmandu to capture some of the street life.

Pork for sale in the midday heat 
Pork for sale in the midday heat 
Mobile sweets, heavy with dairy and cardamon
Mobile sweets, heavy with dairy and cardamon
Old school blade sharpening
Old school blade sharpening
Street stores are sites to socialise
Street stores are sites to socialise
Jeffrey Dahmer operates in the open in Kathmandu
Jeffrey Dahmer operates in the open in Kathmandu
Wares with no fixed address
Wares with no fixed address
Some very unlucky ducks
Some very unlucky ducks
Chewing paan is a popular habit. Betel nut and other condiments wrapped in leaf give a mild stimulant effect. And the red stains in the gutter are the spat remains.
Chewing paan is a popular habit. Betel nut and other condiments wrapped in leaf give a mild stimulant effect. And the red stains in the gutter are the spat remains.
The ground is as good a place as any to pick up some new sunnies
The ground is as good a place as any to pick up some new sunnies
Makeshift green grocers
Makeshift green grocers
Death row beside the butchers: goats watch mates slaughtered as they await the same fate
Death row beside the butchers: goats watch mates slaughtered as they await the same fate

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Author

Paul Gregoire

Paul Gregoire is a Sydney-based journalist and writer. He's the winner of the 2021 NSW Council for Civil Liberties Award For Excellence In Civil Liberties Journalism. Prior to Sydney Criminal Lawyers®, Paul wrote for VICE and was the news editor at Sydney’s City Hub.

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