If warm colours delight the soul, take a ride along Nepal’s local roads. In fact, even better, go for a walk and let it in! The view along many local roads can leave deep impressions, even if you’ve already been there. Go during the low afternoon sun and the colours can stand out golden and sharp. Deep red dresses make women seem ablaze as they stroll by perhaps on their way to the next village; sweaty rickshaw drivers reveal another corner of the road-side colour palette as they pedal along zig-zag’ing to avoid the next hazardous pothole, their relaxed passengers leaning back in their decorated three-wheelers. Or take the occasional long-distance truck which is usually painted too – with symbols and ornamentations holy to the highway men. The occasional ox-cart usually also blends in, perhaps carrying a whole group of locals on their way into town, all in their nicest clothes with a goat on a leash and chicken in age-worn reed baskets. Add to this the whole landscape along the roads. It can be overwhelmingly colourful too if one is susceptible to it. Just think of the lush green rice paddies after the first monsoon rain; the golden colours during harvest season when women and men together bring their valuable produce of the year back to the farm or the rice-mill; or what about the glittering river drifting by under the bridge as angel-white herons fly across and make a contrast to pitch-black buffaloes who are enjoying a well-deserved break in the current, submerged in the chill water as though feeling weightless, relaxing after a long day in the field? Or…Well, indeed, the best way of illustrating the colourful impressions is to show it. So, just as an impulse while flipping through some photos, here a slideshow celebrating the colourful local road!
