Nagarkot, the favourite selfie-station for the residents of congested Kathmandu in pre-pandemic times, is deserted and shrouded in monsoon mist with locals all busy on the paddy terraces.
The monsoon arrived on time in Kathmandu Valley, and has been vigorous. Although the farmers are happy, those who depended on Nagarkot’s numerous hotels for jobs and sale of produce are going through a second year without any income.
This time of year, Nagarkot’s hotels would have been full of guests. Even though the mountains play hide-and-seek in the clouds, the ridge-top town at 2,300m elevation has its own charm during the three monsoon months.
There have been no foreign tourists to see the sun rise from behind Mt Everest for more than a year now, and although some people from Kathmandu did venture out between the first and second phases of the pandemic, even that traffic dried up with the lockdown since 29 April.
With no prospect of tourism picking up even after the lockdown is lifted, most hotels in this hill-station are padlocked or keeping a skeletal staff for upkeep and maintenance as the resort town is enveloped in fog and rain. There is no one to take pictures of the wondrous rice terraces mirroring the clouds and sky.
Meanwhile, the locals of Nagarkot sit it out at home during the lockdown, watching the moist and warm up-valley wind bring up the wet mist. Some graze their goats in fallow fields bought up by tourism developers, others are knee-deep in mud, planting rice on flooded terraces.
