Why is this sign in English? Its Nepali drivers that have the horn habit.  A foreigner on a bike is a rare thing. Perhaps they have dozens of other signs in Nepali and I just can’t read them yet, but it was kind of a mystery….and clearly wasn’t working!

Buried in a motorcycle parking lot, I risked bodily injury taking this photo. The lot was a chaotic sea of parked bikes and aggressive cyclists trying to park or leave…and the horns were blasting. People blast their exceptionally loud horns here at the slightest provocation or for no apparent reason at all – take your pick.

Sometimes when I’m walking down a narrow sidewalk and a semi-stationary bike starts to hit on his horn in some insane random way — its everything I can do not to go over, confiscate his keys, and clip him around the ear. It deafening and annoying.  It can make you jump out of your skin if you don’t see it coming.  And when I am crossing the street at a pedestrian crossing with adequate warning, and they speed up and blast me as though I stepped out in front on them…well that just makes me mad.

Horns here go full on all the time…reaching a crisis level during the rush hour.  They blast so often as to be totally meaningless.  And then at night something strange happens….they stop.   The power goes out and the city goes to sleep and all you can hear is barking dogs.