Addendum to Walk Like an Egyptian (in Nepal)

Floater’s Blog: Indoor 6th Floor Pool Date, January 27th, 2026

Experiencing being driven through the streets in Kathmandu, Nepal is just like being driven through the streets in Egypt except they only do half the honking.

There is also the occasional historic shrine built prior to any of the new paved roads which never-the-less is blocking a lane or so and thusly has to be avoided. It is not like there is a gradual angle approaching the shrine such as a western world on ramp. Nope, just a big square object in the road. Just get around it.

As per Egypt, and also Turkey, drivers often ‘follow the driving guidelines’ which means driving straddling the dash lines which separate what we would call ‘lanes’. It’s super easy, just keep your steering wheel aimed at the lines for as far as you can see and follow.

They do however add in a twist in Nepal which includes straddling a solid center line. This is done on a first come first served business. Sure, oncoming traffic may need to move on to the shoulder a little bit (if one exists) but, hey, I was here first.

The biggest transition for an Egyptian driver should they happen to be driving in Nepal is that there are no traffic lights so every intersection must be treated as a merge in all directions. This isn’t actually that different from a typical Cairo highway exit so it should be handled with ease – taking in to account you are driving on the other side of the road, of course.

Occasionally a police officer will guide traffic at an intersection. Some, okay most, left turning vehicles will ignore the official, but when they do obey and combine with those going straight or turning right you will see a line of motorcycles at the ready like a starting grid on a race track.

Clearly this doesn’t have much to do with ‘Walking like an Egyptian’ or walking at all but that is because in Kathmandu the wider roads actually have sidewalks and the smaller roads (about 90% of the total) are so narrow you just walk through the ‘stand still’ vehicles. If they are moving there is almost always a shop front you can step in to get out of the way, so safety never feels like much of an issue. Maybe the Egyptian training helped more than I realize?

Floating through this crazy world, 

Corliss

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