KATMANDU, Nepal — Isha Amatya couldn’t breathe anymore. So the 23-year-old did what all the cool kids in this rugged Himalayan capital do: She bought a pile of face masks and tricked them out with hearts, rock band logos and hipster symbols to match her outfits.
“For Nepalis, it’s just like wearing sunglasses,” Amatya said. “You literally can’t make it in this city without one.”
Nepal is a fairy-tale land of natural beauty. But a decade of civil war, rampant corruption and lack of consistent environmental policies has turned the Katmandu Valley into a harshly polluted one too. The bowl-shaped valley traps the air, which turns thick from standstill traffic belching black smoke. Even all those nature-loving travelers and climbers are a problem: Everest’s summit is littered with soda cans, tent poles, food containers and other trash.
Assembly member Gagan Thapa said most tourists leave “with hoarse voices that sound like they smoked a pack of cigarettes every day.”
