Depending on what day of the week you search, or who’s doing the searching, Nepal is always in the bottom ten countries in the world for infrastructure, poverty and political stability. The last two elections to take place in the country failed due to lack of electoral equipment and then lack of political parties. It’s also a country made up of farmers, communist rebels and an on-street military presence only rivalled by the taxi drivers and hash dealers. If it weren’t for the biggest mountain in the world conveniently dropped in their backyard, the only Westerners visiting Nepal would probably be working for the UN or the Red Cross.

But clubbers are a breed apart, aren’t they? They’ve no problem taking lifts out to the dodgy peripheries of towns, following a beat to an industrial estate or a beach or a block of flats, where ordinarily they wouldn’t feel safe even in daylight, and so they come to Kathmandu, Nepal’s only city, and quite possibly the least developed capital in Southern Asia. Hot water is a rarity, two-way streets turn one-way depending on the drivers’ whims and load-sharing, eight hours of every day when the Nepalese government sell electricity to India thereby throwing Nepal into darkness is, to put it mildly, the most fucked up political decision since New York Governor Eliot Spitzer decided to get biblical with a publicity-hungry call girl.

Sam's

Not saying that Kathmandu is dangerous but if you’ve grown accustomed to killer sound-systems, boss audio-visuals and dancefloors slightly larger than your kitchen than you will be disappointed, but pleasantly so. Sam’s in the Thamel area of Kathmandu is where you should begin your night. Ordinarily us Westerners should ask for no ice in our drinks, and you will until you get drunk and forget all about it and before you know it you’re back in your hotel at seven the next morning drunk, dehydrated and sucking water straight from the tap and god help your diarrhea, dysentery and cold sweats the next morning.

After Sams’s the party moves along to one of the many terrace bars playing live music. Hash and opium are everywhere. It’s cheap comparatively, but for some reason no one wants to sell you less than huge soap bar-sized amounts. So unless you want to run around all night with a brick in your pocket, and the risk of a big bribe if you get caught, it’s probably better to just sidle up beside someone and bum a few drags now and then.

Fire

Kathmandu got its main musical influences from the first hippies who came north from India in the 60s and 70s. ‘Freak Street’ one of their main hangouts was named after them. Half of the bars you go into are playing Doors or Bob Marley cover songs.

Fire used to be huge club back in the day but it’s lost it nowadays. Down a dirty alleyway – what alleyway isn’t dirty in Kathmandu? And inside what looks like an abandoned school, the clubs entrance on the second floor is through two chain-mail doors that get slid open depending on whether they like the look of you or not. If you’re a girl, watch out. Marriages in Nepal are arranged, traditionally wives aren’t supposed to look any man in the eye apart from their husband. Smiling at a stranger is the equivalent of placing your underwear in his hands and saying smell my finger. The music is mostly US R’n’B and the place is a total sausage fest. Nepal doesn’t have much of a gay scene. There are ladyboys hanging out by the taxi ranks looking for rough trade, but in Nepal where men hold hands and bump and grind together on dancefloors as a matter of course, it’s hard to spot where homo-social boundaries begin and end. Fire’s alright, but it’s not kicking, unless you’re into fistfights and drunk kung fu.

Full Moon

After hours take a rickshaw – you haven’t seen Kathmandu until you’ve seen it from the top of a rickshaw, bouncing over potholes and coming within a hair’s breath of taxis and street kids and homeless guys sleeping in gutters. And head towards Full Moon. Full Moon is the best little club in Kathmandu and maybe the best little club in all of Southern Asia. After one they lock the door downstairs and you’ve got to bang on it and scream at the top of your lungs till someone comes down to give you a look over and let you in. The music like the drinks you order is never what you expect. The Strokes follow on from Goa Trance and the whisky coke you order is often gin or rum or vodka but only sometimes whisky.

When the power goes, like it does every night of the week, small generators kick in that make about as much noise as the sound systems, and candles replace the lights. That the power will go at a specific time every day is the only thing you can bank on in Nepal, and after three months of daily blackouts the locals have it down to as much of a tee as to make the changeover seem almost seamless. As the night gets busier the dancefloor moves onto the tables and the chairs till everyone, apart from those too stoned, is dancing.

Enlightenment

The club stays open until you leave or the bartender falls asleep. Then you’re left with one of two options depending on what time of year you’re there: go home and load up on antibiotics in a bid to fight off all the bacteria you’ve swallowed down or take a taxi out to Pashupathinath temple and hang out with the Sadhu (holy men) smoking chillums. Once a year the Nepalese celebrate Shiva, the Indian God of bohemians and hash. On that day, much like the Bob Dylan song, everybody must get stoned, and they do. From the youngsters sucking hash lollipops to the grannies loading up pipes. It sure beats trekking for three weeks, on a diet of granola bars and Powerade, just to get to the bottom of the world’s biggest mountain.

Words Conor Creighton

Pictures Steve Ryan