My first week in Nepal has excited all of my senses. New sensations have surprised them, familiar sensations have comforted them, and the combination of the two has made me more aware of all of my senses than I have been in a long time.
Sound, in particular, has fascinated me. I am accustomed to the city noises around my house: sirens, car horns, people shouting, trains rumbling by, air conditioning or heating whirring. Bhaktapur has provided me with an entirely new combination of sounds. Each morning the first noise I have become aware of is the birds chirping. As the sun starts to burn through the morning haze, other noises emerge: bells ringing, dogs barking, cars honking, people shouting, the occasional cow mooing. I am unaccustomed to the sounds I consider so urban to exist alongside the sounds of nature.
The other morning I created a “sound map”, where I placed myself in the middle of the page and recorded the sounds I heard around me. I will try to recreate it here, although I’m not sure I can capture something as dynamic as my messy handwriting on the computer.
Sound Map: Car Rumble —> growing dogs yipping
cars plane (w/ arrow passing overhead)plane (“) siren dogs
hammering horn honk woof
car horn bells machine whirring bells woof
water running motorbike bells bells honk
siren voices, phone, water ME Caw, twitter yip
Wooof Woof light clangs Caw,Caw chip tweet
yip yip slam chip door slamming
bells hammering