The Road - Nepal 2024
A documentary series — Nepal, 2024
Foreword
The Road runs from Kathmandu to Bandipur, on to Pokhara, and down to Chitwan. We made the journey by car. The travel agencies advise flying; we wanted to see the country between the places, not only the places themselves.
So the road is the subject here, not the backdrop. Much of it is being rebuilt. For the length of the work it is dust, diversions, rebar and half-poured concrete — a temporary condition, everyone agrees, on the way to something better: quicker journeys, more trade, more visitors, goods moving down from Kathmandu.
The people alongside it are living through the temporary part. The generations at work now are paying for a road their children will use. This is a record of that stretch of time, made from inside the car and from the edge of the works.
I — The Rift
The road under construction. Cut hillsides, exposed rebar, the ground opened up.
II — Living Around It
Daily life continuing beside the works — school, errands, waiting, passing through.
III — The Promise
The reason given for the disruption: shops, goods, movement, the town the road is meant to serve.
IV — Held Together
What keeps moving while the rest is rebuilt: vehicles, repairs, the people who mend them.
The Road
Photographs and text by Ruggero Pellegrin.
Kathmandu – Bandipur – Pokhara – Chitwan – Kathmandu. 27 April to 5 May 2024.
Travelled by car: Kathmandu–Bandipur (147 km), Bandipur–Pokhara (74 km), Pokhara–Chitwan (148 km), Chitwan–Kathmandu (168 km).
Photographs made mainly on a Fujifilm X-T3.