Around 5 pm, I went to the Ring Road, which is only a 15-minute walk from my hotel. The Ring Road is the largest circular transport artery of Kathmandu, it's always full of traffic, each time I am afraid to cross it, but that time it was different:
The Ring Road was crowded by people, with almost no passing vehicles. I guess everyone in the city knew that the Ring Road was blocked, so people canceled their plans.
Nobody tried to clear the road from the crowd - there were no policemen.
I only saw two such vehicles, which passed and disappeared.
Here and there, they started burning tires on the section Balaju - Banasthali of the Ring Road.
I had a walk from Balaju to Banasthali and settled there for a while.
First, I felt like a stranger but locals talked to me, shared their thoughts, asked where I was from, etc. Adults, teens, kids - small talks, no one was pushing themselves - but that's Kathmandu, the people here are very nice.
The general atmosphere was excitement. There were no political placards, but some people were chanting slogans from time to time.
Costumed people sometimes arrived, which always made people laugh and approvingly shout:
As I was told, they were mocking officials like the road police head and such.
More people joined by 6 pm:
Someone added burning tires, which made the emotions of the crowd more intense. I changed the lens from telephoto (70-300mm) to a 50mm, and went into the crowd.
Some people were jumping and dancing. Passing protestors were greeting the crowd.
Activists continued to visit the block post, some wearing costumes or carrying placards.
But most people were just folk from the neighborhood who came out, often with the kids, to watch the action and share the emotion about the damn corrupt government.
Excitement in the air!
And there were also guys who were sort of watching the things at Banasthali block post. For example, they wanted to check every large vehicle, including ambulances if they couldn't see from the outside who were inside.
I guess they wanted to check if there were officials inside or cops...
There were no vibes of violence rather joy, although people with heavy metal sticks were passing from time to time, probably, heading somewhere else.
Young people were enjoying freedom, chanting slogans, shouting, horning, greeting passing people wearing flags.
It was rather like a celebration, but with the political meaning, and a bitter feeling behind as 19 protesters were killed on Monday.
It was almost 7 pm when I decided to see if I could buy food in Bhat-Bhateni Super Store so I was walking along the Ring Road back to Balaju where there was another a sort of spontaneous block post:
There, they had a broken (burned?) car that could become a barricade if needed:
Unfortunately, they was no fire there so it was too dark to take images when there were no headlights near.
And I went further towards Bhat-Bhateni Super Store.
I actually started my Ring Road walk at Bhat-Bhateni Super Store which was closed at around 5 pm - they installed formidable barriers in front of it to protect the place from intruders, and there were guards. But that was at 5 pm. When I returned at 7, the whole shop was in full darkness except for one tire burning in front of it. There was a crowd around it, just onlookers, and I was in the middle of them. And I could also see people sneakily jumping over the barriers - I thought they could be stealing something from the store's territory or, even, the store was being looted - I couldn't see if its door was fine - it was too dark. Then, several onlookers suddenly started running away from the store, and I decided it was a good idea to run with them. Maybe, a guard shouted that he wanted to shoot - if there were a guard... No idea. My gut told me to run, and I ran.
On the Ring Road, I met another nice Nepalese guy, and we were talking all the way until I turned into the alleys heading to the hotel.
The photos were taken with a Nikkor 70-300mm and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on September 9, 2025, in Kathmandu, Nepal.