When Simo Milojevic, the chief of the World Esperanto Association, returned to Kalh-mandu in September 1991 after 30-years, he was sorely disappointed with the noise and filth that had over taken the Valley. Kathmandu was beginning to look like any chaotic Third World city, whereas it had emerged in the mid-1950s with its centuries-old atmosphere intact — a prize destination for international travelers.
Milojevic, a Serb, arrived in 1961 for a few months to teach Esperanto an "experimental" Indo-European language. At that time, he remembers, there were only two good budget restaurants in Kathmandu, the Uttam and Aroma. "I could not afford the outrageously expensive Royal Hotel or Hotel Coronation." There were no tourist coaches. When a handful of tourists could be gotten together, guides borrowed friends cars and made do. "But if you ask me which Kathmandu I prefer, as a foreigner I prefer the quiet, simple, laid back Valley of the early 1960s."
Milojevic is not alone in his harking back to earlier, more innocent, times. The Valley´s old-world charm is rapidly eroding. Today, major parts of Kathmandu and Patan towns are indistinguishable from the congested, built-up quarters of other South Asian cities. The changes are readily obvious to the traveler who visits after a long hiatus, much more so than to the resident who lived through them.
Tourists in their hundreds of thousands collectively contribute their share to changing the cultural facade of Kathmandu Valley. The development aid business and the inherent tilt towards "westernisation" among urbanites are the other major factors that have helped change the urban face of Kathmandu.