In his essay on the Russian capital, Walter Benjamin wrote, "More quickly than Moscow itself, one learns to see Berlin [Benjamin¹s home city] through Moscow" (1999 [1927], 23). Bhaktapur was similar for me. Finding my way about its "labyrinth of the historical present without Œhouse numbers,¹" was consequently a subversive and autonomous way of having an experience outside the controlled grid of contemporary North American cities (Benjamin 1996[1925], 414-421).