Nepal

I met Naba for breakfast at his hotel and I met his cousin, who works in Salt Lake City importing handmade goods from Nepal. They're both very kind and told me I'm welcome to eat my meals free at he hotel whenever I want to. Naba really does love Allie's mom, Dana, and wants to do everything he can for her friend. 

After breakfast, I went to walk around to the old square. The amount of people trying to sell you goods or "help" you find your way to their agency or shop is immensely frustrating and makes me excited to be leaving Kathmandu tomorrow. I'm taking a 6:30 am bus to start trekking around Annapurna with a guide from Naba's company. It seems like with every new city, the people get more and more mercenary. I just booked my flight back to Juanga on the 11th. I'll be trekking for the next 5 days and then I'm hoping to go check out Citta's operations in bhuktapur. 

I wandered over to the famous market and stopped at a bunch of temples on the way, each time accosted by a local trying to 'show me around no problem'. One of them was covered in pigeons. I got a little lost finding my way back but would ask police or visa photo centers to find my way. 

I ate lunch with staff from the Himalayan glacier company who were super kind and interesting. The meal was very spicy, and as usual, they were impressed that a westerner could eat it. After lunch I went to rent a down jacket for the treks. It smells questionable but it super warm and costs about 50 cents per day. 

I took a nap and read for a while back at the hostel before meeting a guy from Switzerland and asking him to dinner at this indian restaurant I had heard good things about. He's been travelling India for the last two months so we had a lot to talk about (like the conspicuous lack of road cows). On our way out, we met two female vets from Australia and Canada who came to join us. The meal was West Indian food and it was everything we had hoped for. 

After the dinner, we wandered around until we found a shop where Mirco could rent the trekking gear he needed. On our way to find a bar, the girls ran into one of the "dancing clubs" that anywhere else, would've been a strip club. We shrugged at each other before following them inside. It was mostly deserted and we were the only foreigners there. After a few minutes, some loud Nepalese music came on and women came out one or two at a time and danced. They were all fully clothed and none were particularly talented. It was like watching a couple people trying to get everyone else to start dancing at some event. After a while, a guy in super tight jeans came on and was the only one of them that had any dancing talent. All in all, it was a strange experience and we left after our one drink. 

We found another bar that claimed to have live music (turns out that's coming tomorrow) and talked for a while before going back to the hostel for bed. 

-AB