9

9

Spent all morning scrounging around Kathmandu looking for a charging cable for my I-phone, which I left in Delhi. Well, I didn't so much leave it in Delhi bit it was taken out by security as they ransacked my bags and tosses everything all over the place and then, when they stuck it all back in my bag, they neglected to put the bag with my shirts and pants and charger back. So, no charger or shirts and minus my other pair of pants! Making do.
Apple has an untapped market in Nepal, though I finally found one. Trying to find an strange item in a strange land never fails to uncover parts of a country the tourist rarely encounters.
What surprises most is Not how few people speak English, but rather how many know at least a smattering. I can just imagine, wandering around in America, how likely it would be to encounter even one person speaking Nepalese!
Similar to Hong Kong, businesses are organized by streets and all the mobile phone people are beside each other. Makes competing both simple and cut- throat. Just the sort of business plan that would be anathema to Americans.
I'm hiring a driver to take me to the temples of bhaktipor and nagrapor (sp.?) world heritage sites, they say, but then the concept of a 5* hotel wouldn't stand scrutiny at home. But hey, it's got an acceptable bed and the Gorkha beer (authentic Himalayan brew) is cold.
One adjusts.

In Bhaktapur, so many gods, maybe someone invented the unitary God because he/she couldn't keep them all straight.

On the way to Nargikot, guard rails not so many.
It's hard to know where to begin. Nargikot is really just a lookout from the top of a small mountain from where you can catch a glimpse of the really bog ones. To get to the small mountain, however, involves a harrowing drive on a road fit only for motorcycles, of which there are hundreds, but also cans like this one I'm in, and also enormous tourist buses.
Like I said, no guard rails.
The driver wanted me to snap some photos on the ascent because he said it might be dark on the way down. I'm thinking,
"no way". As soon as we get to the top I tell him to start back, which seems to disappoint him. I think he feels that I am missing out on the sunset over the Himalayas.
I'll buy the postcard.
At the moment, I am sitting in the cab outside a police station because, on the descent, a motorcycle passed us and yelled something rude to the cab driver, but since it was in Nepalese, it went right by me. But not by the driver. In the next little village, he saw the moto driver and pulled over and started yelling at him. Of course, here come the cops with their machine guns, and then all the rest of the village because what else is there to do in the middle of Nepalese nowhere?
The cabby points out the cyclist and the cops start yelling at him and pushing him around the crowd closes in on the cab and I hear someone yelling "Americani".
I was wishing that the cab driver had just let those few rough words pass. You know, be a big guy about it, and all.
But no, a major federal case seems to be in the making. I asked the driver what was going on and he said that we can't have people treating foreigners this way.
Twenty minutes ago, he said this would take two minutes.
Frankly, from a tired foreigner's point of view, I'm willing to let bygones be bygones and let's get back on the road.

Finally, back in the hotel and I turn on the T. V. Hoping to see how the cricket tournament is going and I find that there has been a terrible earthquake in Japan and there is a tsunami headed a Ross the Pacific Ocean, towards Oregon.
Suddenly, I feel so far away.
I know the wave will never reach Eugene, but what a strange feeling to k ow that I'm half a world away and a monster wall of water threatens them, and they're asleep.
I feel so bad for the people of Japan.
The pictures on BBC are difficult to believe.
I start to cry.
Somehow, being on this side of the world makes me feel so much more a part of the tragedy than I might otherwise, if I were home.
And then the lights in the hotel go out!
What the hell?
The TV goes off and I fumble through my stuff for my little flashlight.
Wow. Hotels are really dark. Not only will I always remember the light, but extra batteries, too.
I now understand that traveling off the beaten path requires a few added accessories.
The lights go back on.
TV on.
TV and lights off.
Lights and TV on.
Love my flashlight.
I take the stairs down to the front desk (no elevator!) and make sure that there has been no earthquake. They reassure me that those things only happen in Japan. And in incidentally, the hotel has been constructed to withstand a 15 earthquake.
While I don't believe them, I'm at least glad that they are considering these possibilities.
Namaste.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone