INEXPLICABLY HAPPY IN KATHMANDU

It is likely this inexplicable happiness is sleep deprivation. Flying for 30+ hours is like being drugged. Fading in and out of sleep over and over, moving endlessly trying to get comfortable--with actual sleep never getting its fair share--I became a zombie believing it was never going to end but, being a zombie, at some point I didn't seem to mind. 

But the plane landed easily in Kathmandu and I got the the 90 day visa quickly, and getting a sim card for my phone was easy! (although knowing how much time I have for calls or text or data is not). And Govinda the young man sent to escort me to the hotel arrived shortly after I did and the taxi took us there and there was a bed!!!--I'm certain I heard an Angelic choir-- into which I fell, after showering, and slept, unlike a zombie, for ten solid hours. 

But I was awake at 1 am Kathmandu time until now (9pm, because I'm stubbornly up until ten to get on local time), but I had a wonderful breakfast at 6:30 this morning and after waiting for the shops to open, I walked about being a tourist and looking for a power converter and a face mask. The mask I decided I needed shortly after landing. The air in Kathmandu is truly and obviously lousy with dust, questionable smells, and automobile pollution.

The traffic! Crossing the street! Remember Froggy the video game in which the frog had to cross the road without getting run over? I felt exactly like that. They drive on the wrong side of the road (I know, not open minded enough, but come on, they drive on the left, I thought only the English made that mistake.) and there is a mad mix of buses and cars and trucks and countless honking motor cycles on every block zigging and zagging between the cars and trucks and buses and pedestrians and each other. 

So picture this, they are driving along  on a two way road and while one lane is absolutely full, there is a lull in the traffic coming from the other direction and that space is immediately filled by motor bikes traveling the wrong way and sometimes cars and when another vehicle comes along from the correct direction, with the right-of-way, the offenders give up the  lane begrudgingly. If you look up the word 'bedlam', Kathmandu's traffic is the heart and soul of it's definition. 

But the people! are warm and friendly and smile often and help in every way possible. A guy I met at breakfast told me of a saying that he thought I would hear often; "tourists come to Nepal for the mountains, but they come back for the people". In only one day, I can see why. 

I had planned to leave Kathmandu fairly quickly, but sitting on the bed at 2 am, reading the guide book I realized how much there is to see in this town. Therefore, I decided--hoping the air pollution doesn't get me first--to stay here until the end of Sept. I rented what I believe to be a nice sunny room in a home a bit away from the town center. 

Around 4pm the rain came, for the monsoon season has not ended, on and off at first--even with some blue sky patches--around 7 it began falling in earnest, as if it were Noah's second flood. And for the first time since I arrived the air was almost clean smelling. 

Except for the first three images below, these photos are from the hotel where I'm staying. A women born in Nepal now living in NY State around Albany whom I met in the Kathmandu terminal told me, with obvious sadness, that the Yak & Yeti was once a grand five star hotel but now, because of so much competition she thought, it has faded. And yet, it retains much of that grandeur and if it is slowly running down, it is doing so gracefully. 

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The plane is at the point that the line in the image turns from white to green.
We flew over the north pole and Siberia, now come on, that is cool!
Joon, Zain, and Wilder please look up the route that the plane took.   

A 3 hour wait in China. China frequently threatens it guests with various forms of retribution
if you don't follow the rules: at the airport, on the plane, at restaurants, and in general.
Enough in fact that it became both annoying and a bit troubling.  

A 90 day visa was easy to get and they had a machine at
the airport in Kathmandu that took my picture. A good thing too
because I lost the six visa photos I had taken in Canada which
I had been told I would need to bring along: progress in Nepal. . 

Dick, a friend who has been to Nepal several times thought correctly that I would like this hotel.
Also, it was so much easier than throwing a dart at the guide book. 

A light shade in the hallway of the hotel.
Every floor has these along the walls.
I wanted to take one with me.  

This and the following items are scattered around the hotel
lobby. It seems to me that these items are genuine relics,
beautifully crafted and reflecting Nepal's long history.
I saw one man praying at this figure. 

A small part of the hotel garden. 

The roots that you see cover a large (3' give or take) tree truck.