Day One At our rafting company’s 8 a.m. rendezvous at the Busy Bee Café, I found it odd that the Nepali guides kept asking if we were sure we had enough rum. Once enclosed in the bus I realized that at least one had enough last night, judging from the toxic breath. Our bus (a “video coach”) was made of cardboard-thin tin and the kind of glass that shatters into daggers. The seats were packed […]
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October 20: Bat Cave & Beyond
I woke up at 1:00 a.m. and every fifteen minutes thereafter with an increasingly sore throat. Up for good at 6:00, mad at my cold but thrilled with the view from my hotel room. The pointy peak toward the left is Machhapuchhare (a.k.a. Fishtail), which I’m planning to visit up-close in a month. Wanting to make the most of my unexpected day in Pokhara I perused the guidebooks, but all the walks I chose had […]
Read moreOctober 19: Long and Winding Road
I awoke from a nightmare that Obama had been defeated in a landslide, led by Delaware. Coffeeless and in a groggy state of despair I started to gather my stuff for my river trip. At 6:30 Bhim arrived and transported me to the bus station — again, courtesy of Thakur — where we found the big bus full, so I was assigned to a van designed for something other than comfort or safety. While waiting, […]
Read moreOctober 18, 2008 (aka Kartik 2, 2065)
The noise here is like New York here, except louder and with roosters. I didn’t mean to wake up at 4:00 a.m. At 6:00 I called to request my customary (well, the custom started last night) Nepali milk tea, but they couldn’t bring it to me because I’m lodged in the low-rent part of the hotel across the alley. The headline in today’s Kathmandu Times is Man Kills Wife Over Facebook Status and, only slightly […]
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