Hotel Classic Kathmandu

... la ville nocturne et agréable et constatons que les magasins sont tous fermés ou en train de fermer. Il n’était que 21h ! Les seuls endroits où il y a encore du monde sont les petits stands mobiles où manger des petits snacks, burgers, grillades, etc. Quelle ville particulière qui n’a pas d’éléctricité le soir et où les magasins et restaurants ferment à 21h ! Allez savoir pourquoi.... Nous oublions notre petite envie de sucrerie et rentrons. Je vois qu’il y a encore ...

... viewing her as a helpless, nameless woman needing care - seeing her with a compassionate heart as I might shake my head and say "tisk tisk, what a shame, look at how these poor people live, it just isn't fair". Instead I too needed help. I too was at the mercy of the system. For a moment she was my peer. Although in incomparable conditions, it felt like we were still, somehow, in this together.

The doctor could do nothing for me. He stuck a needle in my ass for the pain and sent me ...

... to deepen my connection through friendship. The first took place while standing in front of a food cart waiting for my nepali crepe type snack to be finished. A nepali man, who was waiting with his wife to buy a snack, noticed my camera and we began to talk about photography and travel. Minutes later we were sitting having tea, and only a few hours later we were sitting around his family's kitchen enjoying a special dinner cooked for me and his two ...

... 45 minutes to make it back to the hotel we had stayed at before and luckily the baggage we had checked in their storage room was still there. Got a room and took a nap before heading out into Thamel for the night. We went to the Jesse James bar and had an amazing burger and a couple whiskeys, made friends with the waiter, Mim Baharand, but called Vijay.. We ran into Emerico and her father Dan whom we had met at Lukla earlier. We ...

... for dawn, got dressed and requested another room...but they had none, so off to another guest house!

We met up with Franziska and Axel yesterday to go and visit a monkey temple, Swayambhunath Stupa, high up on a hill which overlooked the valley. It was pretty cool. In the afternoon, we walked about 10km to another city (!), Patan - checked out their Durbar Square (lots of Hindu and Buddhist temples) and had a nosey ...

... up. ;) We stopped *t Y*mdrok L*ke (Scorpion L*ke) sever*l times. It's enormous, cold, *nd the most stunningly vivid blue I've ever seen below the sky. There *re four Holy L*kes in Tibet, *nd w*ter is gener*lly considered s*cred to the Tibet*ns, so there's no swimming or dumping in these l*kes, which me*ns they're unlike *lmost *nything you've ever seen *nywhere else in the world. The most f*mous, L*ke N*mtso, is *lso the highest s*ltw*ter l*ke in the world, *t *bout 4720m ...

... than someone on the outside observing. I have never felt so accepted in all my life, and I have never felt the presence of so many kindred spirits. Not a day goes by now where I don’t think about everybody and wonder what they are all doing. Sometimes I feel like I am missing a part of me. Even just writing this is giving me a lump in my throat.

That truck has become a symbol for the best days of my life so far. I can still see myself, the sun on my face, my head ...

... just normal stinky air up to the usually visible-from-far-away Monkey Temple.

Regarding the Kathmandu air: Kathmandu is always rather polluted. It is in a valley and folks use a lot of dirty diesel. Right now, though, a couple factors make it worse. Kathmandu has not had rain in 5 months, so the particulates in the air are not getting washed out. There are regular power outages so businesses just use generators and produce more exhaust ...