Day 23: Kathmandu, Nepal

Trip Start Sep 21, 2006
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24
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Trip End Jun 01, 2007


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Saturday, October 14, 2006

Days ago I read an article in The Hindu Times about the threat posed by Kashmiri separatists hijacking planes on my route today from Varanasi to Kathmandu. Please send 1,000,000 rupees in used notes for my release if you wish me to write another blog. Well. Fortunately I arrive safely in Nepal after half an hour, unhijacked.
Ah, Kathmandu, 20 degrees cooler than sweaty India, seemingly less impoverished and, even despite a strike by refuse collectors, cleaner. Even the dogs seem healthier.
Since my last visit, four years ago, there seem fewer rickshaws and more Indian cars, the youth seem more westernized in low-hung jeans. I feel happy to be back.
Nar, my guide from the last trip, is looking even younger without his 'tache. He greets me as before with a garland of marigolds and sets me up in the Hotel Jagat in the thick of the trekking surplus, book, yak wool, pashmina, thangha and T-shirt stalls that is Thamel.
It feels fesher, less intrusive, less demanding than I recall, following a month in India.
I return to an old haunt, Himalaya Java for a sunset cup of Mountain Brew (grown in Nar's village as it turns out). It's great to be back.
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