KARMING KATHMANDU

WEATHER: Cool and 23C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Hitting the streets

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Realizing I am actually single

WORD OF THE DAY: Namaste  

Today dawns a new beginning.  I am me and back in charge, of me. 

Messages of love and support are still coming in and it gives me hope and belief that things will be okay.  As sad as I am now, short term it is a downer, but long term I know that it is the right thing, well for now.  I am now traveling to Africa on my own terms for all the right reasons and I know (hope) that I will find love again.  When you least expect it.     

So today dawns a new beginning and I was literally nearly up at dawn.  I woke up at 5.15am and just couldn’t get back to sleep.  My brain doesn’t stop ticking and I just lay there awake.  So I get myself busy, check my internet, read for a while, watch a movie and then I got ready for breakfast and was down at the restaurant at 8.45am and there were people everywhere.  I paid my money and then had to ask to share a table as there were none left for me to sit on my own.  I think I will stick to the later breakfast time as it wasn’t as busy and between 9am and 9.15am everyone, bar a few people were gone.  I guess that’s when the day tours start and the expedition people leave.  I have a view of the hotel car park from my room and I can hear and see when a group are about to set off for the trek.  They are all rigged up in their trekking gear, small backpacks on the backs with walking sticks and the van getting all loaded up.  This morning there were 2 groups leaving and they were all getting their group photos taken.  I wish them all the best of luck and that they all make it back safe and sound. 

I headed back to my room on the bloody fifth floor and watched a movie and updated my blog, I am now UP TO DATE and it is one good thing of a self-imposed hide-out.  But I was going to get out today, I needed to leave the room, I needed to stimulate my brain and get out of my own self.  I left the hotel as the power went out at 12 noon and hot the street with no real purpose in mind.  I have seen a few jewelry shops around, so I would like to buy a bangle or a pendant while I am here.  I have seen a pendant in the jewelry shop in the hotel that I like; it is like a coin with a picture of Buddha stamped into it.  For some reason I find comfort in that which is weird as I am not really religious, but I feel something calming about owning something like it.  So with this in mind I will have a look around today, see some prices and if I see nothing similar I will go and have a closer look at that.  Weird I know when I am not Buddhist or religious, but if it gives me comfort then what do I have to lose to help me through this time.

The streets of Kathmandu are a little crazy.  They aren’t wide enough for 2 cars which is okay, as most of the streets look one way, but there really isn’t enough room for the motorbikes, a car and then people on both sides to walk in safe harmony.  You need to have your wits about you the whole time and that is just to make sure you don’t get run over by a bike or hit by a cars wing mirror as they try their nest to not hit a tourist.  When I was in the taxi when I arrived, when my taxi guy tooted, there wouldn’t be a lot of movement of the tourists to move off the road, maybe I am more aware of the tooting etiquette from Ethiopia, but if they aren’t careful they will get hit by something.  I don’t feel unsafe here.  There were a lot of men sitting on shop steps, in front of cafes, but I didn’t feel scared.  I knew some of them were talking about me as I passed, but I am growing a thicker skin to that which I will have to for my move to Africa, but I don’t think it was mean or leery.  I went into every single jewelry shop I saw and I could ask if they had Buddha pendants and I saw some shockers, but nothing like the one I had seen at the hotel.  I asked about some prices on bangles and another pendant at various shops and they don’t seem interested in bargaining at all.  It seems a flat rate and that is all.  If I saw something that I just loved, then I wouldn’t even think about it, like my bangle in Sri Lanka, but nothing had screamed to me except that pendant at the hotel.  I did buy a pair of earrings and a Buddha coin I could keep in my purse and the seller was very nice.  He asked if I lived here and I said no, and he said it looked like I did and that he thought I was from one of the embassies.  Probably because I wasn’t in anything labeled with a trekking company and no backpack in sight.  Maybe it is the environmentally friendly bag that is getting all the attention?  He gave me a discount for my smile and my laugh which was nice and that made my day.  He asked my name and when I had doubled back 45 minutes later he was there with a hello, by name, and to come back again.  Even if it was s ales pitch, it made me feel good and I’ll take what I can get at the moment.  The good thing I wasn’t under any pressure to buy anything as I will be back here in 2 weeks’ time where I have 4 days before flying out.  So I have some prices on things, I can check out the rest of the places we travel to and then I can decide where to buy.  I did like a bangle that seems to be everywhere and it was 45AUD.  So I will get it when I come back if I can’t find it anywhere else on the trip. 

I visited a large supermarket on my way back to the hotel.  Even this seemed to be geared for trekkers, with lots of biscuits, small premade packs of nuts, fruit, and lollies.  Lots of chocolate bars and other trekky looking foods that I am sure people must stock up on before they head out.  I was just after some snacks for the next couple of days and walked out with a packet of wafers, a bag of chips, some Kashmiri mix (spicy split peas, noodles and cashews) and a chocolate bar.  I find I buy a lot of snacks to eat later and never actually get around to eating them, so I have learned to not buy too much stuff. 

I stopped for lunch at a café just off the main road on my way back to the hotel.  It had all sorts of food on the menu and I ended up ordering fajitas.  As I waited for my lunch to come I sat and people watched and there are a lot of hippy looking people around.  A lot of dreads and even when I was walking the streets there are a lot of people wearing the ‘bat pants’ of all colours, hair covers of all covers with the younger people looking grungy and the older people dressed crisp in their walking gear.  Me I just had on a normal pair of shorts with a normal top and I was feeling a little out of place.  There were groups of people looking at maps, showing newly purchased jackets all looking very hippy indeed.  Am I the ONLY person who is here not to trek?  The tour I have booked on is guaranteed to go with only one person, goodness I hope I am not the only one on the trip, unless of course my guide is some super Nepali hunk that I could have a 2 week love affair (because I can) with.  OR a group of travelling hunky men to help take my mind off my newly acquired relationship status of SINGLE.  Oh if we can’t laugh about it all I will only drown in a pool of tears and nobody wants to read about that.  So, I’ll do what I do best and that is to laugh and carry on. 

Back at the hotel, I visited this jewelry shop to see how much the pendant that had caught my attention on day one was going to cost me.  I pretty much knew I was going to buy it.  I hadn’t seen it anywhere else and if you know me, to wait 3 days to buy something is just unheard of.  I had a price in mind of 85-100USD and when he told me 77USD I woo hoo’ed inside silently and asked if he had a better price.  I ended up getting it for 65USD and I could help but take a look around and I found a pair of earrings and a necklace I loved the second I saw it and left the shop 195USD lighter, well off my credit card and the saying is absolutely correct ‘nothing beats a little bit of retail therapy’. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon updating my IPod and cleaning up my laptop as I was running out of disk space, apparently.  I have had the same message popping up since I left home 3 months ago.  It was driving me nuts and while I had the time decided to do something about it.  I also deleted a lot of photos off my IPod (guess which ones) and this also freed up enough space for me to finally get cracking on continuing with my iMovie’s that I have been doing for each trip of my Odyssey.  I am up to Scotland and will get them finished and loaded probably when I get home now.  I am guessing I won’t have a lot of internet connection on this tour, but hopefully I will be surprised like I was in Africa.  We will see.  The tour officially starts tomorrow.  So I meet a new roomy and met my new group tomorrow night and I am definitely looking forward to some company again to get me out of my own head.  If we are as busy as we were on my Sri Lankan trip then that will be exactly what the ‘lurve’ doctor would prescribe and will be a great way to complete my Odyssey.  I haven’t really thought too much about this being the last journey of my whole World Odyssey but I guess it kind of is.  Even though I will certainly be doing further travel, my World Odyssey from start to finish will officially be over when I return back to Brisbane in November.  Moving to Ethiopia has its own blog that I will be devoting my time to and if you haven’t got the address yet it is www.berniesethiopianodyssey.blogspot.com   This will follow my trial and tribulations of a new culture and country and as terrifying as it is, I am looking forward to the challenge.

At 5pm I wondered about what the sunset would look like here and if I could see it from the hotel.  I had seen stairs leading up to another floor (wouldn’t that suck to be on the 6^th floor).  So with camera in hand I followed them up to get to small roof top that gave me a partial view of the city but I could see another small spiral staircase that went up another level to where it looked like all the rain tanks were kept.  It certainly didn’t look like this section was for guests, so feeling adventurous and chasing that photo opportunity I followed them up and not quite satisfied there was one last staircase that took you another level and to the very top of the hotel.  After walking over some pipes and careful not to touch anything when I got to the top it was an AMAZING view.  I had missed the sunset; it had already dropped behind the mountains, but what view of the city surrounded by the Himalayan mountain range.  The sprawl of the city was as far as the eye could see and it just made me take a look around, appreciate where I was and to be thankful for all I have and to not dwell anymore onto what I have lost.  I just stood there for a good 20 minutes breathing the air and enjoying the view.  Once the sun drops out of the sky it starts to really cool off so after taking my photos I was quite happy with my day’s events and took care to not fall down the spiral staircases on my way down.             

     

I couldn’t be bothered to eat dinner, so after having a few of the crisps that tasted disgusting, eating a few of the wafers that were stale, a few cubes of the chocolate that had melted and hardened white I decided to give up, watch a movie and then get a good night’s sleep in my double bed for the last time as I will move rooms tomorrow into a twin room as it is an arrival day tomorrow for the tour.  Please, please travel gods give me a good group, a good roomy and a good tour leader.