O, man, Nepal!

Today started early, checking out from the Temple House hotel (guest house), and finding my driver at Durbar Square to take us to Chitawan on the tour that we’d bought the night before. Almost miraculously, it went exactly as planned! The driver took me through the streets of Kathmandu to collect Ayreen from John’s house, and then we set off to Chitawan. Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to this trip, in spite of the private car being the best/most cost effective option on offer, because the trip of 140km was predicted to take five-and-a-half hours! Seriously, that couldn’t be good, could it? Well, friends (especially Australian friends that would think 140km was a whip-down-the-shops), it was not good. The driver was wonderful and did all that he could to make the journey comfortable and short. However, the odds were stacked against him and he even suffered a fine (500NPR ~ $5.75AUD) for transporting me (an obvious foreigner) around in a private car (Ayreen regularly passes for Nepali...

Today was very slow to start and then turned into a whirlwind of doing stuff. My dear friend from Bangladesh, Ayreen, has travelled to Nepal to meet with me and to show me around Nepal. She is a frequent visitor and has many friends (Nepali and ex-pat) here, indeed, she is staying in Nepal for a further two weeks after I leave. Ayreen and I met when I first visited Bangladesh on the e-government project that was being run by my former student and academic colleague, Ahmed Imran. Ayreen is an extraordinary woman – artist, child abuse and displaced persons advocate, some time academic, freelance researcher, and TV, radio, and print journalist (all achieved since I met her and certainly not because of it). We haven’t seen each other for over 15 years though we have remained in touch online over that time and the opportunity to catch up with her in person on this trip was too good to pass up. So, today was the day that we were scheduled to meet. Ayreen arranged to meet me at my hotel as sh...

I slept quite late because I had only got to bed about 1:00am. After the delays caused by the blackout that I didn't know was happening, I showered and got ready to face the day. I went downstairs to find the proprietor waiting for me. He seated me in the little restaurant/foyer they’ve got and explained breakfast to me. It’s essentially a variation on a continental breakfast with a cooked egg dish (you choose the style of eggs). I’ve developed that understanding by later looking at the menu in my room. Anyway, it was pleasant. While eating, I pored over the Patan map and guidebook that I acquired from my host and tried to plan a half-day walking tour for myself. I mapped out a route (in my head) but couldn’t tell whether it would take 20mins or 2 hours to walk the loop. After breakfast, I fired up the laptop and used Google maps to help me understand that nothing is very far from anything in Patan. After pfaffing around and getting myself ready, I set off down Momaru Gal...