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Published: November 18th 2006
Rhinos? In Kathmandu?
You bet. This fetus has been preserved in a lovely coverless jar of formaldahyde in the Natural History Museum for nearly 10 years! Do you believe it?!?
Easily the coolest thing Sara has ever seen.In Kathmandu for the second time now, with a trip to Chitwan National Park inbetween. Our first encounter with this country was a crazy, dusty one. Crossing the border we had to run around looking for passport photos, even though the travel agent in Delhi said you didn't need them for a Nepali visa. Then they would only take US dollars for the visa, so we had to run around again looking for an exchange rate that was not totally obscene, which, it turns out, was impossible to do. Anyway, we reloaded the bus for the last 8 hour leg of the 36 hour total ride, and arrived in Kathmandu at 4am. On the way we were stopped at some seriously difficult to understand military checkpoints, after which the driver made a quick beer drinkin' stop (at which point we nearly got off the bus.... but we didn't). Awesome. Just as we were falling asleep, we stopped again and an obnoxious hotel pushing tout woke us up in order to shove a brochure down our throats for his ugly overpriced hotel. There was quite an uproar after this, though, since it was in Nepali, I missed it. It seemed pretty funny,
Pensive Jason
At The Garden Of Dreams, which was quite lovely. though.
We arrived in the city, got in a taxi who said he'd charge us with the meter, which sounded novel and fair for once. Needless to say, we went about twenty feet before the fare tripled and I stopped the cheating bastard, pulled him over and settled an off the meter fare, which it turns out was still way too high. Jason was very proud- it was my first 'pissed off at getting ripped off' barganing endeavor. Found a hotel, and settled in for a week of doing nothing but eating cheap buffalo steaks and drinking cheap beer. We walked around and took some photos- most notably from the Garden of Dreams, which was an unbelievably beautiful manicured garden in the middle of the highways near the palace and embassies- but mostly steak and beer. OH! And hot showers. I moved in with Jason for the last week we were in Mcleod Ganj, and thus forewent my hot shower, which sucked more and more every day we were there and the cold water dripping out of his tap only made me think of pneumonia and not happy cleanliness. When we picked a hotel here, hot shower was pretty
much the only requirement, and damn did we get it. When we moved out all of our stuff was damp from the condensation from a week of steak and showers and beer.
So yeah, we did not do much of Kathmandu. The Natural History Museum was a dark dusty horror movie trailor full of old stuffed animals and half preserved reptiles and fetuses. I loved it. Jason was a little creeped out. Definately worth the rupees if you want the willies- when we went a huge band of school children was just leaving, and once they were gone it was just me, Jason, the weirdo who ran the place and thousands of eyeless birds. Yes!
Travelling is really exhausting after you have been settled down for so long. The city is so modern and clean- even the dirty, less touristy parts are cleaner than most of Lawrence. We are back now, but really only to go to the embassy on Monday and hopefully not wait two weeks for my new Indian visa. If we do have to wait, we are going to find a fat/smokers way to see Mt. Everest. If not, we will gladly sail back into
For Dad
Look! I found you some elephants! India to meet a student of ours in Varanasi.
More on Chitwan later. Until then!
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Al
non-member comment
Everything there looks pretty amazing. It's nice to see some pictures, beautiful scenery, but mostly its nice to see you.