Advertisement
Published: September 25th 2006
Edit Blog Post
050906A
Brushing teeth at Mukti Nepal Tuesday marked eight weeks at Mukti & began with an early morning walk to the ATM at the Baluwater department store. Unfortunately, I was unable to make a large withdrawal as I'd forgotten to transfer extra funds into my credit account! Oh well, it was a nice walk… The public primary school had a pupil free day & I managed to get about a dozen of the children across to the National Dental Hospital for their biannual checkups. The NDH only do free checkups for children under than fifteen years of age, so Mukti will need to take any children needing treatment to the Shechen Clinic in Baudhanath.
I fell off the chocolate wagon today & managed to shovel in a few wafer bars before heading out to see La Spagnola at the Film Festival. It was a tough time getting to the venue as there had been another taxi driver murdered last night & every taxi driver in Kathmandu had gone on strike during peak hour, halting all other traffic. We managed to get almost to Jamal where we'd normally change Tempo's, then had to walk about a kilometer before finding another Tempo, which got us there just as the movie was commencing.
Wednesday was a holiday for the Nepali Indra Jatra Festival. There were celebrations in Durbar Square & the Kumari (living goddess) made an appearance, but I was advised not to attend as the Maoists were planning to run some sort of program there. Turned out there were no problems, but better to be safe than sorry & it did give me a chance to get the rest of the children's dental checkups completed. Tonight's movie was Looking For Alibrandi, which I have seen before, but decided it was worth another look. Because the movie was a little more suited to a younger audience, Jessica & I took Shanti, Gyanu, Pema & Gomas friend Anil along. The taxi drivers are still making noise about their colleague's murder & as a result wont use the meter, so they can make more money from each fare. I think we paid almost double what it would normally have cost, but regardless it still works out to less than two dollars each way, so who are we to complain.
Thursday was pretty much filled with stair walking, journal writing & reading. I picked up the kids from Lucent Kinchin Boarding School & headed off with Jessica to watch the final movie of the Film Festival, Children of the Revolution. It's a shame they finished the festival with this movie because although it wasn't bad, it was a bit too deep & political for most of the audience members, who were getting visibly bored half way through. It was quite a serious movie, loosely based around some real facts, but most of it was obviously fiction & it would have been more enjoyable had they edited another twenty minutes from the final cut. Still, it was a worthwhile watch & the whole week of movies has been particularly enjoyable for me. It's given me an excuse to get out & about each evening, something to look forward to & a change from the normal routine.
Friday was spent getting packed & organized for my Tibet trip, which departs from Thamel early tomorrow morning. Apparently Peter Brock died in a racing accident in Perth today, so with Steve Irwin's death a few days ago that's two great Australian icons to go this week alone. Such a waste, but I guess the only consolation is they went doing what they loved.
Jessica & I headed into Thamel & met with Shrijana from KEEP in the afternoon. It took a while to track down KEEP's office, as they have moved a few times recently & we kept being directed back & forth between their old offices, until finally somebody sent us to their new premises. It's located down a couple of side streets & right at the end of a laneway on the second floor, nestled away, but we found it. KEEP stands for Kathmandu Environmental Education Project & they provide a range of information & services mainly trekking related, but also including volunteer placement from environmental projects to orphanages. I met Shrijana when we visited the Supporting Helpless Child Development Organization in Lazimpat a few weeks ago & wanted to see where she worked.
Afterwards we headed to Kilroys for a drink & were supposed to meet with Gomas journalist friend so he could interview Jessica & I for a story on volunteers, but he never showed. After receiving a complimentary snack of fish & chips, we felt obliged to stay for dinner, but as we were half full already, opted for soup & a dessert platter to share; which turned out to be an excellent decision. The accompanying crusty bread was perfect, the soups were delicious & the dessert was just mouthwatering. Kilroys is a more expensive, upmarket restaurant, but still cheap in comparison to prices at home & the food & service was second to none. Although Jessica & I had had dessert at Kilroys, we'd only shared a sampler & still felt like something sweet, so headed back to our favourite bakery for seconds & hot chocolate. I was disappointed this week, as our normal server wasn't there & his replacement wasn’t nearly as friendly. Also, the cakes were a bit dry, so I didn't enjoy my second dessert much at all - probably serves me right for being so greedy!
We'd stopped at a supermarket to buy gum on the way to another pub when I realized I was carrying my credit card. Normally on a night out in Thamel I only carry cash & it took me a split second to realize I'd brought it to pay the second installment of my Tibet trip, when I was collecting my passport. I'd gone into the office at four & they told me to come back at six only I'd forgotten & it was now half past nine. I was freaking out because without my passport I wasn't going anywhere tomorrow & the tour met before dawn, so there was no way the agency would be open at that time of day. We raced back to the travel agent & thank God one of the guys had stayed back to wait for me. When we first went there at four, the guy said it was ok for me to come later than six, that somebody would wait till seven, eight or nine o'clock for me & I jokingly laughed it off saying I would be there at six, never expecting to forget. The guy wasn't very happy, but I paid my bill, collected my passport & got out of there as quickly as possible with my tail between my legs. I was so embarrassed & figured that I have definitely been in Nepal too long as my brain has officially adjusted to Nepali time, where nothing ever runs to schedule.
We headed to The Prince of Wales British Pub & Restaurant to meet up with our waiter friends from Kilroys. I had met Tim, the pub's owner the previous week at Sams Bar & the boys from Kilroys were heading there for an after work beverage, so we thought we'd check it out. It had more of a restaurant feel than pub atmosphere, but we stayed for a couple of drinks before calling it an early night & headed home around midnight. I had to be back in Thamel for 5:30am Saturday morning & wanted to at least get a couple hours sleep before my big trip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.038s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0201s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb