Tramp About Thamel

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We woke late after yesterday's uncomfortable travelling. We all searched for things to do in Kathmandu but drew a blank as they were either costly or involved travelling again we none of us wanted that. So, we opted to drift around Thamel and see where the currents took us.
There was a little bit of last minute shopping e.g. Bob and Tom bought their mum a cashmere scarf and Ed and Hat created a design each which was then stitched onto a T shirt. We also dropped into the papier-mâché shop with the very funny owner, Bob and Tom were in stitches with his one liners such as, 'your father is so handsome and your mother is the princess of the world'!
We had an early lunch/apple pie stop at Rosemary's Cafe before heading onto a barbers for a shave as I had a week of stubble to ditch. Bob also had one and Tom got his moustache seen too.
We got Bob a chunk of alum shaving crystal and a tube of shaving paste from the barbers and then, when everyone went back to the hotel, the two of us scoured the side streets, back streets and main streets for a pure bristle shaving brush. We ended up in the part of Thamel which serves the locals and it was very interesting. Streets specialised in particular products; there were streets of electrical repair shops, streets of pharmacists, streets of green grocers, streets of spices merchants, streets of kitcheware and so on. The smells were also amazing, particularly the incense and spices. There was a widespread shop owners strike in Kathmandu today and so we came back empty handed.
For our last night in Nepal we went to Revolution Restaurant. Riddles were asked, Whoops Daisy was played, as was The Moon is Round and Lady in a Boat, the latter two without anyone guessing the answer. After our meal we were approached by an old guy who claimed to be a journalist. He asked if he could interview us and we agreed because it was out of the ordinary and nothing bad could happen. He asked a bunch of questions about our thoughts on Nepal, our goals in life, education etc. We may yet make it into the Kathmandu Quarterly Development Review...

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