A day at the football

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I didn´t sleep well last night at there was a fire fly in my room. I didn´t have the guts to squash it so I ushered it out with his light flickering with worry!

Anyway, today I went to the Nepali Football final and it was such a great experience. I caught the local bus there and had to ask a few locals which way to the stadium. I could tell this event was going to big as the traffic on the way there was horrendous.

I saw heaps of people crowding around and passing money through the fence so I did the same and got a ticket (100NPR) then a kid was ripping the tickets in half at the gate and letting the waste fall on the ground. A fair amount of rubbish considering there were at least 20,000 people there!

As you can imagine there are no allocated seats but i managed to wedge myself on a steep incline with some other fans. I have probably mentioned this before but there is no concept of personal space here. I had people having there hands on my lap, leaning on me and one guy even put his arm around me and wasn't even talking to me!

I started talking to a guy next to me who 'happened' to be a tour guide but he was super nice and was introducing me to all his friends and translating continuously. He gave me a lift home on his bike and even asked me to have dinner with him and his friends with his 500NPR winnings from a bet they had together. I tipped him after he dropped me home and he even declined saying it 'wasn't necessary' but eventually he took it.

Anyway, the game. Nepal Army lost to Sheikh Jamal Dhan Mondi Club (Bangladesh team) in extra time 1-0. It was an excellent game with some fabulous commentary coming from around me - 'The keeper just died!' Unfortunately there was no instant replay on the big screen, nor was there meat pies, but I helped myself to some nuts from the nut boy. He had an excellent arm, throwing the nuts to punters in the crowd and they returned the favour with scrunched up notes of money.

Needless to say I was the only Westerner there but not once did I feel unsafe.

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Photos

Spot the Aussie
This was before the crowd came...

The incline
Everyone had to keep wedging rubbish underneath their bums to stop themselves sliding down the hill (me included)

Photo boy
This guy was desperate for me to take a photo of him, and he wouldn't even smile!