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Cokes
Coke has never tasted so good. Even if, in the form of everything else in Nepal, it's counterfeit Coke.3:24 am: “This is a terrible night.” Dave proclaimed as he shuffled into our bathroom. Again. Apparently for the second time tonight. I had slept through his first episode of diarrhea and forced vomiting. With his mention of this, I noticed a bit of a disturbance in my stomach.
As he got settled down again, we heard a disturbance in the bathroom. He sat up, put on his headlamp and said “Stay here. I think there‘s a rat in the bathroom.” He carefully went in, looked around but fortunately discovered nothing. Maybe it was something upstairs.
What a way to end our trek. And I had actually gotten some sleep before this, with really strange dreams and even dreams explaining to Dave the strange dreams I just had.
We got up on schedule - of course Hari showed up 20 minutes early even after we told him last night his watch is a half hour fast - got packed and made our way down for tea. After last night’s ordeal, none of us wanted anything to do with the food here. I’m not even sure why we had tea after Dave overheard a disgusted Kiwi woman yesterday detest
their tea making process. We’re convinced that any place that rhymes with “ukla” should be avoided. First Thukla, now Lukla.
Before we left the room, we both popped some Imodium and Cipro to ward off any ill doings on the toilet-less plane.
Today was the first foggy morning of our trip; convenient for our flight. All flights were delayed so Dave and I went back to bed until we had to go. Hari came around and got us a couple hours later and we made our way to the small airport.
At the airport, we ran into the bartender from last night. At first I recognized him but had no idea from where since we keep seeing the same people over and over. He claimed we didn’t pay our bill.
“What bill? I paid in cash for every drink I ordered. And him.” pointing to Dave.
“But you didn’t pay bill.”
“You mean a tab? I don’t remember opening a tab. Did I not pay you for every drink I ordered?”
“He opened.” pointing to either Ram or Hari.
“Well then I guess your issue is with him.” He went over to
Hari who had to pay for his bender.
After our altercation, we went through security. They don’t have metal detectors here, which is a good thing since I forgot to remove my multi-tool - a glorified Swiss army knife complete with a saw and several small knives - from my carry on. The security process was all done manually and the checker seemed to have a bigger problem with my small reading light and portable toothbrush in my US Airways carry on approved overnight tote than he did with the tool. He never even dug deep enough to get to the tool.
Inside, we took seats while we waited for our plane to arrive from Kathmandu so we could leave. Dave sat down and some people came over to let him know that he was leaning against wet paint. He only got some on his hat which he was able to rinse off. We really need to get out of here.
The flight itself was quick and we were very thankful to be back in Kathmandu.
Our taxi from the airport was an old Toyota Corolla that appeared to be from the mid 1970s. We barely fit in with all of us and the luggage. Dave and I believe the inspection process here is non-existent - it either runs or it does not run.
Once we got to our room, Dave laid down and went into a controlled diatribe on why he is happy to go home.
“I am excited to go to a country where I don’t have to carry toilet paper with me wherever I go. And where I don’t have to worry that everything I eat or drink is contaminated by excrement or another substance will make me violently ill. I’ve had it with cold weather, clouds, wind, early mornings and barren landscapes devoid of any living thing.
“Yeah, that’s what I want to do, I want to spend my vacation getting sick every day, almost dying so that I can visit the most desolate place on Earth.
“All I eat is rice and noodles and momos. I never want to see those foods again.
“I’m ready to go to a place where I don’t have a smelly, disgusting roommate that farts, blows his nose and hacks up a lung all night.”
He calmed down and went to sleep for several hours as I went on the Internet and prepped for laundry. I went out and found some antiseptic cleaner which I used to sanitize a bucket in our bathroom, the function of which is to hold clean water for toilet users to apply to their anus in lieu of this very modern invention called toilet paper. Even though the water is supposed to be clean, I wasn’t taking any chances and let that bucket soak for a couple hours.
After it soaked, I rinsed it out and washed off my nasty socks and underwear. Dave followed and we let them dry as we read and each took refreshing showers.
We only left the hotel once this afternoon, around 2:30 to grab lunch before the power is scheduled to be shut off. We came upon Everest Steak House, which Dave claimed is a reputed place for wary trekkers to go upon their return. We went in, ordered a couple Cokes, or some Coke like substance in Coke bottles; like everything else in Nepal, it’s probably counterfeit.
We also had some cheeseburgers, fries and chocolate ice cream. This is easily the best meal we’ve had since arriving in Nepal.
The rest of the afternoon, both of us went into a food coma and slept for a couple hours before coming downstairs to catch up on emails.
The rest of the night we continued to relax, grabbing a small but not quick dinner at the hotel. I ordered a chicken and tomato sandwich and Dave a grilled sandwich with chicken and cheese. Almost an hour later, the former came out but the latter ended up being cheese and tomato. All that time and they couldn’t even get it right. On the side we had a couple juices, that were so sour they must have been the final pieces of inventory in a LIFO system.
I checked in with my parents and sister over Skype for the first time since arriving. I finally tried out the conferencing feature and it went great. I love Skype.
Tonight was another late night with a 10:00 bedtime. I couldn’t fall asleep right away so I read my book on D-Day before finally falling asleep at 11:00.
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