Kathmandu.

Well, that was a long journey.  After leaving Goa at 4:30pm Friday I fly to Delhi where I spend 12hrs at the airport waiting for my delayed flight to Nepal.  I pretty much overdose on mocha lattes and the such and find myself having the rather surreal experience of playing a little instrumental performance on the check in hall floor at 4am.  This of course only came about following a request from an Austrian girl.  The music and the caffeine fueled waffling help to wind away the hours but unfortunately she leaves 3 hours before me.  I am left listening to a rather large man snore away the night as if he’s being dry humped by a walrus and staring mystified at a woman with curious plastic surgery compulsions.

Anyway, the flight comes and goes and I land in Kathmandu.  On first impressions and in my beleaguered state, Nepal actually seems crazier than India (surely not possible)!  They won’t except their own currency for the visa and I leave the airport and return the required currency after strolling through immigration without showing my passport once - now that’s a secure border.  I am paying for my trekking in Nepalese Rupees, my room with Indian Rupees with all receipts coming in dollars - confusing!

More confusing, later that evening, is a bar’s advertising of the Arsenal game ay 9:45pm despite the fact that the bar closes it’s doors at 10pm and the area is on a scheduled power cut until 11pm.  I discuss this with the bartender but he fails to see the problem.  Crazy fool!

Kathmandu is hectic to say the least but after my first night and 40hrs of being awake, I decide I like it.  There’s not as much hassle as in India - perhaps because everyone’s busy playing half-baked traffic frogger.  I spend a couple of days catching up on sleep, negotiating the power outages effect on hot water, watching some surprisingly good Nepalese rock cover bands, kitting myself out for trekking and getting my camera fixed (although it never works properly again - if you’re on an elephant; hold your camera tightly!)

On the first night I also found myself drinking the evening away with two Nepalese guys.  When closing time comes they insist they know a bar that stays open later - this of course sounds like a good idea.   Sometime into the 3 men and a moped journey it becomes apparent that we’re actually headed for a brothel and I'm probably about to get stung for a substantial amount of cash with pricey drinks and dicey doormen.  At this point the alcohol and 40hrs without sleep give way to a sudden sobriety.  I politely request that my two elf sized companions turn around and return me to the touristy area - they are most accommodating gentlemen.