Wandering the Back Alleys of Kathmandu

I got up super early this morning to have breakfast with Yanik. Yanik was in the area because he had just dropped Lauren, another girl on the Passage program, off on a bus headed to Pokhara. She was going for her trek, although because it’s monsoon season it’s probably going to be a pretty rainy one. I’m not going to be trekking with Passage, but I’m pretty sure I will be with SIT sometime in October. The rainy season will be over by then; I’m hoping there won’t be too many leeches.

We ate at Mike’s Breakfast, which is a restaurant that serves American style breakfast. Mike had been living in Kathmandu since the 60s, and had come to Nepal as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers. Like a lot of the expats who have been living here for awhile, he had come to escape being drafted in the Vietnam War. I guess he then made a life for himself and never went back home. The food was pretty good, but the portion was HUGE. I do not know anyone who would be able to eat that much in one sitting.

Lunch at RHEST. The rice puffs kind of tasted like cereal

After breakfast I hung out in my house until my language class, which went fine. I learned a bunch of verbs that I’m going to memorize over the weekend. I had two cups of coffee at breakfast, the coffee here is organic and delicious, but I hadn’t anticipated the amount of caffeine they had in them so I was jittery all morning. RHEST was fine as well, although I’m still getting a hang of all of the little idiosyncrasies with the paperwork.

On the walk home I saw a huge heard of cows milling about. Normally I’ll see one or two, usually just chilling like they own the place. Today, however, there were like 20 all walking together. The cows here are sort of strange; they don’t look innocent and dumb like the ones in the US. These have a look in their eye that makes it seem like they’ve seen things, terrible things. Maybe I’m just imagining it, though.

The gates here are really cool

A mural about water sanitation

Entrance to a restaurant

After RHEST I went exploring, aka got myself lost. I picked a direction and started walking; taking pictures of the things I thought were interesting. I was determined to walk back a different way than the way I had come, partly because the road I was walking on was really polluted. I probably inhaled as much smoke as what is in a pack of cigarettes just from walking, and am considering purchasing a mask.

But anyways, to head back home I walked into one of the numerous back alleys of Kathmandu. I figured that because I knew the general direction of where I needed to go I could probably find my way back. Big mistake. The tiny roads twist and turn in every direction, and I managed to find myself in a very poor area of Kathmandu. I wouldn’t say the stares I got were hostile, but they were definitely not friendly. I just put on my ‘I know where I am and where I am going’ face and walked quickly. Luckily I found my way to the main road, and walked home.

All of the windows at this house looked like this

I was toying with the idea of going out to this bar where they have live music on Fridays, but it was the last night before my Aamaa and bhaai leave so instead I hung out with them. My Aamaa’s friends were over saying goodbye, and again I was astonished at how friendly everyone is. They seemed to feel completely at ease with me, as if I were an old friend who had come home after a long time away. It’s really nice, if a bit strange to me.

 
After they left I watched a show about tracking Yeti’s in Bhutan, which was surprisingly interesting. Bhutan seems like an awesome place, I think I’d like to go there someday.