Tuesday, January 5, 2010

second to last day in Kathmandu

We have been busy trippers; over the last few days we celebrated New Years Eve,  did more sight-seeing and walking at various temples, monasteries, and museums; I gave a lecture at the Nepalese Cancer Hospital, we packed up and sadly left Jeny's family in Pokhara, and we have now spent two days in Kathmandu.  While in Kathmandu we're staying with Jeny's brother Rajeeb who has been a wonderful host and is great with the boys. 

We were tortured by strikes for several days the first two weeks of the trip but haven't had any trouble for a few days now, and things look good for the next couple of days or at least long enough to get out of the country tomorrow night. On the rare (every few days) occasions that we can see the Indian version of CNN we keep hearing about tough airport security in the US so am hoping that ALL THE GURKHA KNIVES that Kenzie's bought (so much for having a weapons-free household for the first 12 years of his life), not to mention all the Nepalese tea we're trying to bring home which smells suspiciously like other substances, won't get in the way of our re-entry.

The kids have remained terrific travelers.  We have been hanging with two of Jeny's friends' kids who are 18 and 10 and it is fun to see the things they share in common (computer games and cell-phone fascination being one of them).  Cooper's finished two big books ("Summerland" and "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World"); I've read some great novels and some non-fiction about Nepal; and Kenzie is, I kid you not, in the middle of "War and Peace."  Seriously!  He found it in a Pokhara bookstore and seems to be devouring it.

I have written quite a bit about our adventures in Jomsom and the overland trek we ended up taking as well as my experiences in the cancer and regional hospitals.  I have several things ready to "publish" here on this blog but have heartbreakingly continued to have a lot of compatibility issues in these fairly primitive Nepalese cybercafes.  Perhaps I will be able to publish in transit while in Bahrain or Heathrow. 

Meanwhile here is hoping everyone is having a good re-entry into real life this week and that we have one when we arrive sometime later this week -- the time changes are so confusing that I'm not quite sure when we arrive home -- it either takes us 20 or 30 hours to get home, so I think we arrive Thursday night, or is it Friday?.  Ahhh, well, we'll know soon enough because as they say in Nepal, "You get there when you get there."  Here's to good weather, reasonable security and getting there! 

3 comments:

  1. I wish you and the boys a safe and hopefully easy trip home. Will be in touch re real world "arrangement" when you come out for time lag haze.

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  2. Way too cool! Have a safe trip home...

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