Thursday 29 April 2010

Riot Doodle


It has been an interesting week so far. Home life remains much as it is pictured above while perhaps the most important piece of news I have received is that Rum Doodle still stands -woohooo! Word is out that it has in fact just moved location, I have yet to find out where of course, and spent about an hour wandering the streets last Friday (during my meltdown) trying to find it, but to no avail. Yesterday however I heard from an acquaintance that he had dinner there just a few days ago, so I can now breathe easy.

Well, I can breathe easy until Saturday. It would appear, as those who have seen my Facebook status will be aware, that Kathmandu is about to go into mass political upheaval. This is not unusual, but from the tone I've been picking up it sounds like it will be the most serious since 2006 when my good friend Kirtley got tear-gassed on a bus (wish I was there to see that). Basically, it's the Maoists again. I can't be bothered to go into a full and probably boring essay on this, but basically these guys have been a rebel faction for some time but rather surprisingly won the last election after the King got booted out. However, the PM fell out with everyone because nobody would let him put his maniac soldiers into the national army; he resigned leaving a typically weak coalition government in charge.

He seems to have been sitting quietly for a while but has decided now is the time to kick up a fuss and by that I mean overthrow the current Prime Minister. The PM himself has said that he will happily stand down for anyone...except the Maoist leader. What a conundrum. Anyway, talks are ongoing at the moment and if a solution is not reached by close of business tomorrow then all hell will break loose, so fingers crossed. Thas has not been helped by the son of the former King popping back into the country and sounding off about something as well. Everyone seems to hate the government and has lost all faith in politics in this country (sound familiar to those in the UK?), this week 8,000-ish schools where closed because everyone was fed up with the hike in fees.

Now, I was hoping to escape all this chaos by running off to Pokhara on an all-expenses paid trip to do a little cricket-related work for Aamir, but that went out of the window yesterday when a rather surprising job opportunity came my way. I won't say anything about it now for fear that nothing comes of it, but have a second meeting tomorrow and will see how that goes. Should it come off it means I will have my own place in a rather quieter area and will no longer be kept awake by the various farmyard animals and now the recent drilling that has started in the building next door. Oh, and I may also be able to finally get a warm shower - so far I have managed three out of a possible 18. Not a great return.

Last note, I have finally finished uploading all the pictures of various treks in Kathmandu to the Peace Nepal Treks Facebook page and would be hugely grateful if everyone could give it the thumbs up. The more fans we have the better it looks - I have also had to upload the pictures three at a time, which has taken about 30 minutes each go. Next step is to sort the website. Favourite cool picture below.




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