Counting Down

Hello all and a good morning to you. Friday it is and may I be the first to say how welcome that is - and I don't even have a real job like most of you lot!

The last week has been something of a mixed bag. With the decision now made to leave I feel a bit like I'm just treading water until I get on the plane. I finished my rubbish office job on Wednesday and spent yesterday and today doing some freelance writing work for a travel company which is reasonably entertaining. Plus it's in Thamel so I can walk in rather than the terrifying journey on the back of a motorbike along the Bagmati River. It's called a river, but I think festy pit of sewage would be more accurate.

England game tonight so am gearing up for that, along with the murder mystery evening, which could be entertaining. I must say though, a sure sign that this city is not for me has come through the fact that there are no fancy dress shops around. Frankly if you can't buy a frog suit then something is seriously amiss!
Nir has gone back to the village again this morning which means I need to find a place to crash again. Casa Goliath looks the most likely, which is worrying for numerous reasons, I simply cannot go down the same path as last week - I was broken for days.

One of the reasons Nir has left I think is because his sister, Sonchalle, took off mid week to get married. This came totally out of the blue and the family barely know the bloke she's legged it with. Now, while Nir is never one to get too het up about anything, I think he was pretty peeved. When he left this morning I am sure I saw him tucking war paint into his pockets and packing a rather sharp looking blade...
The other rather depressing thing was that Nir moved out of his office deciding it was too expensive, and into a smaller place (it was hardly large to begin with) around the corner just outside Thamel. I was pretty gutted about this, although the office was in a crap location, at least it was still in Thamel (the tourist centre for those who don't know) which made it easy to bring people in if necessary. He is now further out of the mix and even more reliant on business coming through the website and referrals. the website is nearly done, so fingers crossed that will help, but this is a sure sign that whatever profits he made from the cricket a year ago are now running out.

Am still hoping to get to Pokhara for a few days but we'll see if I actually make it. Is rather dependant on my previous job actually paying me, which they have not done so far. For those wondering, my flight is booked for July 6th and while I have a few busy days with the family at first, I'll be in the mix (to some degree) for at least a week or so after that.

Below is a video clip of a bike ride through Kathmandu at night, don't worry Mum, I promise not to do this anymore!

Interesting results on last weeks poll - clearly not many fans of fine wine read this blog - which I suppose is not a surprise. Let's see how this one turns out...

Calling It A Day

Well, I figure it is time to stop procrastinating and just make a damn decision, so with that in mind I have opted to call time on my Nepali adventure and head home in a few weeks. To what I have no idea.

This little jaunt has not quite worked out as I’d hoped, but in truth it has not been far off what deep down I expected. I am aware that I could stay here and do a selection of different jobs and probably earn enough money to get by, but that is not what I came here to do, and frankly it’s bloody exhausting.

My biggest regret will be that I never managed to get a place of my own, even if it had only been for a month or so. I think I might have felt a bit more at home then, and not so reliant on other people. I’ve not decided whether this is a final choice or if I’ll have another crack at it, I think I need some time away from this country to gain some perspective before I’ll know quite how I feel about it.

This weekend did give me another glimpse of what life could be like here if my circumstances were different. I had agreed to meet Goliath to watch the rugby which kicked off at the very social time of 4pm. Of course, the football was kicking off just after midnight so he had kindly offered to let me crash at his place, since they have three spare bedrooms.

We had some food and watched England score two scintillating penalty tries in a losing cause before going with his missus and an Aussie bloke called Tim (who looks frighteningly like Ruud Van Nistelrooy) back to chez Goliath.

His place is unbelievable. Three stories, massive garden area, wicked roof terrace and just the two of them there. Plus their two dogs, Coffee and Alfred (or Albert, we’d had a few by this stage and I don’t remember).

Ruud showed why Australians should not be allowed to begin drinking early by promptly passing out before 9pm and I managed to offend various other people with my chat as the evening wore on and we played a considerable amount of FIFA ’09 on his xbox. Those who have seen me in such environments know that I have a tendency to get a little carried away and some of my banter would perhaps have been more suited to an evening with Team Hillary than a bunch of blokes I didn’t really know.

Anyway, people came and went, as did rather a large amount of Rum, before we somehow managed to grab a lift from a truck at a construction site (complete with two blokes asleep on top of the cab who didn’t even move) to the British Gurkha Camp where we arrived approximately three minutes after England had scored. Rage.

More booze and Robert Green–related fury ended with us back at the castle guzzling more booze until 6:30am. Being due to start work at 9 I thought this was a good time to pass out. Work was of course cancelled and I spent Sunday watching highlights of the 2005 Ashes. Super stuff that.

So there we are, from what I gather this is a fairly normal weekend for Goliath and the rest, so perhaps doing a runner might be what’s best for my liver. That said I have the small matter of a murder mystery party this Friday, followed by another England game. Could get interesting.

More Random Meetings

A few months back I read a great article on The Adventure Blog about a company who were offering The Great Himalayan Trail as a trekking experience.

Being the hopeless dreamer that I am, I became quite fascinated with this idea and thought what an amazing and challenging experience it would be. I knew it would take about six months to do and while I wasn't about to sling on my rucksack and have a crack at it tomorrow, I thought y'know, maybe one day. I then found out the price tag was a mere 20 thousand pounds and swiftly forgot all about it.

In the last couple of weeks it has come into my mind again, and one afternoon last week while a tad bored I decided to go digging for more info and since I remain on a mission to find work that will get me excited I decided to drop them an email, this was last Friday.

I ended up meeting the guy who is looking after the site on Sunday, an English bloke from Warrington (and surprise, surprise, Becci and the Hash crowd know him) who seemed a bit of a maniac but open to chatting about the whole thing. He swiftly offered me a bit of cash to help do some research since he was off to Thailand the following morning and wasn't going to be able to do it himself.

So there we are, a third job. While this is probably only one weeks work and I have no idea if it will lead anywhere, it's a cool thing to be involved with on any level so we'll see how it goes.

My stance now with regards to whether or not I'll be coming home when my visa expires is that I probably will. I think coming home for the summer and getting the last few months into perspective will help me make up my mind about whether or not I want to come back. The rainy season is not far away and while I could extend for another month or two, I think it'd be better to come back in September or October for my last two months, should I want to. Of course, what I'll do back home I have absolutely no idea. As always I have some absurd ideas, but they're probably as practical as...I don't know, coming to Nepal with no job or place to live organised!

Otherwise life has remained pretty standard the last week or so. Nir was away for a couple of days over the weekend which meant I was the only English speaker at home, which was entertaining. I also had hot shower number eight yesterday and actually wished it'd been cold as it was 30-odd degrees outside (apparently in other parts of the country it reached the mid-40s) and was thus already sweating by the time I left for work. That was fantastic. Today mind you, there was no water at all, so I just stink. Thank God I'm not meeting anyone tonight.

Dinner at Casa Becci along with Dan and Helena (poor girl, she's really had a shocker the last few weeks, first her fiancee suddenly gets his visa revoked and then she gets mugged. She was surprisingly chipper all things considered!) last night and I once again left jealous at the rather nice pad she has. Have also lined up a couple of guys to watch the footie with on Saturday night, Goliath being one of them - I wonder who that evening will end... Of course the game deosn't even kick off until gone midnight and I have to work the next day. A serious concern.

Thanks to all who took part in the Graham Poll this week, unsurprisingly loo roll and electricty received no votes and none of you want cutlery. I hope you all have asbestos hands. Next I shall be focussing on luxury items.

Cheers!

A Day In The Life...

Last week has followed much the same pattern as the one before, so there really isn't a great deal to discuss. As a result I shall tell you a little about my typical day.

This involves waking sometime between 5-7am thanks to either the sounds of someone hocking and coughing, or one of the many, many animals making their respective noises. I then lie in bed staring at the mosquito net until the alarm goes off, which I promptly ignore and put on sleep for 20 minutes. You'd think I'd just set it for 20 minutes later wouldn't you?

After that it's breakfast, which on Friday for example, was a bowl of curried beans. You can imagine. Normally however, it is bread of some kind and usually some potatos, they don't really do 'light' breakfasts over here from what I can tell.

Then I head into work and spend my morning writing news articles for www.estately.co.uk - feel free to have a look, although I'm not really sure how much it will excite anyone since I don't know any Estate Agents.

Then comes lunch. This really is a special part of the day. The first few days I went off on my own and read a book for an hour in a nearby cafe, but then the guys & girls in the office invited me to join them and I figured it would be rude to refuse.

We end up in this shack, and I really mean shack as the below picture will show. Thus far I have decided the noodles and veg samosas are pretty safe, of course they are covered with hot sauce, which while tasty is not ideal for one major reason. This shack is hot. I don't just mean a bit sweaty, we're talking sauna hot. After every meal I emerge totally drenched, much to the amusement of the people I am with. I have been trying to weigh up whether or not the absurdly cheap food is worth the pain of the experience.
The guys at work are all nice enough, nobody speaks in the office itself which is a bit sad, they're all afraid they'll get sacked I think, which doesn't make for much of an atmostphere. I'm sure because of that they want to talk non stop when they get out, of course it's all in Nepali so I don't really get much of it. They do however burst out laughing every so often and it's hard not to feel a little self conscious!

After that it's home and a meal of rice and lentils, ahh good old Dal Bhat, love it, before bed at around 10pm. I often sit out on the balcony and chat with Nir or just read a book.

So there it is, a day in the life of me right now. D-Day is fast approaching when I'll have to make a call on whether or not to stay here. I have decided to give it two more weeks but continue to chase options and will see how things stand then. If I do decide to head home then I am planning to take a week in Pokhara before I go so that I have not spent three months solid in Kathmandu - that thought is just depresseing!

Had a great night last night though, another evening with the expats which involved dinner and a few drinks. Brilliant bunch that lot, but this time I managed to take myself home at 11pm due to not having a hotel room booked. It has since emerged that this was a smart move as numerous people ended up back in the Yak and Yeti Casino until 4am and as such are not feeling too clever today! It all sounded very familiar!

With them was a chap called Ed Laughton (no relation to Neil) who was celebrating a successful climb on the north side of Everest. Top lad and incredibly humble, frankly I would have been shouting from the rooftops! He raised money for the Himalayan Rescue Association and is planning to go back next year and climb from the south side while also working with his wife at the Everest ER, super stuff really. He did go down in my estimation however when he produced a round of Tequila. God that stuff's awful.

I have also managed to finally upload all the Peace Nepal Treks slideshows to You Tube so you can view them by clicking here if you didn't manage to see them on Facebook for whatever reason. I've also stuck another video below, just because I can. Until next time, sleep tight.

Wallop

Not a great deal has happened in the last few days, so I have decided to tell in a little more detail the events of Friday night, since it may give a few of you a cheap laugh.

As mentioned, I had a hotel room for the night so was able to cut loose, and cut loose I did. I was due to meet my mate Dan at 9pm, but knowing that he was attending a wedding from 6:30 I decided to wander into town and grab a bite to eat and sup a few ales from around seven.

I went to Tom & Jerry’s and thankfully the Test was on (because I nicked the remote and put it on) so I settled in to wait for Dan. Now, he’s been living here nearly a year so I was fully expecting him to be on Nepali time, and indeed he didn’t show until about 9:30, however I had got chatting to some slightly annoying English bloke at the bar and all was fine.

We stayed there until 11 and moseyed across to Fire Club. Last time I visited this place was due to Becci’s gag about there being a celebratory Toga party going on after the strikes ended only for me to arrive and discover a lone bloke with his shirt off on the dance floor. Thankfully, I was not toga’d up and neither did I choose to stay.

This time however, it was positively thriving. We bumped into a few other people on the way there, including Tony who I had watched the T20 with. I should also mention that Tony is an absolute giant, not dissimilar to what I imagine Goliath looked like, beard and all.

We stayed there until it closed at about 1 and that is, apparently, when the fun really started. Upon leaving, Ash (Goliath’s other half) got into an argument with a policeman about something or other. I decided to diffuse the situation by nicking the coppers hat and legging it down the street while shouting “You’ll never catch me, I’m an athlete.” I was caught approximately 0.73 seconds later.

Now, stealing clothing form Asian policemen is perhaps not the smartest move as coppers around the globe are not all quite like G-Man, it would seem. Needless to say the lad wanted his hat back, but having decided I needed it we entered into quite a heated debate over how much it was worth. Obviously his asking price was too high since I woke up the following morning hatless.

After that Dan and I challenged Goliath and Ash to a rickshaw race, which led to us tearing through the streets of Kathmandu yelling every line from ‘Days of Thunder’ that I could possibly muster. I am told we won, but truthfully the whole thing is a bit of a blur.

We then landed in a Casino where we promptly demanded the finest champagne on offer. Thankfully I don’t think they were quite prepared for this request as what arrived was certainly no Dom Perignon.

After that the others set about the prestigious business of gambling. Of course, having never gambled in my life I had no idea what was going on and could barely count past five, let alone to 52. I also discovered that yelling “red, no black, no red, no no black!” is also not a guaranteed formula for success. Oh well, guess you have to learn somehow.

I don’t remember getting home, but can only assume I hit the wall at some stage and decided to take myself out of the equation before I got myself into more trouble. Smart move that.

So there you are, you can take the man out of the Drovers but evidently the Drovers remain in the man. I hope you enjoyed; a new poll has just been posted. Rather surprisingly the last one was a tie between ‘Sir’ and ‘Mate’ – I think you lot are too polite.

Happy Birthday Buddha!

On Thursday is was Buddha's birthday, which is a pretty big deal over here. It seems though, that much of the celebrating is done on the night before, and so it was that I ended up walking around the Monkey Temple at 10pm.

It didn't start there though, I came home from work and was informed by Nir that we had been invited for dinner. How nice I thought, except that wasn't quite how it was. We had in fact been invited to a sixth birthday party for his nephew where there were more small children than I could cope with.

This party lasted around two hours and I think I managed to count 16 kids at one stage, and Nir and I were the only male adults. I have to be honest, this was pretty hard work and I was not particularly enjoying myself, so when Nir mentioned going up to the temple I was intrigued and figured it would be quite an experience, which it certainly was.

We got there at about nine and had a cheeky beer before beginning our walk. Apparently Buddhist's walk around the temple 13 times to wash away the sins from their previous lives, or something. Now it take approximately 40 minutes to walk all the way around this place, so those seriously dedicated folks are there for hours. Nir it would seem, is not all that dedicated and was happy to call it quits after a single loop!

The dedication however, does not stop there. The REALLY committed folks go a step further. We were about two minutes into our walk when I nearly tripped over some bloke lying in the middle of the road. At first I thought he was some drunkard with a death-wish as there were literally thousands of people walking by and here he was lying down.I turned to Nir as if to say 'what's this chap up to' only to spot two more people doing it. Now I was curious. They were not just lying down, they were fully outstretched, arms out above them like a fallen down Christmas Tree. They would do this, then stand up, take a few steps, and do it again. They went like this all the way round and as we carried on I saw loads of men, women and children all doing it. Nir told me he met a guy last year who had travelled like that all the way from Lhasa in Tibet. That's 1000 kilometres. Unreal.

It was one of the experiences I had hoped to have in Nepal and was really glad I went. I was actually prepared to go round all 13 times (mentally prepared if not physically!) but was pretty grateful in the end that Nir wasn't so keen.

Other than that the week was been pretty quiet. I was given a hotel room for free last night by the travel company I am doing some freelance writing for so slept in a bed with sheets for the first time in six weeks. I say slept, but I think I was closer to being in a coma than actually sleeping due to the enormous quantity of booze consumed. My last memory is of being in a casino somewhere with a couple of the boys I was out with. All very hazy though.
I continue to flat hunt and it appears that estate agents the world over are all equally useless. Fingers crossed I make some progress on that next week.

Finally, I wanted to share with you all a theory that was presented to me last week by my sister which I am a big fan of. This is called 'Rachael Curr's Theory of Time' and it goes like this:

"As we all know Greenwich is the centre of the universe as far as time goes. Everything west of Greenwich is behind in time, everything to the east has skipped ahead. However, this is not the only factor playing on the east / west divide. Oh, no, there is also the AMOUNT of time squeezed or stretched into the conventional time measurement categories. For example: the minute. West of Greenwich minutes are shorter – hence the “New York Minute” which is very short. To the East minutes are longer – which explains why, when I call someone in the Hague and they say they’ll ring me back in half an hour I don’t hear from them for 90 minutes. Like the hourly time, the phenomenon progresses the further east you go – so, by the time you get to India/Nepal minutes are around 20 times longer than they are in the UK – which explains why you were waiting for 5 hours at the tourist board."

I think that's brilliant.

Now - I am super excited right now because I am in a place with a good internet connection and have not only been able to upload all the videos to facebook that I spent ages making for Nir when I first got here (watch by clicking here), but I have also been able to upload a video onto this blog - see below for my vid of teaching Nir's kid how to high five.

As a footnote - I should also apologise to my Kiwi readership for not including 'Bro' in my recent Poll, naturally you would call it nothing else.

For my own amusement....

...I have added a Poll to my blog. This sits just next to the post and will have various stupid questions for you all to answer. Simply click on your answer followed by "vote" - it will take less time than reading whatever drivel I've written.

Each poll shall last a week and perhaps at some stage I shall collate all the results into a spreadsheet of which even Kinsey would be proud.

The first question relates to Yeti's.

I hope this is a sign to you all that my spirits are suitably lifted - thanks to all who got in touch.