Goodbye Kathmandu!

Short Version:
Goodbyes, monkeys, firepit peepings

Long Version:
We got to bid a second farewell to Ganga and Uzir, which was just as well, really, cos the wee gifts we had for them had been left in our locked-away bags in the hotel there for the duration of the trek. We all promised to write, which we haven't done, and then Uzir went to get supplies for his family for the winter, to be hauled three days' walk home on his back.

Ganga came with us to the Monkey Temple.

We took a tiny taxi down narrow, more-or-less cobbled streets, eventually piling out at the foot of one of the steepest sets of stairs we'd ever seen. Also, one of the longest. And the most heavily beggar-enabled. One rather young woman brandished an unimpressed infant aggressively. Others insisted that we needed one or more of their trinkets. We disagreed.

At the top, we saw many Buddhists, many of whom were little old ladies. Nepali ladies do little and old quite well. They seem compelled to add gnarled and twisted into the mix, though. There were many Buddhist holy things in many buildings, fantastic views out over smoggy Kathmandu, and monkeys galore;
- big monkeys
- small monkeys
- fighting monkeys
- monkeys eating offerings the wizened old ladies had made to the gods in exchange for more/less/different health/wealth/happiness for themselves/spouses/children/humanity. Many of them had raw-looking butts (the monkeys, that is, not the old ladies, almost all of whom were wearing butt-covering drapery).

We spent some time wandering around the temple complex, including a side-trip through the attached monastery and some minutes marvelling at the three enormous golden Buddha statues, and the hundreds of little old gnarled and bent ladies gathered at their feet for a multi-day prayer extravaganza, and then we made our way along the outer wall to the square where the taxis were congregated. Roughly duplicating our path was a young pregnant woman, clad in jeans and jandals* and a rastafarian hat. She had a perpetual sneer on her face, spat on the ground several times, and seemed to be a little bit angry; she was almost snarling as she spoke to her companion, an older woman. It was just like being in Whakatane.

And then back to Thamel in a tiny, slightly smelly van. Coffee and cake and goodbye Ganga and then we bought art and ate a celebratory Thai dinner on a rooftop patio in the light of a big, really smoky firepit and a lot of decorative light-strings until the power went out and we just had the firelight for watching the other diners and especially the group of dangerous-looking young men and their companionable companion; a young woman in a skimpy leopard-print outfit who looked like she'd just stepped out of a music video from some Nepalese Hall & Oates equivalent.

Sated and happy, we politely declined the services of the Transformers Armada-stickered taxi and walked home. Packed. Paid the bill. Slept poorly. Breakfasted in the lobby, taxied to the airport. Submitted to multiple security checks. Watched military squad doing physical training alongside the runway under a big, red, haze-obscured rising sun. Submitted to further security searches. Boarded plane. Managed to not actually soil selves when plane nearly ran out of runway. Ate tasty omelette while staring at phenomenal Himalaya views.
Omelette good. Views better.







* = Flip-flops, for Amerikaaners and CandidaAlbicansans and folks from the Disunited Queendom. Thongs for Orstralianuses. Slippers, apparently, in Hawaii, and Hawaii chappal (Hawaiian slippers) in India and Pakistan. Japonki in Poland, because they originated in Japan. Vietnamki in Russia and Ukraine, because... they originated in Japan? Clam-diggers in Texas, because everything's weirder in Texas.