Kathmandu Integration

My last few days have been quite tempestuous. Long story short; I've face-painted, I've shopped, I've been photoshot, I've walked, I've run and I've drunk.

On Wednesday I was invited to the birthday party of my boss's 10-year-old daughter. As expected, however, there were as many strings attached as to an old-fashioned string-puppet. I was to perform the function of official face-painter. This had me painting butterflies, flowers, mickey mouse a random cat, spiders and more butterflies and flowers. I dare say I quite outdid myself.

The Party Place

After the party, I hitched a ride with my boss to his humble abode where we were offered drinks and food (very uncharacteristically of me, I partook in both). I was not the only important guest, however, as the new deputy prime minister had apparently found a hole in his busy agenda and was also present (together with several cars filled to the brim with grim looking armed fellows). The evening ended as evenings tend to end, with the disappointing realisation that we were not, in fact, going to drive for several hours to witness the sunrise over some distant hilltop, as I had been promised by one of the slightly less sober attendants of the after party. So we drove home instead, arriving at our own humble guesthouse in a rather cramped car around 1AM.

On Thursday I bought walking shoes. This purchase was a necessary one, as I had noticed on previous occasions that flip-flops and sandals just aren't that well-suited for longer walks in Kathmandu Valley. On this incursion to Thamel (the slightly more expat infested part of Kathmandu) I was accompanied by a (shock, horror) friendly Dutch Linda Ris which I had encountered only a few weeks ago on the last Internations party. After this joyous and rather restricted shopping-spree, I then joined her to the goodbye party of a Senegalese fellow (John Aturinde) I had only encountered once before. Needless to say, I was brought to tears on numerous occasions. I impressed others with my knowledge of the Indian Cuisine and there might also have been some alcohol at one point or the other.

On Friday I had a photo-shoot and answered some questions for a Nepalese youth-magazine called TrailBlazers. Nothing new there.

On Friday evening I went to another goodbye party, this time of someone I knew even more intimately. I had met Alec two times prior to him leaving my life forever, so it is pretty self-evident I had to drown my sorrows in Gorkha (the local Nepalese Brew). I met some more Dutchies and accidentally potentially really insulted some Germans (in my defence, I thought they were even more Dutchies). Nothing new there either.

On Saturday I had a day off (because Saturdays are Sundays in Nepal) so I decided to try this Hash thing people kept on talking about. It basically involves one group running a certain trail and another group walking another and meeting up at the starting point three hours later to regain all those lost calories with a couple of beers and some snacks. I - no one should be surprised about this - decided to join the walkers.

After a mere 5 minutes, however, I realised that "walking" involved a lot less speed than I had imagined it would, so I made the well-thought-through decision to catch up with the runners instead.

*awkward pause*

A little background info might be necessary here: I have not run for 8 years (not counting running for a train or bus, and I usually try to avoid doing even that), I'm a former asthmatic and a current smoker. Suffice to say: I am not a runner. So after running for slightly over half an hour and starting to feel REALLY FAINT (and having the distinct idea that my lungs weren't filling up properly anymore), I decided to beat the system in my own way and I walked the remainder of the time. 

Little known fact : You shouldn't walk for long distances in shoes you have never worn. And you should certainly not run/walk for long distances in a relatively hilly/mountainous area with them.

Lovely views though.

After the hash we were welcomed with beer and snacks. And some Fraternity-like activities.

Topper of the afternoon was me drinking beer out of my new (but slightly muddy and worn and dirty and stuff) shoe as a logical consequence to bringing new shoes to the hash... Quite fun indeed.

After taking a quick (but oh-so-welcome) shower with my shoes, I then went to the town centre for a well-deserved drink in the Blue Note. 

When the bar started emptying its bowels around 11 PM (as is custom in Nepal), my little group decided that we weren't quite finished yet, however, so we went to the only nightshop in town, purchased some Gorkha's and went to one of the Dutchies' place. There, we did some creative writing (on the walls of the pantry) and generally prevented her roommates from getting a decent night of sleep until 4AM, after which I crashed at the place of another new friend of mine, 50something-year-old John.

In the (sunday) morning I had a nice cup of coffee which was sorely needed after 4 hrs of sleep, and took a cab to the guesthouse. There I lounged for a bit, still slightly woozy from the days gone by, and then left for a coffee tasting (insert wild enthusiasm strangely tampered by a lack of sleep and an excess of alcohol).

Coffee Roasting

Suriname - Kenya - Nepal

3 cups of coffee (roughly ground),
1 glass for cleaning your spoon
and 1 for spitting in...

Per and my Suriname Espresso (mmm)

The coffee tasting (or "Cupping") and introduction were organised by Nepal Face to Face (a guesthouse run by a charming Swedish couple whom I secretly impressed with my accent). The price of the tasting included "as much coffee as you want", but it wouldn't surprise me if they revised that rule after my visit....

Today is Monday and I'm still unsure whether I'm going to go to a local (expat) choir to join up...

All in all, I'm doing quite fine.

Dam Enthusiasts, do not despair. Though I did not produce one this week, I did have a lovely walk the week before, resulting not in 1 but in 2 lovely dams.
Funny detail : the water is muddy because there was a bunch of Nepali busy trying to encourage rock-falls a couple of meters away from/above me... Scary.

I forgot to take a "before" picture here.

Before

After