I hate being back in Thamel already! The only good thing about it is the comforts of cheap, good restaurants but I am overeating to keep away from all the hagglers and beggars that have saved their efforts while I've been away! In addition there are so many more tourists, especially the huge groups that stand idiotically in your way to take pictures of nothing. I miss the hippie-plagued streets that have dissappeared!
I continued typing up the diary after reacquainting myself with my favourite place for brekky. Then set out to the office to meet all the staff! I chatted to a couple in the foyer before realising that 2 staff had resigned, one having to go back to Darjeeling because of war movements there? So I only knew the one or two there and the others were at the hotel offices! Tired and hot as the rain had cleared I caught a taxi to the Hotel Himalaya, where it was at least air-conditioned!
Saw Kranti at the desk. Glad that i knew someone, I talked to him as he showed me some aspects of his work. Read the Himalayan Times to catch up on the latest - 51 people have been seriously njured by Maoists in the past few weeks in relation to the election! Wow... Also some pubs are banning alcohol for the whole week - how will I survive on my birthday??
I met Paul to collect some photos, which I will send out to the group when I get the chance (in a few months...). I need a DVD burner as we ended up with 1,600 photos: 7.6GB! It is all Pauls fault with his raw SLR images! But still you can tell the difference between the quality of picture from his camera and dorothys! Dorothy and Marjorie were visiting the school they are sponsoring.
Paul had diarrhea still so I told him that its not good! Any more than a day and youve got bacterial diarrhea, so I had to get Kranti to organise a taxi for him to the International Clinic! We had a good laugh, but now I was alone again!
I hung about in the lobby reading a book before I saw Olivia who told me that Rodger was spewing his guts out and they couldn't make it to the farewell dinner. She was loving the moment as he was always overly btrace in eating everything! She was sunbaking for the day whilst he was sick as a dog in his room. Lovely couple.
Paul came back at 3pm, feeling a lot better after some drugs. To my huge gratitude he gave me all his leftover food he didn't want to lug back - nutrigrain bars, marmite and australian honey! Bloody legend. I took him to Thamel for some shopping, ending up with a few small Thanka paintings and some posters. I wasn't much help as I had no idea about art!
We headed up for a beer on a rooftop bar. Thankfully he was feeling pretty good and could stomach it, though with no food for the whole day he lived up to his nickname of "half-pint Paul"! We were only to have one but ordered 2-4-1 cocktails and then another beer, seeing us 1/2 hour late for the dinner and a little tipsy! The others were late as well but as they had waited for Rodger and Olivia in the hotel lobby so it all worked out ok.
We were celebrating at the Rum Doodle restuarant and bar, a famous place that sees thousands of trekking goups finishing in it; signing a wooden yeti foot that is placed on the wall! The place is covered in them otherwise I would have looked for some of dads! They have a deal where if you climb Everest you can eat here for life, something I think Sir Hillary took up several times. Many famous people have dined here and the restaurant takes pride in saying it!
It was great but expensive meal and I was down to my last few hundred rupees when we left - all of which went to after-dinner beers at Sam's bar! It was a great night and I am sad to be left here but glad that more adventures are to come! I said my farewells and went back to the hotel - I had to roll under the garage door as it was 10:30pm and the place was closing! With 45rs in my wallet and none in my account I would have been stuffed had I not been able to get in!
