going to kathmandu This is a journey in search of myself.

arrived here afte a harrowing exit experience in kathmandu. i had spent the night before at the american embassy where the "local" americans where celebrating a bit of christmas cheer with their young families and a santa who rode in on a tuk tuk. jeb meline, the deputy director of usaid in nepal and a former co-worker of tom's informed me near the end of the night that there had been some maoists killed by the police in a near by demonstration and that they were ordering a city wide transportation shutdown in the morning....what?..i was supposed to fly out in the morning...as the nepali would say. "what to do?" jeb said i shouldn't worry as the shutdown pertains to the citizens and not the tourists. well, taking his word, i say my good-byes and headed to my guest house. i spoke to surendra, ( the owner) before i headed up to my room and he said "don"t worry" i will get you to the airport, one way or another. early the next morning there was a brisk knock at my door. "hurry," he said. we must leave now. the town was so eerily quiet, no motorcycles, no cabs, no tuk tuks, no rickshaws....no noise...it was really strange. as we hurried to the bus depot which was to be the only way of transport to the airport, we were in luck! just as we got there the bus was pulling out....but not before i was pushed aboard and my bag thrown into the baggage compartment."namaste" i yelled to surendra, "thank you for everything" and with that we were off.