Airports

My last entry got cut off due to an emergency momo sesh. After this trip I won’t look at another dumpling.

The bus was poorly equipped to handle the pockmarked road. Early into the ride we hit a long jam of buses as far as we could see. We exited the bus and sat on the rocks until the procession lurched into motion 30 minutes later. Unbeknownst to us at the time, an overpacked local bus traveling to Kathmandu slipped off the mountain road and tumbled into the river below killing most of its occupants. We had debated taking the local bus earlier that day to give us an extra couple hours in Chitwan. That said, I’m not sure taking a tourist bus over a local one increases your safety margin significantly. Either way we thought about death today.

I got swindled for some oranges and bananas at a pricey rest stop and we eventually pulled into Thamel at 4 pm. We wandered for an hour and Louise picked up some tea to bring home on her flight the next day. For dinner we ate sampler platters at OR2K, a vegetarian restaurant that delivered an exquisite chocolate cake for my birthday. We played carded and relived some of the more beautiful moments from the last three months.

Sunday was slow moving and I tried to keep myself occupied to avoid thinking about Louise leaving. Although our trip has been rocky at times we really made for well-paired travel partners. I spent the morning talking to my mom, pacing, and eating.

At breakfast Sahil insisted on ordering me a slice of cheesecake for my birthday, my third celebratory treat in the last two days. I’ve eaten more sweets and drank more soda in the last month than I have in the last year. Sail informed us about the bus accident, and mentioned that when it comes to auto accidents its often cheaper to intentionally kill the victim than be stuck with their medical bills for life. He recounted wide eyed stories of truck drivers in the mountains reversing back over people knocked off motorbikes to finish them off. Whether these stories were factual or not, Sahil confirmed that “Mountain drivers are not to be fucked with.” Amen

I took Louise to the airport for a sad goodbye. I always try to stay positive with the goodbyes or its just too tough. The Kathmandu airport only allows people to enter the terminal with a ticket and thus we benefitted from not prolonging an already painful farewell. As I write she’s halfway to Paris.

We spent the afternoon in full consumer mode. I bought Himalayan salt, a couple bags of Masala tea, and embarked on a wild good chase to find one of the colorful stools sitting outside of every shop. After asking a dozen people where I could find one, a friendly stall owner invited me to sit on her colorful stool and directed me where to look for one of my own. While we spoke, she mentioned that she had worked in Patan selling trinkets for 46 years and that as of late business had been tough. Guides want 40% commission in exchange for leading purchase-happy tourists to a particular stall. The stalls that refuse to pay are labeled as “filled with knock off’s” by the guides whereas the others are labeled authentic. In reality, all the stores carry exactly the same shit. I thanked her for her stool related intel and, following her directions (and asking two more people), got a stool for five bucks!

For dinner we ate at our local hole in the wall and explored the idea of requesting that your closest friends provide you with your new year resolutions or goals for the year. Provided your friends know you extremely well and give you feedback from a place of love I think the experiment could be really compelling. I asked Sam for his thoughts on how I could improve, and after an afternoon of reflection we brought the subject up again over dinner. His recommendation: be more empathetic. I think he’s right. Oftentimes I get so caught up in my head or goals that I don’t acknowledge the feelings of the people around me. Additionally, when I’m feeling hurt I tend to retreat into myself to work it out internally as opposed to seeking empathy from other people. I need to remind myself often that other people don’t necessarily want the same thing. This is going on my 2018 list.