So long Thamel. This pic gives you a tiny sense of the visual chaos here though not the smells & sounds. I’m not going far, just across town to Bodnath. I’ll be staying at the Sechen Monestary for a few days before heading out of the city to the Ananda Yoga Center for a week course. I had written them a few weeks ago to find out what sort of courses they offer and how much they are and never heard back from them so I’d forgotten.

Then yesterday I got an email addressed to Blessed Self. That would be me! So I will go for some pranayam (yogic breathing), hatha yoga (the standard stuff), kitrtan (chanting), and yoga nidra (yogic sleep, though you’re not *really* sleeping. It will be a nice way to escape the Bandh and frankly, I’ve had a hard time finding out if and how much the strike will affect my ability to get around. Now it doesn’t matter much since i’ll be posing and chanting away in once spot.

Here are a couple pics from yesterday’s dawn walk to Durbar Square. I wanted to get closer to this bull (?) but wasn’t sure how much he would appreciate it.

I have been shopping with uncharacteristic abandon. My normal pattern is to scope things out to excess so I know what’s around and what it’s going for. Not this time, yesterday I bought a Thangka! My first and without so much as really shopping for it. I passed a place in Durbar Square with an orange and red Wheel of Life that caught my eye. The salesman was uncharacteristically non-aggressive. He told me how much it was and as I hemmed and hawed over it he said, “That is my first price. You are supposed to say your price now.” In the end, I spent 4000 Rupees (about $60) for a large unframed Thangka that I love. I’d call it a deal.

So I’ve lucked into this little alleyway internet spot with Mozilla Firefox, image editors, and usb ports but I’m guessing that will be rare since this one was hard to find, even in Thamel. I’m not sorry to say good-bye to the Kathmandu Guest House. It’s a very weird mix of utter luxury and ick. I mentioned my rustic room which gave you the ick part but it is a beautiful place with manicured gardens, nightly movies, outdoor cafes with night time fires and expensive food. It’s the oldest Guesthouse in Thamel in what used to be a palace. Once inside the gates, yes gates, it’s very civilized but being such an institution, every tout in Thamel is stationed outside waiting to pounce.

The parting good news, the power has only been off for 3 hours since I arrived, the atms are back up, and my headache is gone!

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 1, 2006 where it’s 64 degrees at 11:0-9 a.m.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 at 10:22 pm and is filed under travelog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.