It was such an incredibly beautiful morning here I had a hard time tearing myself away from my breakfast in the sunny courtyard of the Northfield cafe where there are bottomless cups of brewed coffee and homemade banana muffins. I’m not usually a coffee drinker but the when the tea sucks, as it does here, my caffeine addiction takes over.

Post-breakfast I ventured into the more modern neighborhood around Durbar Marg which is home to the fancy hotels and airline offices. My target was an Indian snack shop reportedly selling burfi! This place has almost as much variety as the shiny Quickbite where I got hooked on these little chunks of bliss back in Gantok. They actually call at least one of the varieties of sweets here burfi though again, there are tons of variations. I only tried one but plan on going back to stock up for the plane ride home this wednesday.

The walk back to the neighborhood of Chetrapati took me past the old part of Kathmandu where carvings like the ones shown in the first picture are the backdrops of the market stalls. I think the Hindu festival of Holi has already started in some neighborhoods cause the water balloons were flying. I had a few close calls with my camera so I’m in a bit of a conundrum over what to do tomorrow. I’d love to go to Pashupatinath and see the festival but am not too psyched about risking my camera amidst flying water and “color”. Not sure yet what form the color takes but if the Indian TV ads for cosmetics are any indication there are super-soakers full of thick orange and pink and yellow stuff flying everywhere. If I do go, I’m pretty sure the camera will be tucked safely away in a ziplock bag so expect no pics.

Also in the neighborhood I saw market stalls selling big hunks of Himalayan Salt (shown in the second pic) like the ones they make lamps out of. My friend and Bhutan travel partner, Susan, gave me one of these salt lamps for my birthday and I absolutely love it. Should you want want of these lovely lamps for your very own you can visit her shop, breathe books, in Baltimore where she sells them along with tons of stuff she brought home from India and Bhutan.

The rest of my trip, I fear, will be pretty dull to read about (as if you’ve been on the edge of your seat wondering if I ate a heart stopping amount of butter for breakfast). I mostly have planned a dress fitting (the first fitting left me less than enthused about the chinese style dress I had made - still hoping he can make it fit better), more alfresco dining (peanut masala at the tibet guesthouse courtyard is my lunch plan), and more shopping. There is just too much good stuff to buy in Kathmandu (red-heart beads from Nagaland, wooden Buddha statues, Tibetan door hangings, more varieties of incense than you can shake a stick at) and who knows when I’ll get back here again.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu, Nepal. March 13, 2006 at 1 p.m.

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