Just like home

Wednesday 3rd October 2012

A jam packed day with meetings with manufacturers all day, exciting to see how things are moving along, but tiring in this heat!  One thing that never grows old is snaking through the narrow streets of Kathmandu between shops, the things you see on the way are amazing, today I saw people worshipping a colourful deity. 

In the evening I was collected from my hotel by Deepak, a friend of mine who speaks fantastic English.  We drove to an upmarket bar called Moksh where they were screening a nepali documentary film called "Journey to Yarsa" which is about a type of fungus (Yarsagumba) which grows on caterpillars, killing and mummifying them.  Each year hundreds of nepali people acquire a permit to head up onto snowy slopes to seek out this fungus, hardly surprising when you consider that it sells for $10,000 a kilo in China! http://www.journeytoyarsa.com One great thing about the screening was you could take drinks and food into the cinema so Deepak and I treated ourselves to a stone baked pizza, it was almost like chilling out at home!  Having had the chance to congratulate the director, Dipendra Bhandari, who presented the screening, we drove back to a small local bar in Thamel for a glass of rakshiya (local rice wine).  I was about to head home when I had a call from some friends I hadn't seen since their amazing wedding four years ago who had read I was in Nepal and happened to be out celebrating in a fancy cocktail bar.  I arrived to find a large group, and, cocktail in hand, the women all headed for the dance floor to strut our stuff.  At the same time I had a call from another friend, Michael, who's been living in Switzerland and has just arrived home to Nepal. As Thamel has a general midnight curfew we had a job to find where to continue the party, but we managed to find a place in the form of Faces, a new bar.  Walking into it was like stepping back into Europe, the whole place is UV with a giant motorcycle as a DJ booth and a huge well stocked bar.  Very, very surreal.  It was the perfect place to hang out and people watch till the early hours.

People worshipping the colourful deity

Michael in his patriotic t-shirt