losing india, gaining nepal

If I must be honest, Teresa and I were pumped to wake up this Tuesday morning knowing it was our last day in India. The heat and noise are far from enjoyable.

We've enjoyed butter chicken, naan and ginger noodles for the past two dinners as well as fresh pomegranates for dessert. Food is good!

We enjoyed our final breakfast. We decided to go out on a limb and try boiled eggs and toast. Our choice did not disappoint.

We were excited to pack up our hotel room (sidebar: one thing I didn't write earlier was we moved rooms 6 or so times). Even after we left some clothes etc...we failed at our attempts to minimize and go home with less. Silly Loyal and Freeset purchases.

We lived the high life and booked an Uber trip to the airport. This driver was a wee bit aggressive: too much so. We did get there safely so that's a plus. The airport and hour and a half flight were uneventful. It wasn't my favourite flight ever but I managed.

Flying over Nepal made my heart happy: skies were blue and the expanse was green with the exception of the bajillion brightly coloured houses dotting and soon dominating the landscape. It affirmed how much I missed blue skies and greenery.

Travelling to Kathmandu is somewhat hilarious for me. Growing up we had the Sega Master System (a video game system that trumped Nintendo). One of the games we had was, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" Think of older, super pixelated video games. You are given three clues and need to find out where in the world Carmen Sandiego is; the game is a series of destinations throughout the world and you need to figure out where to fly before Carmen leaves that country for a new one. The fewer clues you need, the faster you get there but if you are wrong and fly to a wrong country, you've lost precious time. I think this is where my love of world flags developed as often a clue for a country's flag would be given. Anyhow, I remember Kathmandu often (feels like always) being a destination for Carmen in that wonderful video game, and here I am chasing Carmen Sandiego in real life.

Landing in Kathmandu was also interesting. The interior of the arrivals is dark exposed brick and carpet which we soon realized was very accurately representative of local structures. We needed to get a visa and for this we were ecstatic. Both Teresa and I have this affinity for stamps in our passport. It may be a problem but we prefer to view it as a challenge. The fact that we'd get WHOLE page covered with our Nepal visit was as exciting as watching a soccer player get up off the pitch after an injury.

We filled out the necessary information at the machines. This was funny for me because we had to get our picture taken at the machine but the camera was so low I was kneeling on air. Zach, Nathan and Kyle (well, most of my brothers) shouldn't ever go to Nepal.

We went to pay: it was $25 US. Teresa threw it out there to the Nepali desk guy and asked if they took Canadian: they did. How fun is that? We dug around in our satchels and each found the necessary $35 CDN in our play plastic money and we were off.

We booked a prepaid taxi in the airport. The folks at the booth asked what our plans in Nepal were and we replied honestly: we had no idea. One of them accompanied us outside to our taxi driver and connected us to a travel guide. These cahoots always make me chuckle. Everyone has symbiotic deals and relationships.

The travel guy and the taxi guy drove us to our guest house. When we planned this trip we weren't planning on heading to Nepal, the trekking capital of the world, so we were gear-less. Since we weren't interested in renting, trekking wasn't an option. I love white water rafting: it's one of my favourite things to do in the world. But, at the risk of being a rafting snob, the rapids in Nepal are only class 2 or 3 so I took a pass. Another popular thing to do here is paragliding which I also took a pass on because of previous experience. Sadly, we could not help the travel guy out. Looks like we were going to lay low. This would be a time of reflection away from India where we were itinerary and schedule-less. Our plan was to continue to fly by the seat of our pants, come what may and blow wherever the wind took us.

The wind, in the form of a taxi, took us to a guest house that we had reservations for: the 514 Guest House. Sadly, I can not elaborate on this organization, what their name means or why they're special. We were told by Joel from Loyal to stay here and, without question, we did. It was a lovely place with a private bathroom away from the hustle and dust of the city.  It was quaint, quiet and clean.

A shout out to Nepali bathrooms: at first they kind of weirded me out but the more I used and thought about them, the better they got. They have shower heads in the open, tiled, angled floor bathroom: isn't a sectioned off place. Then when you're done showering you squeegee the floor. So every time you shower, you vacuum and mop the bathroom floor. Genius. The Weening family would have had fewer chores growing up had we only installed Nepali (or a form of broader Asian) showers.

We went to dinner down the road but before we entered we were stoked at being able to finally enjoy (see) a sunset!

Not the best picture, but know that it captures enthusiasm.

We ordered fried chicken, fried and vegetables as well as an order of fish and chips. I also ordered strawberry lemonade which was divine. The added joy? We were able to sit outside on the patio because Kathmandu is bearable temperature-wise! We enjoyed a meal outside without drenching our sweat rags, in fact, we didn't need our sweat rag. While ate there were three gentlemen playing acoustic, base and drums. They did a neat mix of western covers (Jason Mraz, that Sheeran guy and A Great Big World). A spectator made us howl with his shirt: "don't grow up: it's a trap!" All in all, this was a fabulous day. We enjoyed our glimpse of Kathmandu, 514 and eating outside.