The Bark Side of The Moon

Morning readers. I don't think I'll tire of Kathmandu, but I'm certainly tired in Kathmandu. Thamel  is not a place for relaxation and long lie ins. 

I wish there was a way of conveying the noise and hubbub of the city as it wakes up, but I think the best way for you to discover for yourself would be to fall asleep slightly drunk with your head in a metal oil drum and ask a willing friend or volunteer to wake you by hitting it very hard with a metal baton, shouting and playing 'om mane padme hum' on a slightly distorted radio at volume 13. There you'd be about halfway there. Add the smell of incense, slightly festering turds, chai, coffee, frying yak cheese and urine and you could almost be here.

Last night we had the pleasure of a dog discovering that if it barked at 4am it echoed across the tightly packed buildings. It may have thought it was talking to another dog, and it's probably the only time it hears another dog bark as the noise of humanity never drops below a roar from 8am to 1am. Anyway, this conversation with itself lasted nearly half an hour. The same pattern of barking, over and over, amplified by the echo and sounding very much like a stuck CD of some bizarre 1970s birthing ritual. Remember whale songs on LP?

Fortunately I wasn't woken up by the cement mixer til about 0715, so it didn't disturb the sleep pattern too much. The hotel owner and the builder next door had a shouting match and they seemed to agree that mixing cement is definitely an early morning job and he would crack on only more enthusiastically than before. 

Today I think I'll run the risk of the taxi dudes and go up to the monkey temple, which has still escaped me. They've all got the best taxi, and at least 6 of them can tell me London is very nice, although they're not sure about Richmond, or indeed Putney. Nor do they understand 'generally London is a shithole.' Very nice, very nice.

As nowhere has an address as such meeting people is a bit random, but I'm hoping to hook up with Phil later and see if we can work some plans out, he's off to Pokhara tomorrow. I'm just hoping he's ok, and not a guy I saw the other night being a bit of a plum in one of the bars with some poor Dutch girls.

So my two hash browns have arrived, on the obligatory two plates... Very nice, best hash sir. And if it's any consolation, readers, it's cold here today, maybe only 20 degrees. Might have to dig out the fleece and trousers.

And as I sign off I leave you with the interesting vision of a man on a bike towing a wooden cart onto which are strapped various pieces of fly ridden yak meat, and an open milk churn of blood. Burger anyone? Very best beef, deliver very fresh....