See Emily Prey

This afternoon was spent hanging out within sprinting range of known toilet sites. I guess after a while anywhere you let your guard drop and maybe drink some iced chai where the waters not to so good, or the salads been washed in the family toilet. I knew it would happen at some point, and I'm sure once we get up to Ngozgumba things will get worse, 15000ft up and no sanitation. You dont get excitement like that at Chessington World of Adventures.

Anyway the sickness went as quick as it came on, so took the edge off with a beer and the guys at Northfields took 10% off the bill and gave me a ticket in Nepali that apparently gets me 40% off breakfast at a place in Laizupat, so I'll probably mooch up there in the morning. Breakfast for a quid, I'm in. As long as there's no queues. I don't queue for breakfast. Or information. 

The approach to religion seems weird here, you find centuries old shrines stuffed in Walls behind all sorts of rubbish. The Hindu ones you notice because they're smeared with orange paint, and people touch their heads as they pass.

The Buddhist shrines are ostentatious really, they have socking great bells they ring which makes it suprising anything remains standing within a radius of a few hundred metres. Including me.

As we move up country we'll pass into Sherpa country and find the gompas of the Tibetan branch of Buddhism. Like alpine mountain communities they use horns that make vuvuzelas look like recorders, except here it's not to communicate it's to announce worship. God forbid if the world cup ever comes here. Or Buddha forgive. 

There's a surprising amount of interaction with the locals in the nightlife, the American girls seem to love these Nepali guys, when my experience of India was totally the opposite. Obviously they know im unavailable, so they make do eoth the locals. There's one girl called Emily who I've seen in no end of cafes and bars with a succession of Nepalis. I'm guessing she's from Alabama or somewhere and she's letting her hair down, as well as her knickers, before heading back to the bible belt to marry Judd, watch NASCAR and eat grits. 

Found the climbing wall at last, might swing by tomorrow, it's only 300 NR to play all day plus 350 NR to hire the gear, and a few rupees for a fella to belay you. They say it's the biggest wall in Nepal, but I've seen photos of the Lhotse Wall, and I'm sure the one here isn't 7500m, if it is I'd have seen it when we spent 30 minutes stacked waiting to land. 

So homesickness came and went, I'm pretty settled into this lark now, but I miss the guys back home. 

Fortunately the rickshaw injury isn't too bad, I'm lucky enough to have incredibly powerful calf muscles, and Bijay is probably at whatever the local equivalent of Zaschys is (remember them Ely folk) having his badly buckled wheel straightened. 

Tommorrow, the monkey temple. Did I mention that place already?