old blog, new blog

this blog is at an end. but despair not.... ontheroad continues in its new incarnation as the creatively named and inspirational ontheroad2; to be found by typing the following magic vowels and consonants combination in the url line of your browser: andthefatewasso.blogspot.com or by clicking or tapping on your touchpad the hyperlink itself. by performing any one of these two actions, you will again be transported into the continuing adventures of yours truly in the world at large. if this paragraph seems a little pedantic, you can pat yourselves on the back: it is. i just wanted to pad it out a little bit to bring this blog to a close with more than just a hyperlink to click on.

again, feel free to comment, criticize, praise, or vomit in my general direction by utilising the comment box at the end of each post. all feedback will be gratefully acknowledged. thanks again for taking the time to read the blog... if at least one person finds something good from it, then i'm not writing it in vain.

jinan

the security guys at the shenzhen west train station scrutinized my ticket before letting me through into the station building. next, i got my backpack x-rayed and myself patted down. the waiting hall was organized according to the scheduled train number. i joined the section allocated to my train – seems that you are not allowed onto the platform until the train is there, and then it is straight from the waiting hall onto the train. no wonder that the platforms looked completely deserted as we passed them by on the trip. the train itself was clean and comfortable, but no sign of any snake charmers or tea-wallahs.

on the train, i had two young women sitting opposite heading to weihai and so also getting off at jinan, and a young man going most of the way to jinan. the three of them played cards for most of the time. a version of gin rummy, i think. it was a long way to jinan, about 20 hours or so. we slept as best we could in the seats. the attendants would come round with their trolleys of food and drinks on a regular basis. my companions would buy me pot noodles and fill it up with hot water. of course it tasted very ‘plasticky’ and chemical-like, but better than nothing. i was offered chicken feet too. i tried one. never again.

i was taking the long trip north because i wanted to visit my only chinese connection in china. i knew jing from when we met in chester, at the same digs she was sharing with eliza. she had just got back from her long 4-year adventure in the uk and was happy to hear that i was coming to china. i got a text from her to say that she was going to be passing through qingdao in some days before going home to weihai, and so i decided to stay some days in jinan.

when we arrived at the station, the girls helped me to find an internet place. it was hidden in a dark basement under a restaurant, and full of kids playing computer games. i was waiting for a reply to my couchsurfing requests from jinan, and luckily there was one positive reply, from holly. i tried to phone her but there was no reply. i wrote down the address, and a friend of the girls who had met them at the station tried to help me by telling me how to get a taxi to holly’s place. it was night and jinan looked a bit imposing at this hour... i had no idea about where this place was or how long it would take to get there. i asked if there was a bus going there...  it would be complicated... and the guys must have seen the apprehension on my face and so decided to come with me in a taxi. great! we finally located the building and the guys took me to where the guards were sat in their booth. i tried to phone holly again, and then finally, i got through... the guy talked to her and told me that she would be there in 10 minutes. and then they were gone. i hope i managed to convey my thanks to these great guys who went out of their way to help me.

holly turned out to be a totally cool girl; plus she could speak english very well. which was just as well because my mandarin was non-existent. and she and her mum could cook very well too. i was communicating with her brother with the help of our respective laptops and google translation. she was busy working so had no time to show me around, but she gave me a map and told me some places to check out.

i found the black tiger springs easily enough after getting a bus into the centre. and then ‘food street’ where i was trying different street food and popping into what looked like a popular noodle place. of course i couldn’t read any of the menu items posted on the wall, and just ended up pointing to various dishes that were being eaten by the others sat there. then to the lake and had a peaceful walk around there, a good antidote to the insane amount of traffic on the roads. i went to jinan east train station and managed to book the train ticket to qingdao all by myself. happy about that... just had to show the chinese characters i had copied off google for ‘qingdao’ and ‘jinan east’, and the date and time and train number i had copied from the chinese train schedule website.

the next day, i went shopping for indian spices as i had agreed to cook my, by now trademark,  ‘alu gobi sabji’ dish for holly and her family. jinan was very hot and i was happy to escape the heat by walking through some malls and shops. i got a new camera case to replace the one i'd lost at munger mandhir in vrindavan. casually window shopping at the laptops and pcs, i was besieged by the young salespeople. they were all keen to get me to buy their computers. a small feeling of celebrity came over me. in the end, i felt obliged to look at all the different marks, from apple to lenova to samsung.

later, i found what looked like a fast-food restaurant with free wifi. i went inside and it was completely deserted except for the staff who were casually sitting at the tables chatting with each other. when they saw me, i think they were a little shocked because it took them a little time to react and get to their positions behind the tills and in the kitchen. surprised at getting a customer? or surprised at seeing a strange foreigner? or both?! of course, i was obliged to order something... again i just pointed to the picture of what looked like fried noodles. it looked expensive and the food when it came was not very delicious! no wonder this place was empty, but at least i got to use their wifi for free and escape the heat.

back at holly’s place, i started to cook. by the time i was finished, we were joined by some of her friends and another couchsurfer. it was a successful evening, and i was glad to have repaid some of the hospitality. i got the bus early the next morning to the train station and awaited my next adventure.

welcome to china: shenzhen

i took the metro to one of the two points to cross into mainland china by metro: lo wu. loads of people on a saturday so a bit of a wait to get through hong kong immigration. then the walk to the chinese side. entry form duly completed and presented with passport to the chinese clerk at immigration, and i’m in china. first thing i do is buy a sim card. the shenzhen metro system is right by the exit from the subterranean immigration checkpoints.

it’s a long ride to get to the opposite side of shenzhen where my couchsurfing host, van, is living. the directions she gave me by email prove to be good and i find her place, a massive tower block estate called the peninsular – it was popular with the ex-pat community in shenzhen, of which van was one, hailing as she was from the philippines. luckily, i meet her at the entrance door to her block, and she leads me up to her flat. i’m to share the living room couches with her ‘weekend couchsurfer’ kim. it was a nice two day stay. i desperately needed to get my washing done! van’s two dogs were a bit of a handful, and me and kim took a turn to walk them around the peninsular block one time.

kim turned out to be a dab hand at cooking and rustled up some quick and easy meals for us. he was a traveller too and second generation immigrant from china to australia. he had done his ‘roots trip’ and found out some interesting stuff about his family and ancestors at the ancestral village in rural china. he was unconventional and direct in his opinions, but had a warm centre beneath the rough exterior.  he and van took me to the train station to help get a ticket to jinan. they also invited me for a session at the peninsular swimming pool, a welcome respite from the heat and humidity. lots of ex-pats there too, and kim was complaining that some of the chinese girls just hung out with the foreigners because they had money. well, maybe some of these balding, middle-aged, overweight and pot-bellied might have had some other endearing characteristic that could have attracted the young pretty chinese girls?

van owned a general convenience store in the estate which did a good business selling to the ex-pat community. she had been in china for a few years now, and her chinese was quite good. i thanked her for her hospitality and left to get the bus to near the train station.

i had been in china before, in beijing for a week, but it still took me by surprise. i hadn’t seen much of shenzhen but i already got the feeling of the tremendous amount of construction and labour that was being utilized to build the new china. there were lots of tower blocks in construction, with cranes jutting the skyline everywhere. it felt intimidating, and with the massive language barrier, i was not feeling so comfortable. it wasn’t really a culture shock, just a general unease at the immenseness of it all. still, it was early days.

hong kong

by the time i had worked out that i needed to get the a12 bus, the sunset was fast approaching. in the far distance in the direction of downtown, storm clouds were brewing. the airport was some way away from hong kong island, and we crossed a couple of amazing bridges. then the skyscrapers began to appear on the horizon, with the dock-side cranes. it went under the tunnel from the kowloon side of the mainland to hong kong island itself. the image of the skyscrapers and the impending storm reminded me of the dark broody atmosphere of the futuristic cityscape which was the backdrop to bladerunner.

i decided to get off one stop after my intended one, just to see the skyline of kowloon from causeway bay. it was a mistake. the bus went past and then some more. the driver noticed i hadn’t got off and asked where i wanted to go. causeway bay, i told him. he shook his head. no, you’ll have to go right the way back at the next stop, he told me. i then told him that my real destination was queens street east and he kindly told me where to go to catch a tram in that direction. as i wandered about, i found the metro line and worked out where to go, and just as i was arriving at the sikh temple, it began to bucket down. lady luck was looking out for me once more.

hong kong was hot and humid. it was also an expensive place to stay, i was told. my mission here was to get a visa for china. bodash had suggested that i try a travel/visa agent here.... he had had got a 3 month visa from here, applied and received the same day and so no need to stay overnight. i had found the sikh temple by a quick google search when i was in nepal, and their website mentioned that there was accommodation available for short-term stays for tourists. i asked for the manager of the temple and told him my plan, and asked if it was ok to stay for a few nights.

fortunately, there a was a bed free in one of the rooms and i got introduced to the other occupant. prashant was in hong kong to do a cisco computing exam, and was due to leave the next afternoon. i told him he could come with me and we could take a look around kowloon together after i got my visa stuff done and before he had to take his flight back to india. he showed me where to get dinner - the langar provided the usual temple fare of chappattis and dhal and sabhji.

so the next day, we were up early. we took the star ferry over to kowloon to get to the visa agents place. the woman at the office there asked me what type of visa i wanted and got me to complete one sheet of an application form, i got my photo taken with a blue background, and i got a receipt. she told me to come back at 6 that evening. we wandered around kowloon for a while before arriving back at the ferry terminal to take the ferry back across to hong kong island. the weather was still heavily overcast and threatening to be stormy, and so hot and humid.

when we got back to the temple, (again just before the heavens parted), i told prashant the cheapest option to get to the airport: a metro to tung chung station and then a shuttle bus from there to the airport. i helped him with his luggage to central station and we said our goodbyes. i went back across on the ferry to pick up my passport with the chinese visa. i paid $680 hong kong dollars for this very efficient service.

back on hong kong island, at central station metro, i heard my name being called. i looked around. i heard it again and saw where it was coming from. and then i recognised him. “oh my god, i’d never thought i’d see you here!”, he was exclaiming. he was genuinely shocked. i was just pleasantly surprised to see him - this sort of thing was happening to me on a regular basis. i had first met ritchie when we were both teaching at ef language school in bournemouth. he was my neighbour at the digs the school had provided for the teachers for the summer teaching session. we had a chat for a while – he was a teacher at a primary school, settled in quite nicely, good social life – and then he had to go meet his friend.

back at the temple, i discovered that prashant had taken the key to the room with him. it was my fault – i had given him back the key, even though gurmail had seen us make the handover, so that he could take his luggage from the room and forgot to ask for it back. damn. gurmail wasn’t happy when i told him. he made me wait half-an-hour whilst he was finishing with what he was doing before looking for a spare key. luckily, there was another, but for sure i would have to pay something to get another one cut.

in the end, i decided to leave the next morning. i got back the deposit from gurmail minus something for the key. i thanked him for letting me stay at the temple, bowed down in front of the holy book as is customary at a sikh temple, and left to get the metro.

back to kathmandu

unfortunately, the yellow guest house was full, but after asking at half-a-dozen other places, we found a room at annapurna lodge. i needed to book a ticket to hong kong, and luckily, the nepal airlines office was not far away. i waited for it to open at ten, and then made a reserved booking as i didn’t have all the money with me. the guy said i needed to have receipts for the money when i came later to pick up the ticket. oh shit! i had thrown out all my atm receipts in pokhara!

i went to take some money out, but only half the total amount for the ticket as i already had the other half. i went back with the atm receipt but the finance clerk wanted to see receipts for the whole amount. i tried to explain to the first ticket clerk that i had thrown out my original receipts. he was sympathetic but insisted that i had to provide receipts for the whole amount as the rules were quite strict. typical government bureaucracy. oh shit!

what to do, there was no way i wanted to take out the money just to get the receipt to buy the ticket that i already had the whole amount for. and then a plan began to hatch... i would go around all the standard chartered bank atms and pick up the receipts from the bins placed there. the receipt i had did not show a bank account number so i had assumed that the others wouldn’t either. wrong! all the others showed the last four digits of the bank account. now i was in trouble! they would guess that that was not my account. unless... yes, i found two that had the total approximately to what i needed to show, but with different account numbers. so now i had three receipts in total. they were a bit scrunched up and i tried my best to smooth them out.

so with eva in tow the next morning, i went to the nepal airlines office with my heart pounding. there was a different finance clerk there that morning, he looked much more serious. heart pounding some more. he looked at the receipts and didn’t look happy. i tried to stay calm and not say anything. he went to one of the girls at the booking desks to look at the computer screen. he then shows me the receipts and says that there are different accounts. “yes”, i said, "that one is from my current account, and these two are from my savings account”. he didn’t look happy, and then he asks for my bank card. the game is up now, i thought. i could pretend not to have it, of course, but that won’t help me. i take out the card that i had used to get the money out and gave it to him. he gives it to the girl and she duly types the number of the card (i presume) on the keyboard. his expression hasn’t changed as he gives the card back.

he invites me back to where we were sitting before and staples the receipts to his log and places it in his drawer. then he counts all the rupees, places them in the drawer, and then stamps the printout of the ticket, staples it to a nice nepal airlines ticket wallet and hands it to me. i scrutinize the ticket to check that all the details are correct. “what’s the luggage allowance i'm allowed”, i ask nonchalantly, trying to take his mind off the discrepancy about the receipts. he answers my questions, i have my ticket, and eva and i are walking out of the office with big smiles!!

mission ticket complete, i can relax a bit. we tramp around thamel and durbar square a while. time comes to get the flight one morning. eva's flight was later than mine and so i left her sleeping in the room. my aversion to taxis and taxi drivers means that it is an hour’s walk in the early morning to the airport. my pack is small and light so i don’t stress it. the usual security checks, and after the chaotic scenes at the check-in, i get my boarding pass. 

immigration is easy and the flight is routine. nice views of the distant snow-capped mountains - maybe everest? - after take-off, and nice views of the islands around hong kong as we come down the stack approaching the runway. hong kong airport is a different world from the one i’ve just left. everything goes very smooth and eventually i am in the arrivals halls using the airport's free wifi to find the cheapest way to get to downtown.

pokhara

the road to pokhara through the mountains was supposed to be a scary one, but it turned out to be one of the better bus journeys i had ever taken. the tourist bus drivers take it a little bit more easy than the local buses and the minivans - i heard that they were worse. we stopped at a couple of 'tourist' restaurant places - like lambs to the slaughter, we were served the usual overpriced fare. and fast food for sure - we had barely gulped down our last morsel of chow mein before the bus was revving its engine signalling it was time to go. it didn't help that all the tourist buses chose the same two restaurants to stop at.

arriving at pokhara tourist bus station, we were immediately besieged by the taxi drivers.  yanti had mailed me to say that she and maike were at jasmin guest house. none of the taxi drivers knew where jasmin guest house was. north side of the lake, i added. still no idea. they kept asking me for the business card of the guest house. i kept telling them that i didn’t have one... how could i if i had never been there before!

in the end, we went with the first taxi in the queue, the driver saying that he would ask for the hostel when we reached the centre of lakeside. when we got there, he asked a few people but had no luck. what sort of taxi driver was this?!! we decided to get out and try and find it ourselves on foot. and not pay this joke of a taxi driver. we were surrounded by the mob of taxi drivers he had tried to ask directions. one of them got aggressive, saying that we had to pay him. ira was clear that he would get nothing. he said he would get us to the guesthouse and he failed. why should we pay him?

the aggressive driver was threatening to get the police. so get them, shouted ira, walking off with nata. our driver was holding onto me by the rucksack, and i knew they would be trouble if we didn’t pay him. i talked with the girls and ira gave him 50 rupees, trying to put it in his pocket. he was having none of it. 150 was the agreed price. she threw it at him. the atmosphere was getting more menacing. a couple of foreigners had stopped and were asking if we needed help. in the end, i gave him the rest of the money, and ira threw an empty water bottle at him.

walking off, we could hear the bastards laughing behind us. ira turned around and shouted some abuse at them, but i diplomatically urged her to keep walking away. we found a travel agent place to take five. it doubled as an internet point and i tried to see if yanti had replied to the emails i had sent her saying that we would be coming to pokhara and could she give the directions to jasmin guest house. no luck. we decided to keep walking and met the guys who had asked if we needed help. we asked if they knew where jasmin guest was. yes, it’s about 200m down the road!! the guy said that he had asked if we needed help because he had run-ins with the pokhara taxi mafia before: “they are fucking bastards, all of them. all other nepalis are fantastic, except them!!”

yanti and maike were not home and the guys there said it was full in any case. we went to try another place but it was likewise full. then we found one guy offering a place to stay... we followed him to what looked a newly built hotel. it was modern and clean and had hot water showers and three beds in the room...  free wifi and the price of 400 rupees was great too! we took it. we took walks around the lakeside and swimming; and another day, negotiating with a boat mafia operative (one 10-year old kid with a small table on the river bank as his office) to hire a boat for the day. we rowed over to the other side and met some local kids and their goats. again, more swimming for the girls, they were natural fishes!

we eventually met up with yanti and maike and had a nice music session with them outside their room at jasmin guesthouse. and we found out that bodash (from paradise beach) was also in pokhara, and he was into paragliding. he had all the gear for doing tandem jumps too! we went to visit him where he was staying at nirvana guest house. unfortunately, he told us that there were issues involved with him and the local paragliding outfits... as he had no permits, he had been banned from doing tandem jumps from the sarangkot jumping-off place.

the girls decided to take a commercial jump for $90 each. while they were doing that, i decided to walk up to sarangkot from lakeside. i found the trail and the steps leading up there... i was well out of shape, stopping many times to catch my breath. it was a steep climb, and at the village, there were more steps to take before the viewing platform. of course, the guy there was collecting a fee. i lied that i had no money. i wanted to tell him that i shouldn’t need to pay to look at the nature. i could understand that the village would use this money to maintain the viewing platform and support the village school, etc. etc., but they could do it on a donation basis.

it was a disappointing view... the clouds had rolled in and covered the view of the distant snow-capped mountains of the famed annapurna range. and when i got back down, the girls told me it had been a disappointing paraglide, just 20  minutes and no snow-capped mountain view for them either. they had booked a rafting trip and an onward bus journey to kathmandu together before going back to moscow, and so we parted company the next day. it meant i had to look for another place to stay. i left my gear at jasmin g.h. and took my sleeping bag and mat, planning to stay the night outside there in time to see the view of the mountains at sunrise, the best time. i took the bus up there and found a place to sleep at the paragliding take-off place. and the next morning, i walked up the steps to the viewing platform again, and a beautiful view of the mountains with the magical sunrise light.

i went with maike to visit bodash when i got back down as he had an appointment for a tandem jump with him. as they were waiting for the best time to go, i asked the daughter of the guest house owner, om, if they had a room available. i was in luck. i decided to go up to sarangkot with the guys to see them jump. we got a taxi there and arrived there late in the afternoon when they would not be any more jumpers. bodash was defying the ban put on him and they were lucky as the wind was good and no-one waiting to jump. from laying out the ‘wing’ and flying was less than 10 minutes, as i watched the eagles fly around them as they flew off in the direction of lakeside. i came back down with the bus.

one time, i took the bus to begnas tal. it was a beautiful clear day and the mountains were looking especially great. machhapuchre (the fishtail) mountain with its triangular peak was prominent on the skyline. i walked up the road around the lake and hitched a lift to the top of the hill where the guy had said that there was a nice temple and a good view over the lake. he was right, and the woman who opened up the temple for me didn’t ask me for any money! a first! i got a last view of macchapuchre before the clouds rolled in down the valley.

i walked to the end of the paved road and then took the dirt road continuing around the lake. the road was going up and up and more away from the lake. there weren’t many people but most gave me some friendly smiles which i returned. some houses here and there and beautiful photogenic terraces, and some farmers tilling the soil with ox and plough. the place had an other-worldly and serene feel. it was a welcome antidote to lakeside in pokhara. i wish i had bought my sleeping bag and tent and camped there for the night as i had originally intended to do when bodash first told me about this place.

i walked back to the road and the local bus going to pokhara was passing by. it was full but i managed to hang on by the open door side with the others hanging on there. it was hard work as the bus swung one way and then the other as it went around the windy road. i was sure that it was going to topple over and crush me under it or go over the side of the hill. before we had even reached the temple at the top of the hill, i jumped off... at least i  managed to get most of the way up the hill without walking. i got back to the start of the road where a local begnas tal - pokhara bus was ready to leave.

and then one day, bodash asks if i want to fly. i was hoping he would ask as i had been not exactly pestering him sometimes about it. the weather looked good and we took a taxi up to sarangkot. walking to the jump-off place, bodash with this massive big rucksack with all the gear on shouts out “oh fuck!” bad news. we have a back wind, meaning absolutely no chance to take-off. we wait a while to see if it would change but no luck. we go to the other take-off place but again no luck. nothing for it but to go back down. of course we miss the last bus going back and have to walk to the nearest house/shop where they call a taxi for us. disappointing day.

we try again the next day around the same time but we miss the early bus. in between waiting for the next bus, we get to an internet place for me to check my mail. i had applied for a teaching english post in china and put that i was available for a skype interview in these days. i got a reply: interview scheduled for today in one hour’s time. the place didn’t have headphones or mic so we got a local bus to another place. finally i got the connection and got the interview done. had to rush it at the end so that we could get back to the bus station and take the bus back up to sarangkot.

we had decided to try a different place to take-off, at thorepani, and got off the bus there. but bodash doesn’t have a good feeling about it, and so we walk down back to sarangkot. just as we arrive at the steps going to the take-off place, the bus going down stops and a nepali guy gets off, immediately goes up to bodash and starts ranting at him about someone being injured doing a tandem jump at midnight, that he was banned from jumping at sarangkot, that he will report him etc. etc. bodash tells him that he doesn’t jump from here, and we are instead walking to thorepani.  “oh thorepani, that’s ok”, he says and goes off.

well, that was that. no more flying from sarangkot. we walk up the road and decide to find the place where bodash stayed before for the night. we found the woman and she opened up the two rooms for us, we dumped the paragliding gear there and walked up to the ridge to have a look at the mountains at sunset. a beautiful sunset and nice views all around. we walked back to the ‘hotel’ where the woman who rented out the rooms had prepared dhal bhat for us, the ubiquitous nepali dish. it was delicious.

the next morning, we got up before sunset and went again to the ridge to see the sunrise light on the mountains. beautiful. and we hadn’t paid a rupee for the privilege.  we went back to the rooms and collected the gear. we had decided to walk to a different take-off at madredhunga, further away but possibly better. bodash had not jumped from there either. i agreed to carry some of the weight as it would be a tough trek up the mountainside. and so it proved, but finally we reached the take-off place with its tell-tale windsock.

it had taken us about an hour. we rested and waited for the thermals. bodash was watching the eagles and seeing where they were catching the thermals. no backwind this time, so perfect conditions. just needed some good thermals this time. so then, it was time to go. i wore the harness and put on the bicycle helmet. bodash laid out the wing on the ground and tested the lines by raising it into the air.  once it was done, he attached his harness to mine and reminded me to just keep running. “ready?” “ready”. i couldn’t see it but he pulled the wing up and turned to face the cliff. “go!” i started running. we were up in the air almost immediately but i kept ‘running’ and then we were clear of the mountainside. wow, what a feeling. i got comfortable in the harness with my feet dangling over the edge. and the adrenalin was still coursing through my veins.

we saw the eagles on the thermal. “look, they are showing us the way”, said bodash. i got out the camera although i was a bit nervous to let go of the strappings. but it was ok and i was glad to have taken some pics. we were turning circles in the air to keep in the thermal but although we were getting some lift, we were also coming down, the result being that we didn’t stay up too long. we saw the kids shouting at us from the roadside and saw the amazing terraces and lake phewa way down below.

finally we had to come down and bodash chose a place near the river in the valley. it looked like we were coming down quite fast but it was a soft landing as my legs gave way from under me and i collapsed in a heap on the pebbles. i tried to get up but it was difficult, but bodash managed to unclip the harness. wow, a great half an hour of flying experience - thanks bodash!! a couple of local kids ran up to help us fold the wing back up and stash all the gear back into the backpack, and we waited for the bus back to sedi bagar and nirvana guest house.

another time, i went with a canadian traveller to the buddhist stupa on the opposite mountainside of the lake. i had met him when his hired motorbike had broken down and i had helped to get it going again. we met up again early one morning and rode up to the stupa. there were some steps to the top, but the view of the annapurna range was amazing once more.

on the way back, we were riding along the road and there was a 4x4 coming from the opposite direction, waiting to turn right into a side road. only he didn’t wait, he started to turn. we managed to swerve around him, as he rolled down his window and starts shouting something not nice in nepalese at us. i was mad as hell, he could have caused us to come off and worse, and i started shouting back at him and giving the middle finger salute.

but then as we are driving along, a car is sounding its horn at us. i tell the canadian to pull over a bit to let it pass. but as the jeep comes up alongside, i realize it’s the guy who had nearly caused the accident. too late, he forces us off the road and we have to stop. “keep driving, keep driving”, i shout, knowing that this guy hasn’t come to give us a quick tutorial about the subtleties of nepalese road etiquette. but the bike has chosen this moment to go into a death spasm. the guy is already out of his jeep and coming round the front to confront us. i can see that he is built like a brick shit-house, with weightlifter muscles bulging out of his t-shirt. i’m still waiting for the bike to start, almost praying that we will escape at the last moment once again. but my luck has run out. realising that we are looking to ride off, he grabs at the bike and standing back, throws a punch directly at me. it connects perfectly square on the side of my face as i let out an involuntary scream. the scream has the power to miraculously start the motorbike back to life and we ride off down the road with me holding a hand to my face and looking back at this guy standing in the middle of road like arnie from terminator.

now i am really fucking mad and losing it big time. reason has just taken a big flying leap out of the window as i am getting the canadian guy to turn around on the bike and find this guy again. but sometime during these few minutes, reason comes crawling back inside again and the red mist fades, and we turn around once more and head again to lakeside. “why didn’t he hit me, i was the one who was driving?” the canadian asked later. “i was the one who gave him the finger, and besides, you had a helmet on”, i replied. nepalese road rage. the pain lasted for a week or more, although i was lucky that i had no black bruises. moral of the story – always wear a motorbike helmet when riding! just kidding. moral of the story - don't even think about getting angry even though others are trying their level best to kill you.

nirvana guest house wasn’t without its resident evil, aka om, the owner. he had a drink problem and would come in the evenings and harass the guests. he harassed the two portuguese girls so much that they left without paying, telling me later that they would pay later and then only to his wife. of course, for the ones left behind, it only exacerbated the situation. he demanded that we pay him the rent up front so he could pay the bills... we were sure it was to pay for his alcohol habit.

i tried to talk to him one evening and managed to persuade him to change his mind. i also got him to acknowledge that maybe the all night drinking sessions were not a good idea. my neighbour eva and i were in any case leaving soon as we had booked our tickets for the tourist bus back to kathmandu. she had a plane, actually 3, to catch to get back home to finland. maike and yanti had had a domestic and so i had a farewell meal with only maike at one of the restaurants. and having said our farewells to bodash, eva and i hitched a ‘road maintenance crew’ truck to lakeside centre before a taxi to the bus station. eva met her friend who was also coincidentally taking the bus, and he told of a place to stay on freak street in kathmandu.