Last Day in Nepal

Well today is my last day here. My plane leaves tomorrow morning at 9, and the journey takes me to Doha, London, Montreal and home. I am happy to be going home, but pleased as well that I had the opportunity to work here on this project. There are some things that I will miss – the exotic flavour of the city, the very pleasant staff, the ready access to inexpensive restaurants. There are other things that I won’t miss a bit – the bad air quality, the noise of the traffic, the care you have to take with food and water, the coldness of the apartment, and mostly, the being away from everyone at home.
Today was kind of a busy day, with everyone scrambling to complete their portions of the final report. We have started having lunch now, realizing that eliminating lunch was not good health-wise. Lunch today was apple slices spread with peanut butter. Rumo, the tea lady, brought me a box of red and gold bangles to wear with my Kurta. She is very sweet. She keeps trying to show me how to wear a scarf, but it is hopeless.

Yesterday when we arrived at the office there was a pigeon flying around. The windows are left open in these buildings, and the pigeon had come in by mistake and trying desperately to get out. On the way to work today there were long long lines of people waiting for gasoline for their vehicles. One line up I saw must have been 2 miles long.

Did I mention that a surprising number of men have red hair? It appears to be compliments of a strange dye job rather than the natural colour. Kind of strange.

Last night we ate at a pizza place in Thamel. It was particularly nice – called Fire and Ice, frequented mostly by foreigners, and a little bit expensive (about $18.00). The pizza was big enough that there were leftovers for breakfast. The coffee there is really the only good coffee I’ve had since arriving.

Tonite the whole team is going to have supper at a nice restaurant called Dhulikels. The owner salvaged a lot of the Newari carvings from buildings being demolished, and incorporated them into the décor for the hotel. Rooms there are very expensive, like over $100, which is really high for Nepal.

So unless something really interesting happens on my journey home, this will be the last entry on my blog. Until the next time I go someplace exciting.