Happy Friday from the Kumari Inn in Kathmandu

March 03, 2023

Happy Friday from the Kumari Inn in Kathmandu

I just re-read yesterday's blog post and was embarrassed by the number of typos. That entry was almost 24 hours ago, and considering how travel-weary and bleary-eyed I was at that time, maybe I should have expected even more typos?

My Nepal airlines flight finally departed Delhi, but it had an even further delay announced by the pilot after nearly everyone was onboard. He said that we were further delayed because they were looking for some un-boarded passengers who were duty-free shopping. I had never heard that reason for a delay before!

Here I am onboard. I had an empty seat next to me.

Dr. Kafle had a driver, Krishna, waiting to take me to the Kumari Inn. I sped through immigration and customs and soon Krishna was driving me around the ring road. At that time of night (11:30PM), there was hardly any traffic, but there were police speed-reduction barriers about every 1/8 mile. I paid Krishna double what Dr. Kafle had promised him ($12/$24) since he had to wait so long for my flight. I was in bed at the Kumari Inn by midnight. I was asleep in moments.

And then my alarm went off at 5:15AM so I could attend a zoom meeting of the organization that now has the new contract for the weekend military dental work I have been doing this past year. That took an hour (nothing interesting or new to me). Simultaneously, I was logged into a 5:45AM dental CE offered by the Dallas County Dental Society (multi-tasking). Then I went back to sleep for an hour before going downstairs for my usual breakfast.

I had a 9:45AM phone chat with the two Dentsply reps that I will be working with for an April 21 CE gig in Riverside CA. Then I did some work on my computer.

It was 69 degrees when I left for a walk around 11:00AM. Beautiful weather. The primary purpose of my walkabout was to find an ATM to reload my wallet with Nepali Rupees. Google maps showed me a Nabil Bank location just 12 minutes walking from the Kumari Inn. I have my Nepal bank account with Nabil bank. Because I got lost several times, it probably took me 45 minutes to find it. The streets here are not straight, nor in any grid pattern. And the Google map doesn't reflect the steep hills I had to walk up. Along one dead-end, I saw this establishment. A very "on-the-nose" name.

This is just a city view from my walk.

I arrived at the bank, but didn't see an ATM. I was looking around inside the bank lobby and I could tell the security guard was watching me closely. Then a bank employee approached me and inquired about my banking needs. I suspect that he is the designated English-speaker. He took me back outside to the parking lot, down the hill to the back-side lower level of that building where tucked away in a corner, he showed me this ATM.

I withdrew 20,000NR (about $150US), and then I started my walk back. This is a typical "shop" that sells snacks and such. These are literally everywhere.

I saw these cows. It looks like they are probably milked.

I saw this skinny white cat, which I took as a symbol of good luck.

I stopped at a snack store and sw this unusually-labelled electric toothbrush. It says, "Clean Nursing Brush" and "Through the NEW of USA."

Next I stopped at the Cups Cafe, where I enjoyed a good cup of coffee and ordered chicken sekuwas , chicken soup, and baked potato with cheese. The sekuwas were super spicy-- I only ate 3 small pieces. The chicken soup was actually really good, but it was a huge bowlful. I maybe ate 3/4 of it. It was like a really good cream of chicken soup with lots of small chunks of baked chicken in it. When I ordered the potatoes, the waiter asked if I wanted them spicy. I said "NOT spicy." The potatoes were like potato nachos. with wedges of baked or broiled (or air-fried?) potatoes covered with a melted white cheese. The cheese really had no flavor -- definitely not cheddar. I was'nt suoper hungry, so I porbably only ate 5 or 6 wedges. They weren't bad, just blah.