Lessons from Nepal #2 (a little out of order) - There is No such thing as being On Time in Nepal.

Alright, so lets try this again.

Charlotte and I are back in kathmandu after an amazing 4 days in Chitwan National Park. Chitwan in in the south of nepal so it was sooooo hot there. it honestly felt like we were in cuba (caliente!!). ps sorry for the lack of punctuation and caps, this computer sucks.

The drive to chitwan is beautiful - its a (supposed) 6hr bus ride up over the mountains and through a bunch of hillside towns and villages. However, our bus ride was far from beautiful and far from 6hrs. after our bus broke down with a flat, exploded tired, we were held up for several hours by village protesters. apparently there'd been an accident there earlier that month and the police hadn't punished anyone so these people were holding up the one and only road to chitwan. FML. We finally go through but were 2 hours late for the white water rafting we were supposed to do. we got on the water finally, and the rafting was fun but nothing too intense. HOWEVER, because we'd been late starting our rafting we missed the bus that was supposed to pick us up to take us the rest of the way to chitwan. shoot. thankfully an RCDP guy was with us because we ended up HITCHHIKING (yes dad, hitchhiking) in the pitch black. we were picked up and the 8 of us RCDP volunteers plus two british dudes we'd picked up on the way travelled the rest of the 2.5hours to chitwan in the back of a pickup truck. haha. only in nepal.
we finally made it to our hotel and drowned our day with some delishious everest beer. the rest of our weekend at chitwan consisted of elephant rides, elephant baths, jungle safaris and LOTS of Diwali partying. the weekend we were there was the end of Diwali and so the village was lit up with singing, dancing and decorations (there were xmas lights everywhere! felt like home!)
one night we went out to a local bar with the guy who works at the hotel and learned some sweeeeeeet bollywood dance moves. the next night this same guy took us to his village where his family and 9 other families were doing this house crawl sort of thing where they danced, drank and sang at one house, and then would start all over again when they moved to the next house! it was very fun.

the whole 5 days was a much needed break from the orphanage. I love the kids, they are great, but the conditions are pretty horrible. Charlotte got the flu bfore we left (shes better now) and was also COVERED in bed bug bites. i was fortunate not to get sick, but have some weird hive rash all over my body. going to chitwan, where it didn't smell like piss and the streets were clean, was great. One of the highlights was definitely the elephant bathing. we got up on an elepahnt (with extreme difficulty...took us like 5 tries), and he walked into the water and after he fell off the trainer got him to lie down and we scrubed him with rocks! these creatures are so cute. they had 4 of us on an elephant at once and meng (the girl from taiwan) could not stay on the elephant to save her life. it had youtube written alllllll over it.

two nights ago we were back in Kalanki at the RCDP hostel and we met these two guys from the US. After dinner we decided to go for a walk and ended up stumbling upon what we thought was a rooftop bar with live music. after walking around trying to figure out how to get up Lane finally scaled some rickaty stairs and removed a padlock from a gate, and opened the door. two Nepalise guys walked by us and we asked "bar?", they said Yes yes come with us! so we followed through this gate and up this steep spiral stair case. when we got to the top you can't imagine our shock. this was no rooftop bar - it was a family's private diwali party!!!! i don't think we ever received a look of "who IS that?" though, because we were immediately welcomed with open arms. we were hugged, tikka'd (the red dot on the forehead), fed food and alcohol and were introduced to EVERY family member. everyone wanted pictures with us, and at the end, we were in the whole family shot. this would be like 4 randoms showing up to the Dea Family Xmas, and inviting them into the family portrait. it was INSANE and sooooooo nice. at the end of the night they smeared red paint on our faces (symbolizes protection i believe) and we looked like mel gibson from gladiator.


it was an amazing night and really showed us how lovely nepali people are. we're back at the orphanage now and back to the hives and bedbugs. we're looking forward to everest A LOT.

One final thing, i have to give a shout out to my pops....HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!

Living in an Itch,
J&C