Feb 25 – 27

Daily life in Kathmandu: I have taken off my trekking shoes for a few days to take care of some trek planning, catch up on correspondence, and get some writing done. Daily life in Kathmandu is now an exercise in familiarity, in part because my habits are so regular: waking early, checking the news or sometimes even watching it, if the hotel electricity happens to be on (there is no clear pattern to the daily outages that I can discern, and the only Internet site that I have found which lists it is written in Nepali). Morning coffee and writing at the Himalaya Java–2$ omelette, 1$ coffee, take that Starbucks– followed by midday running errands, a quiet late afternoon and dinner, usually at the New Orleans cafe.

I am a familiar face in those haunts and so am greeted warmly. Also I’ve met a number of expats who follow a similar pattern– interesting folks all. It is a narrow form of living, but for now, comfortable and productive. Soon enough I’ll be back in the wilds of the Himalayas.