Today I saw the mountains for the first time since being here!! I don't know why I haven't seen them before, maybe it was too foggy, or I've been driving in the dark... But today, after having breakfast at Gaia and meeting up with Michael and his two friends Anthony and Joel, we drove to DNC, and I saw them!! Just peeping over the tops of the distant hills, there they were, they snowy peaks of the mountains!! It made me smile a lot. In pokhara next week we'll see a LOT more mountains, which I'm very excited about!! I miss always having the mountains in view...
On our way to DNC, we had to stop on the side of the road to let a parade/demonstration pass (all to do with the elections of course...). And then we stopped at Kagendra - the Nepali Disabled Association, specifically the spinal injury unit. Michael showed us around the place for about a half hour, and we met a lot of people, mostly in wheelchairs. There was this one man called Krishna who was in a car accident in Malaysia a few years ago, and snapped his spine by his neck. So now he's a quadriplegic (I think that's the right word...) - paralysed from the shoulders down. However, even though he spends the majority of his day in bed attached to a bladder tube and being fed through straws and by other people, he is one of the happiest men I have ever met!! He knows EVERYTHING about everything... Michael just needs to ask him a simple question about one of the parents or the management at the unit, and Krishna replies with a lengthy answer. He also talks. A lot. He keeps asking questions, and just chatting away about something or another...
After we visited the unit, we drove 5 minutes up the road to DNC. When the gates were opened, the kids all rushed to the balconies to see who it was, then as we got out, we heard "hello Mary miss, hello Michael sir" being shouted from the bottom to the top of the building!! The kids that could, rushed down and hugged us, and I was pulled upstairs, leaving Michael to show Anthony and Joel around the building. I gave the girls their henna, and worked out they could all have one tube each, with 2 left over for them all to share. There's 16 girls (not all of them there at the time), and I bought 18 tubes of henna/mahendi. They were all delighted with their mahendi, and started decorating immediately!! All of them were doing beautiful and intricate designs, amazing!! I sat down by the tv with them as they did it. The time went so quickly, sitting and chatting to them, taking lots of pictures!!
We set back off to Thamel at around 5.30ish, apparently there's a strike tonight at 8, but there's no lack of sound around the hotel now, and it's way gone 8pm!! But then again, Thamel never stops...
The taxi dropped up back at Gaia, and I was craving a dal bhat, so I found a small cafe called the "meet and greet cafe" down a back road where they do a full set dal bhat for 200rps (about £1ish), and it's very good!! I was the only person there apart from the 2 cooks, the waiter, and the manager. But it was nice!!
I then went back to my hotel, and had a lovely hot shower, which to my sutures and disappointment had to be cut short, as the water started turning cold!! My worst nightmare...
Got out of the shower straight into my pjs, and talked to Liam and checked he has everything for his flight over here!! He's leaving tonight I'VE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED IN MY LIFE!!!!!!! This time tomorrow he'll be here, safe, hungry, and tired!!