Wednesday - explore
- I walked through the nearby temples of the nearby Main Square (so Freak St is the most convenient location) ... through crowded .. motor bike allys to Thamel the main tourist area .. plusher than my area .. The area was so big suddenly it was 5pm and I hadn't been to Rudra's office. It took me an hour to get there .. it's behind the old parliament .. dinner.. turns out he's busy setting up a new satellite TV Station which launches in a couple of weeks.
| Thu-Fri-Sat
- More exploring Thamel .. streets and streets of tourist businesses, researching Nepal, internet work. Getting pissed off with all the hassles etc. e.g. I put my laundry in , but instead of using a machine they sewed tags ino every piece which I then had to cut off. .. changed hotel cos of the noisy plumbing and annoying English people.
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Of course it's not long before it begins to piss me off
.. OK the people hassling you like taxi-drivers, rickshaws, streetsellers .. the noisy dog in the hotel, the pathetic bed,
- 1. People driving motorbikes and cars through the crowded allys, that make up most of the streets here, that's just selfish and rude never mind downright dangerous. That justs reflects stupidity in a sensible country people would park up and walk or restrict deliveries to night-time.
- 2. People driving like nutcases - cutting people up, driving on the wrong side of the road etc. .. actually if they drove properly then the traffic would flow and everyone would move faster.
- 3. The bloody power cuts. I would be in the tourist area Thamel using the internet then it's power would be cut. So I would walk through to dark streets over to Durbar where my hotel is , then just as I arrived the power would cut, so I would have to go to bed. Now it seems Thamel has power cut from 6-8pm and Durbar from 7-9pm this is scheduled as a way of reducing power use cos the hydro dams are at low levels. I am not convinced that this is an effective way of reducing consumption as everyone has spent money on battery lights and inefficient diesel generators... it would have been better for the government to have built more efficient booster diesel generators.
- 4. The dusty polluted air, potholed streets.
- 5. Cheapo internet cafes - Most internet cafés are so cheap like 20 an hour, but their crap PCs are so crap one ends up wasting a lot of time... Try one PC the headphones don't work ..Try another ..oops it has a keylogger program running .. try another ..it puts a USB virus on my memory stick etc. etc.
- I've learnt to only use cafes which have Freestate on the machines ie it resets itsef after every user
- 6. Lack of Plumbing - Why is plumbing seen as difficult in some countries ? Instead of spending 20 hours putting in pipes and a tap into a house they spend 100s of hours a year fetching water.
- 7. Disgusting toiletsAnd why have a tap and a bucket for flushing when a push-button flush system likewise saves so much time. Yet no one seems to spend much time keeping the bathroom clean. It seems as if this is seen as another persons jobbrather than your own responsibility
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Sunday- exploring
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- Tried to get up early, I went for a run up past the national museum up to a big hill with an ancient Buddist temple : Sayambhunath. .. bit crap really, ... manky temple, manky view cos of the mist, manky tea etc.
- By the time I got back ..it was time to go to the theatre
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Self Indulgent Drama
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- An Indian show at the theatre festival. He speaks very good English, so I guess he's a spoilt rich kid. It could have been a good storyteller piece with 3 stories, but it was mostly mangled.
- 1. He started by playing a 25 minute video piece. Why show a film, when the audience are expecting a live drama ? It was interesting that it showed footage of police brutality in NE India : them getting protesting indigenous to beat each others with sticks etc, but it detracted from the drama.
- Then there was a story about a woman being offered a job as a wet nurse in compensation for her husband's legs being cut off. There was some good acting in this, but strangely he just told us the most dramatic parts instead of acting them out.
- The second piece was about an indigenous woman's life being ruined after she had taken part in a calendar photoshoot. This like the last piece about some random guy commiting suicide was a bit of a mess I don't think either piece was finished.
- The standard theatre test : Did I enjoy it ? No, Did I learn anything new ? No, not really apart from the police brutality in the video.
Theatre People : Get your act together, respect the audience and entertain.
- Walked through the higgledy piggledy allys to Rudra's office. The streets are so disorganised that I walked past the building entrance without noticing.
- I tried to use the internet at his office, but as soon as I connected the power cut.
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Tues 18th
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- Finally getting ontop of the internet work, by figuring out which internet cafes have less viruses, and faster connections and figuring out what part of town to move to when the power cuts.
- Some fucker stabbed me in the leg with a bike !. The idiot had welded a 1cm rod across the diagonal part of his frame presumably to strap loads to. Sometimes I am aggressive against the traffic, but today I was just walking on the left hand side of a ally crowded with a traffic jam. This guy was on the wrong side of the road overtaking. I was virtually standing as I couldn't move cos of the wall on my left side and this bicycle coming towards me. If he had stopped I could have got round him, but he continued trying to squeeze past me. And caught me in thigh with the sticking out rod. It didn't hurt that much , but that night I could see the blood and a 15cm swelled scar.
- Popped into KEEP .. seems they have a video show everyday at 2pm, it was 2.45pm when I arrived of course.
- I went up to HRA cos they have a talk about altitude sickness. Nothing interesting to me cos I don't plan to go anyway high cos it's too cold and anyway at Lake Titikaka, Peru I've been at above 4000+ m before, without too much problems.
| My body has turned into a sulphur dioxide factory|
- On top of the bad leg, the stomach upset from Istanbul has been coming back a couple of times. My stomach has been gurgling and turned into a sulphur dioxide factory. Producing suphur burps aswell. I had had omlette for breakfast so I guess I have to stay off eggs and spicey food.
- Wednesday was a no-eating day all seems OK now.
| Thu- Strike and More Crap theatre|
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- planned to go take a "tempo" 3 wheel bus to the theatre and then found there was none today. Indeed traffic was almost none existant cos the Maoists had called a "Bandh" one day strike. This explains why the internet café had drawn it's shutters down, pretending to be closed, I noticed most businesses had done the same.
- Walked all the way over to the theatre, but the production was crap.. so tedious. It was like American theatre students just reading a text ..they couldn't act so the situation and characters were not believable, if I had not been sitting next to the director I would have put my earhones on to break the tedium. Yet again theatre people insult the audience, by giving us an unfinished piece... maybe it was too challenging for the actors.. so they should have tried a simpler piece. - One café was playing a classic filmed in Nepal Movie called Himalaya. Again it took me 90 mins to walk there. I arrived as it started, but I reased I'd seen it before .. too drawn out and sentimental for me .. all about a stubborn old Tibetan village man leading yak caravan through the snow , who learns to respect his young enemy.
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