On the road again

After 2 months in Nepal we are on the move again...but not without a little change of plans. We endured our first travel problems due to the chaos in Bangkok. On Wednesday the 26th we had already checked in for our flight and through immigration when we were told our flight was canceled due to political disturbance in Thailand. We waited for around 5 hours to see if the flight would go...no dice. We went to the airline office and got a new ticket for the Friday flight. We hung around Kathmandu and ran into our Canadian friend Myanna again. Friday was the same story with an ominous start. We tried to get a taxi but they were hard to get because of a strike--we found one to take us and as we were winding through the dusty and sleepy streets we had to avoid an elephant in the road. Our flight was canceled again and back to the airline office. We were very lucky and got 2 of the last 5 seats to Kuala Lumpur that same evening. The only catch was that we had to pay for business class, and to our dismay they didn't even give us our money's worth by announcing "Now boarding all business class passengers". As we left from the airport office to the immigration office to make sure we would be OK for overstaying our visas, we passed a dead dog on the sidewalk and a man relieving himself in the bushes and with the Bangkok airport still closed we made the right move.

We didn't even know anything about Kuala Lumpur but it is a really nice city, modern, clean, and a great contrast to Nepal. For example we have been up in the Petronas Towers skyscraper, ate at Pizza hut, cruised a large mall (with a huge christmas tree), watched the new Bond movie and hung out in a clean park. After seeing little in the ways of modern transportation or amenaties for 2 months we were thrown into the huge city of around 7 million people. Our Bangkok flight switched around and are now flying out on the 2nd to Perth, Australia.

Our last few weeks in Pokhara turned out really well. We got into a nice routine at the school and began to figure things out. On a couple of slow days I even got to go paragliding with Brad two more times...sans the vulture. I played basketball every morning and most afternoons. And ref'd another NBA game. I realized that my mark on Nepal won't be the nursery rhymes I taught the children or how to pronounce certain words but teaching them the basketball game bump and rebound which they seem to love. They play a lot of pig and horse but call it Monkey. Melica and I also made our "family" an American meal as they called it, but it was just pasta and spaghetti sauce, garlic bread, no-bake chocolate/peanut butter cookies and fruit salad. It was good to give the mom a night off and to see their expressions as most of them hadn't had anything other than Dhal Baht and Nepali food. They seemed to enjoy it even if they did use a little chili sauce to spice it up.
We took two field trips with the school one to some bat caves and the other to a mountain museum. Both good times.
I got my first hair cut of the trip and it was a good experience. Halfway through the power went out like it does for 3 hours most nights, so he had to finish by lamplight. The haircut concluded with the man giving a rough head massage, bopping me on the head with his fists and popping my neck. All for 50 cents.
Our last day at the school was good with some really nice festivities. We took a couple classes then visited the annex building to say good bye to the kids and teachers. They gave us a Tika (red dot on the forehead) and silk scarves as good luck and thanks. We went back to the main campus where there was an assembly with music and dancing by the students. We were given a gift of a trophy and the teachers and students said good things about us and that they would miss us.

We also had a dinner party with the Pun family, some friends and neighbors. Good food and a good way to end our time there. The Pun's saw us off to the bus with more silk scarves and flower garlands. They were great people and we hope we can see them again someday.
Time to move on and we are glad we stayed as long as we did but are glad to be out of Kathmandu and have the whole Bangkok hassle done with. Off to Aussie land.