Nepal is FANTASTIC

You must all visit this country. Just go start researching now.

I spent 3 days walking and riding elephants in Royal Chitwan national Park. I did not see any tigers, but I saw rhino, a bear, two types of deer, monkeys, a garial, and crocodiles. Birds are everywhere in Chitwan, and I will never get tired of standing in the forest and listening to them. I stayed an extra day and rode out with the elephant drivers to see them harvest tree tops for the elephants to eat (roughly two trees of twigs, per elephant per day, cut by hand with a machete, amounting to about two hours of hard labor on top of all the other work the guys do). I have pictures you can see when I return. I also played volleyball with the riders, elephants watching in teh background.

Today I am in Kathmandu finding a guide (hopefully female) and will probably go towards the mountains after tomorrow.

I'm in Nepal

So far, I like Nepal a lot. I've only been here a few hours, but people are nice and the food is good. Even the salespeople don't pressure you! I'm staying in a tiny guest house on the edge of the tourist ghetto. It's not fancy, but it's cheap and I won't get bedbugs (but I have my sleepsack, just in case).

Kathmandu has fuel shortages right now (a road blockage by the Maoists), so it'll be interesting to see how I'm going to get around the country to see the sites. Tonight I saw people waiting in lines blocks long to get fuel.

You'll note that any post I may will likely be short and sloppy. The internet here is sloooow, and I am more interested in doing things to write about than tapping away at a keyboard.

I will miss many things about Bangalore, but...

..not the small shocks I get from electronics. When I get home, I'll sit next to my grounded sockets and weep at their beauty.

I will miss most Grameen Koota and my friends, an unsavoury group of entrepreneurs, VC's, and eccentrics who have made my time here MUCH more fun than it otherwise would have been. One friend is confirmed to visit Seattle for a wedding in in August, so you can meet my Bangalorean platonic life partner. Another friend will be settling in LA, so if you are there, please look after her for me.

I will also miss
the chai lady
Panni Purri
South Meals
North Meals
Easy, cheap food delivery
riding in autos (yes, really)
Indian hospitality

I'm looking forward to my Nepal trip and being home, too, though. I am compiling my list of things to do. Oh, Costco--how I missed thee...

No news is bad news

My laptop screen makes a quiet bzt and then smells of ozone. I'm hoping plugging a monitor into it will let me at least finish some work I need to do. On the bright side, Steve K brought me a SteriPen for my trip to Nepal so that I can avoid the types of illnesses I brought back from Assam. It was great to see a familiar face. Tonight I'm off to Hampi.

We had some unpleasantness with our landlady, but Liz may have worked it out. Hooray! I'm all but packed for home, and I've done a test pack for Nepal. It's a little heavier than I would like, but I'll be consuming or abandoning items along the way.

Souvenirs from Assam

Though I shook my food poisoning in a day and was able to go running Friday, something has taken residence in my body. I'm running a low-grade fever and sweating profusely, among other less pleasant symptoms. I even had to skip an afternoon tea (and it was going to feature a lovely crab curry!). I've already started my antibiotics. Some friends came in from Seattle and have brought me a Steripen so that I don't go through the same thing in Nepal.

The trip to Assam was a nice change from the city, but the work aspects of it were less than satisfying, and I had a mildly creepy experience (you can ask me about it, but I'm not posting it here). I really enjoyed the jogging, though.

Pinwheeling is NOT the fun activity it sounds like

I don't know what I ate or drank that put my body in full rejection mode, but I hope it's over with. I was awake last night a few times being violently ill, though everything I had today has stayed in. Unfortunately, I was too weak to jog this morning. Both meals I ate yesterday were in my hotel (it's close to the office and open during the bandh), so dinner tonight might be a PowerBar or some Spanish Tomato potato chips.

I've had a few good work days, though not in the areas I'd hoped. The bandh interfered with our connectivity testing (and my lunch), BSNL had an internet outage all day today (something about 100 metres of stolen cable), and I wasn't able to get as many decisive answers as I wanted.

Bandhs make things less interesting

We went to a dhaba (roadside outdoor-ish restaurant) for lunch. One of my associates ordered several dishes, only to find out later that we could only get daal, paneer, and roti because the bandh meant the market was closed. Restaurants don't carry big inventories. Instead, they send a boy to buy whatever you want (even if it's on the regular menu). Hence, no non-veg items and no vegetables. It was still good and I ate plenty, plus you can hardly complain about lunch for six for 390 Rs (about $10 US).

The roads and tons were pretty quiet. Crews were laying what I hope is cable (turns out the internet *is* a series of tubes...) bringing internet to the MFI branches. I saw a lot of people playing cricket (no school during bandhs, either), and guys squatting in a circle playing cards. Bandhs occur regularly here, so I suppose people have their routines.

Wrapping up

I and the Mifos Specialist Team head out tomorrow. I have another three-hour ride to Guwahati and six hours of flights (Guwahati-Kolkata-Hyderabad-Bangalore) to get home. I hope to relax a bit this weekend and maybe savor a few more Bangalore restaurants as part of my grand exit from India.

Ride Home from SeaTac: CHECK!

Mrs. Nelson already offered to pick me up on March 24th. She might need an HOV buddy, though.

Only two weeks of work left, followed by the month in Nepal. My how times flies.

Bandh-ed

One of the militant groups is having a bandh, so no field visit for me today. Tomorrow may be out, too. On the upside, the highway had even less traffic for my morning jog.

Return to Assam

I'm back in Assam this week. Assam is part of the Northeast States and is a bit in the boonies, even for India. I flew into Guwahati and then rode 3 hours to Tezpur. When I was here in September, the rainy season was just ending and everything was bright green, muddy, or flooded. The rivers and tributaries were well outside the banks--even for monsoon season--and we saw a lot of tenement camps along the highway while people waited for the water to recede from their villages.

This trip things are browner and drier. The temperature in the day is in the upper 60's to 70's, and the dampness is all gone. It's nice to ride around the countryside in the fresh air, and at night I can see stars. People here are mellow, they're much more fit than elsewhere in India, and all the women have beautiful skin. I'll be here working (and eating well) with IIRM until Friday

When Roughing It isn't

The last time I was in Tezpur, we stayed in a hotel the travel guide described as "A tired, soulless place..." The food was good, but the description is apt. My suite (pronounced "suit") was large but mothbally and very worn. The staff was polite but also seemed somehow weighed down and vague (a byproduct of the rains?).

This time, I'm at the lovely KF Hotel Tezpur. It's brand new with Euro-ish dark wood cabinets, a flat screen TV, and a huge fluffy comforter (and I'm not even in a deluxe room!). It has a cute little departmental store with cheap Chinese imports (Barbie Uno, anyone?) and lots of snacks. The only downside is that they serve crappy machine-made Nestea instead of brewing Assamese tea properly, and my sambar was tepid. Free breakfast or not, I may have to venture elsewhere tomorrow. I mean--seriously--how can you screw up tea or sambar in INDIA?


Just because Tezpur translates to 'blood city' is no cause to worry

I JOGGED OUTSIDE TODAY! I was able to go running for forty glorious minutes before work this morning, along the highway (size: American 2-lane) through town. It's not too dusty here compared to Bangalore, and the only motor vehicles at that hours are a few trucks, buses, and Army caravans. I jogged pass the guys with AK's, the bicycle rickshaws, and the kids waiting for school in relative safety, especially since every morning from 3-7 AM, the army sweeps the area with dogs to guards against roadside explosive devices [insert soft "whump" as Mom passes out reading that phrase].

Assam experiences frequent signs of political instability--strikes, riots, and the occasional bombing. However, I'm a) near a city (5km), and b) right down the road from the Commandant's house, so I'm pretty safe. The army "sanitizes" the highway for at least 5KM on either side of his house--perfect for a short run!

It's so much nicer when the most common vehicle is a bicycle. I got stared at a bit, but I was less of a draw than some guy net fishing. In fact, I got far more weird looks when I went running in Greece and Turkey (though I don't run in a cowboy hat here).

Schedule Recap

I have less than a month left in India. This week, I fly to Assam for 5 days to check in on a deployment. I'll be in Bangalore working until February 20th, with a short side trip to Hampi.

Nepal!
On the 21st, I fly to Nepal. I don't have a planned tour, so I'll spend a few days finding a group to trek with or hire a guide (probably female), as trekking alone is ill-advised. I'll spend 2-3 weeks hiking from tea house to tea house, and then take some time in the Kathmandu Valley site-seeing. I hope to go south to Royal Chitwan National Park, too. I return to Bangalore March 22 to say good-bye to my friends here.

Thank you, India

I arrive in Seattle on March 24th. I'll probably spend the next week recovering from jet lag, attending a couple meetings at GTC, and doing important things like turning my phones back on, finding soccer teams for spring season, and eating as much of Dad's cookie dough as possible. I plan to begin work with an as-yet unnamed Atlas client around April 1st.