Saturday in Kathmandu

Hello.

Today saw the return of Pebar - the cleaning boy. He had disappeared to the countryside register his birth or something… this seemed to take a month, and I am sure you can imagine my distress at actually having to do some cleaning for the first time in the last year. After realising I had been abandoned by Pebar I had to venture out and buy things like brooms and buckets and cleaning fluids… which interestingly I couldn’t find, and so I moped the floors Nepali style – using washing detergent… Anyway as soon as Pebar returned the landlord was on the phone demanding Pebar come over and clean, so he did, and he even did the washing up too. Most excellent.

After he had cleaned and I had done the washing I went out mountain biking with Callum, who is exceedingly fit (unlike me who really hasn’t done any exercise to speak of for the last 2 months). It was so nice to get out of smogville and into the hills, and of course test out the spangly new bike. The bike did good… I did ok… but I found the off paved-road uphills very hard, you have to concentrate so hard on all the rocks and bumps… coming down isn’t much better. I feel as if I have been well and truly shaken up. The views were a bit hazy, but it was so nice to breath fresh air and see village life… and I made it home ok, if rather slowly… We shall see how stiff I am tomorrow!