May 22, 2009

Last night we went to go the tailors with Uma to be fitted for some Nepali clothing. (this was the second night in a row we have gone but it was closed the night before). We went to the road just outside of the house and found a taxi to take us to the shopping mall where it is located. The road that we were on to begin with is a very narrow road. Before we got onto the main road we got in a jam with a large truck. We had to maneuver very slowly. Josh was sitting in the front seat of the car and was telling the taxi driver how much room he had between the wall and the side of the car. Both of the side mirrors were already folded in. At one point Josh told the taxi driver that he had tons of room and held up his fingers to show how much room was between the side of the car and the brick wall on the side it was about ½ in. That was about the same from the other side where the truck was and the distance the other side of the truck was from the brick wall on the other side of the road. It was hilarious they drive so close to people and other cars here.

When we got to the tailors it was closed again. Uma asked us if we would like to go to Themel which was our original plan for the evening. We told her that we would like that and she told us to get out of the taxi and get another one because she was going to go home. It was really funny. She dropped us off on a corner and said good-bye. When we were standing on the corner deciding what we wanted to do. She poked her head out the window and told us that we could also walk and to just go straight ahead it is not far maybe 20 25 minutes. (Everything here is “not far maybe 20, 25 minutes.”) It took us about an hour to walk there. We have come to expect it to take us a lot longer than we are told to get places. We walked through what was like a street bazaar with people all over the sidewalks selling tons of different things. One of the people was selling what looked like used underwear. One pile for men and one for women.
Once we finally got to Themel we just walked around. Themel is one of the more touristy areas . We went into a bookstore and looked around and picked up some more postcards. All over the streets there are people walking around trying to get you to buy bracelets and singing bowls and all kinds of things that I did not recognize. They will follow you around trying to convince you to buy things from them. We found an Italian restaurant on a roof over looking the street and ate some amazing food. I had goat cheese raviolis in a garlic white wine sauce and josh had gonococci that he said was the best he had ever eaten. It was all very inexpensive, we paid less than $4 for our meals.

Because it was dark when we finished eating and a long walk back we found a taxi to take us back home. It was the CRAZIEST taxi ride ever. Most of the taxi rides here are an adventure but this one was nuts. Our driver would go really fast and then slam on his brakes inches from hitting people, cars, motorcycles, and rickshaws. He honked almost the entire time we were in the car. He was swerving around people on the narrow streets into the other lanes to get around cars. (Keep in mind that there are brick walls on both sides most of the time lots of corners and winding streets and no street lights). We were sliding all around and jerking back and forth in our streets. And there are no seatbelts in cars here, I don’t know why. I look every time we get in one. We decided that we were not likely going any faster than 20 or 30 miles per hour at the most but it seemed pretty fast when it is dark and crazy like that. We decided that it was like a ride at an amusement park. We were laughing the whole ride home and we were making the taxi driver laugh at us too.