A flock of Chinese

The government doesn’t offer much help to its people and the people don’t expect much in return, a resigned  and duly agreed acceptance, best of luck to you and carry on as you’d usually would.  They’ve naturally devolved and it seems to be working.

Suraksha and I walked to her grandparent’s home and on return we climbed up to the zip line ridge back to the village and lo and behold the mammoth Japanese-Nepalese Hotel is taking wild shape, I met three locals on the job while the precocious eleven year old guided me through the site and all the men in this absurd project and they are happy to be working and hoping it’ll take three or four more years of producing what could be the most stunning or most disappointing building in Nepal’s Hotel industry.  I could be exaggerating. 

Currently twelve projects are underway in Sarangkot proper.  And all of these started within the last five months.  What the hell is that I don’t know.  And there are still thankfully the reasons unblemished that keep me coming back here for now.  A spectacular curtain show at the top with Annapurna 2 and Lamjung appearing with rolling clouds below and faint whispy clouds above and a Japanese pair did the ‘whoooa’ and drew the others and we are shocked and awed before a huge gray curtain closes the show before the Hims appear again.

I took a long nap,  whipped after the short walk, it’s gonna take another holiday to recover from Thailand, which was nothing but a holiday to do what I haven’t done in ten months with the one strange and oddly exception.  And I don’t understand it right yet. So anyways, the holiday part two has an extraordinary view right from his room, paragliders and hawks and vultures swoop and gracefully glide over a picture perfect valley. The monsoon so far has given two evenings of rain and thunder followed by a mix of hot sun and cool clouds.  

I am impressed and surprised the Nikon is still performing in light of its state of condition.  I looked at a few new ones recently.  That time is near. 
 

7.23.2014

6.00am and we have a flower friendly and steady rain with fog and no Himalayas to speak of.  The three Swedes in room three feel right at home.  And here they come.  This 370 dollar computer is performing miserably and yet it’s still working. 
 

Families in Nepal are the welfare system.  Laxman and Maya take in an 18 year old who is too shy to be mistaken he’s 14 and who doesn’t know more than two words of English and he’s getting a crash course on interacting with people and for four months the larger, newer, and scarier community called the tourist.  In the family where there is wise counsel there is something good. Especially when the deep rooted family with many branches knows everyone.

Tourists in three rooms and the place looked like it hadn’t seen anyone for a while.  Yesterday Maya and her crew nicely cleaned up the lower garden. Ram the man child scrubbed the floors and bathrooms of all the rooms.  It’s raining, who wants to trek in the rain?  Panchase Mountain is a four day trek that involves 40km of trekking and a few hours of bussing.  I will need to purchase rain gear. 

So what to do today?  In the rain. 

The family below, meanwhile, make progress every day in their gnarly close development.  It will cut out some of the view but not the most important parts.  No one is getting between me and the mountains.  But it will for sure bring the neighbors a little closer.  Maybe ten handshake lengths from the balcony outside room 1.  

A flock of Chinese came up for a reserved lunch.  I can only guess that before I came business was slow because the rooms hadn’t been attended and the gardens were wild jungle gardens until yesterday.  Good luck my butt.  Luck for them?  No luck for me? 

bright dirty cotton clouds are better than an unmerciful sun, the kind that can hurt if hiking unless I’m hiking in the forest.  A day of rest.  Before the second breakfast I walked to the umbrella above the round houses, the new hotel looking west towards Kaskikot, sits and is being built with the very stone they’ve clawed out. Hmmphf

Paragliders howl with delight in the blankness.  But the darkness grows and its grip silences the mountain.  Peace comes in the clouds but also brings algae from Dhaka so while I’m thrilled I’ve willed to be healthy.

What I don’t like about women and watching frantic scenarios of those I’m briefly interested in is just that, imagining that is up to no good. 

I can’t imagine now staying six weeks.  Three is enough?  Back to there and then off to there before returning there.  There, got it?

Dusk settles closer and on top of a mountain where two valleys meet there are at any given hour today a range of clouds and weather patterns that neither affected us or did. The man-child is closing all the doors and stands at my door waiting for something.  He likes the carpet too.

Yesterday I took an overgrown trail and when I returned to the room an hour later did I notice the top of my left foot was covered in blood.  Leeches.  And tonight my foot has swollen considerably.  Spider.  So,  Tiger balm is all I’ve got now.  If it turns blue or the swelling swallows my leg it’s a good thing there is a car parked below you, right?