arrived in Nepal….finally!

Sunday, April 16th, 2006

Finally made it to Nepal and Katmandu! It took two weeks of incessant phone calls, news observing, gossip listening and well waiting for the curfew to end to get here. We (Audrey the exec-producer) and I spent two days at the listless, dusty, boring India Nepal border waiting for a flight to Lisbon, um I mean Katmandu. Yes it felt like "Casablanca" but with out Ricks place, the elegance, Ingrid Bergman and a good plot. All that was there was the deperation, trickery and longingness to get out of there. There are hundreds of waiting to go overland but to no avail. Many have been there weeks and many turn back dejected and frustrated. Even getting a flight was hellish and I used all my guile, charm, wit, intimidation, and even bribery skills to get out. We beat out two crazy Ukranians who I had allied with once we thought we were ripped off. We were guaranteed a flight nearly every hour and none occured. We the Ukies and I were going to destroy the town if need be. I already had mentally prepared to make molotov cocktails and to buy some arms. Fortunately it did not come to this. I had threatened a Nepalese or maybe an Indian who tried to extort even more money out of us than they already had. I said "if you want to continue this day to be healty, THAN DONT FUCK WITH ME!" I also told him that "I dont care I I must pay a police man $500 u.s to have someone SHOT!" At the time I meant it for my patience was totally gone. In India, being lied to is a common thing. If they say its hot out you might just want to put on a scarf and hat. Of course these are only the Indians that one money from you which maybe is only ten percent but A billon divided by ten is well…you get the idea. I must say that the times I have "gone Italian" as I like to put it, things seem to resolve themselves. Its like they will push you only so far, as perhaps a child might and than when sensing you have reached your brink they understand and back off. I wont even go to how after all that, the long rickshaw in the heat, the bribes, the lies, the threats, more lies we got to the airport to be told that our tickets were unconfirmed and not valid. After much arguing , smiling, bribing (with cookies) and ofering random Nepalese to buy their seats we got them. This mainly due to the fact that we payed double to what the Nepalese do for the same seats. Fine! I did not care, every plane we looked at with longing and eventually I was the lucky one looking down at the stranded refugee like people on the Sunali border. ….
more on Nepal if interested…..