Just some thoughts

There are a couple of thoughts and perceptions that have come up over the past 2 weeks that I thought I might share. Kathmandu, much to my surprise, is inundated by smog. It is so thick it is hard to breath. Most people wear masks to breath. It is worse than any other city I have ever been to. It is very unfortunate. Both Julio and I have started to get what we call the Kathmandu hack. Maybe that is why it brings me to my second point. Everyone here spits. It is one thing to see a man spit but another one to see a woman nail one into the street. So sexy! The dust is so bad that all the vendors throw water out onto the street to keep it down for fear of getting it on their merchandise. For example, I bought a pair of pants, wore them on the hike in the Khumbu valley, got them washed and when they came back they were a different color. I thought they were grey but they were really charcoal. They came back better than when I bought them! The religions by popularity run Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, other. The street work crews are just like Cal Trans but worse. Two people are working with 20 people watching. Yaks get right of way over any vehicle. You really can put 5 people on a motorbike made for 2 and just because you filled all the seats on the bus doesn't mean that you can't sit on the roof! There are an extra 25 people up there! The time change in Nepal is 12 hours, 45 minutes ahead of SF. Since when did time changes occur as part of an hour? Here in Tibet the kids still have slits in the back of their pants so all they have to do to go to the bathroom is squat. The Chinese are much better at building roads. I prefer Chinese food to Nepalese food even if it is the same damn thing every meal. As I crossed the Tibetan border a Chinese guy walked by me and bumped into me. I just won't go there. The landscapes in both countries are just amazing. The mountains are so steep with waterfalls all over the place. I can see why people would believe they have reached Shangri-La! Oh, it's cold and I believe it is going to get much colder. Yikes!