An end to commence a new beginning

this afternoon's teabreak

Today marks the coming to an end of carefree, aimless days. For more than half a year, I wasn't working. Tomorrow will be a very different day, back to a more routine life. In a way, I'm glad, after long period of inactivity.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a 'new year resolutions' post. I guess now is a good time to take stock of the last half year. No I did not exercise more often, in fact I went to gym less as compared to when I was working. But I ate more! I guess I did spend more time with my family, fussing over my mum as a different form of occupation and we got the house done up, which was quite an achievement. As for the new job, yes, tomorrow is the day.

Coffee or Tea

When it comes to eating and drinking (coffee/tea), I guess this must be my greatest strength. Judging from my posts on Coffee or Tea, I think it has really been a caffeine overdose. But I still have not made it to 40 hands, which happens to be the cafe nearest to my home.

I managed to try out a few vegetarian eateries too.

Vegan Burg
Hozen

Angel's Bistro

Read, write and shoot

I did not read as much as I hope, but given a person as slow at reading as me, it is already quite a feat to have read The Great Railway Bazaar, The Year of the Hare and a few issues of INK. Oh, on the spiritual side, I managed to attend a few Buddhist classes too.


Finally, I made it to Nepal, a place which evaded me twice, first around 5-6? years ago when a coup happened a few days before my planned departure, then last year, due to family matters. It was not exactly a relaxing holiday but a very different travel experience. Managed to write a few articles on that and still waiting for some to be published.

The above does sound to be too little for half a year without work. So that will mean I have to work harder in the next half year...

Encounters with locals

"He turned corners, choosing the narrowest unlighted lanes, and then we stayed on dirt roads. I suspected he was going to rob me, and when we came to the darkest part of a bumpy track- we were in the courty now - and he pulled over and switched off the lights, I was certain he was a con man: his next move would be to stick a knife in my ribs..." from the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux.

at Kathmandu International Airport

It seems that no travel tale is complete without an encounter with locals trying to cheat you. Although nothing as scary as Paul Theroux's experience, I had encountered a con trishaw driver in Chiangmai, who tried to drive me to somewhere desserted for massage, travel vans who try to over charge ridiculously at Ho Chi Minh, taxi drivers who had "better" hotels to recommend than what we originally booked in Danang. The worst was probably at Kota Tinggi where the taxi driver drove me to a factory when I told him to go to a temple.

In a more recent trip, an overly zealous local at Kathmandu Airport volunteered to contact my travel agent who was no where to be found at the airport. A short conversation over the phone in Nepali language and he has it settled, "Your travel agent will be here shortly. Please wait for a while." I was sceptical, did he really called our agent? Would he get his own guy to come pick us up and try to get us stay in some other hotel, sign up a sightseeing package with him, etc? Fortunately, nothing like this happen. Our agent came, and he demanded for S$20 as tips. We gave him a S$2 note and our driver drove us off to our hotel.

the Eyes that appear on many stupas in Nepal

It was an unpleasant start but for the rest of the trip, things were not as bad. In fact, we met many nice locals. In Pokhara, a family invited us for dinner on their New Year Eve; in Lumbini, a hotel manager escorted us to the airport and helped us settle our lost air ticket from Lumbini to Kathmandu; in Kathmandu, a monk we met at Boudhanath subsequently helped us find accomodation in the temple as I forgot to book our last night's lodging. Such pleasant surprises!