29 de octubre

NAMASTE!

we cross the border from china over the "friendship bridge" into kodari and get our visas for 30$ with painless ease and here we are in nepal where everything smells and is colourful and loud! and the music rocks (no more of that chinese pop, please!). so we change into lighter clothes (i hadn't taken my longjohns off in over a week and man they stink) and into rupees too and down we go again lower & lower on the roof of a tata bus (what a ride!) lower & lower into the rice paddies and the bananas and bamboos and we befriend the kids who ride the roof with us and one of them presents himself as ram kumar and gives us some home-grown ganja he is carrying in his pocket, just like that.
i love this country! a country of smiles and joyful affirmation. no more of that "no, i can't bother" and the suspicious looks and the crazy rules that were china.



* * *
the bus stops 26 kms south of the border in a wonderful sleepy town down by the river called baharhabise. we eat some guayabas by the waterside and find a place to spend the night.


i keep playing in my mind that old cat stevens song...

"kathmandu, i'll soon be seeing you,
and your strange bewildering time
will hold me down..."