Bicycling, getting lost, and language intake overload.

 Around the day that Kristen was supposed to leave for Besisahar I became quite fed up with being sandwiched between a smelly adolescent and his overweight grandmother in a sardine can of a mini-bus that continued to get people crammed into it. 

I had 4 choices: 

1. Grin and bear it to and from my language lessons in the circumstances above for about $3 round trip.

2. Hire taxis that are much more comfortable and faster but cost about 5 times as much.

3. Buy a motorcycle and get anywhere I want to in the entire country in less than 5 hours, but for around $2000 US, plus gas, plus insurance, plus a whole mess of paperwork to deal with in the extremely inefficient nepali system. 

OR

4. Buy a very nice bicycle for half the price it would be in the states, that will get me anywhere in the city that I want to go in just a little more time than a motorcycle, and faster than a bus in most circumstances. Not to mention the fantastic exercise I would be getting daily at 6500 feet. 

You can see that the obvious choice was number 4. So Kristen and I dragged our notorious Nepali negotiator down to a small bicycle market near the tourist district. She managed to talk the bicycle dealer down about 10%. So I am now the proud new owner of this beauty that has been serving me beautifully on the chaotic streets of Kathmandu.

 The strategy of riding a bike in Kathmandu traffic is strange and quite thrilling. There are very few rules except don't hit anyone or anything and be somewhat predictable. Really, it is an art form of blending the extremes of aggressiveness and defensiveness. Very hard to understand unless you are in the mix, and then it makes perfect sense. Nepali people are very good drivers (proving the asian stereotype wrong) but if you drove like they do while in he U.S. you would be quickly pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving. Blinkers are at a minimum, there are no center lines, stay on the left is more of a guideline than a rule, and pedestrians cross when and where they want to, regardless of how much traffic is present. All of this happens with 0 stoplights that I have seen and traffic policemen at only the busiest of intersections. It sounds extremely chaotic, and it is, but the system works and as long as i keep my head on a swivel an my hand on the brake I feel safer than I do on I-90. Mostly due to the fact that the top speed of any vehicle I have seen is roughly 40 mph, and people looked at him like he was dumber than me. 

Despite all of this chaos the only downside of having my own transportation is having to be my own navigator. I cant count the number of times I have been a little lost. Every street looks nearly identical! Most of the time it is an easy fix and I'm back on the right track immediately, if I ever went off of it at all. Today however was a different story. I got extremely lost. One of my language teachers insisted on meeting in Thamel (the tourist district) at 3:30. Tamel is about 10 minutes further on my bike than the other place we meet, so no big deal except that I have spent very little time in that area. By the end  of the lesson, my second of the day, my brain was exhausted and I was ready to be home. I knew that i still had at least 40 minutes on the bike ahead of me so I stopped and got some real coffee from a shop I knew then headed out. One second I knew exactly where I was and where I was going and the next I had no clue. Following my instincts I kept pedaling and ended up by the British Embassy (where I had been before, but was in the wrong direction) then made a lap around the Nepali Royal Palace Grounds (about 2 miles total and again, wrong direction). All in all I was lost for close to an hour and quickly approaching dark, which adds a whole new level to the madness. I did get a fantastic tour of the city however. What should have taken 40-50 minutes took nearly 2 hours and I finished in the dark with a 500 foot vertical climb over the last 3 miles. 

 Sorry to be so long winded but there is just one more update I feel compelled to share. 

Taking upwards of 7 language classes per week is proving to be a lot of information to take in with little time to process it. Yet I think the hard work is going to pay off. My brain feels full at he moment but words are quickly filing themselves away. With a little bit more absorption time and grammar work, instead of so much vocabulary, I should be able to chat up the locals in a week or so (:-P ya right)

Here is a little language lesson (as Britta has requested).  It is a phrase that i see on peoples faces hundreds of times a day as I ride by on my new bicycle. "tyo murka quiray lai hernus" I means "Look at that stupid white guy!"