NOW THIS IS THE MONSOON!

On facebook I posted this nice little video clip of a lovely little rain and  I mistakenly called it the monsoon... Well this is the Monsoon!!!

It's really interesting because in 30 minutes  time  it can go from this huge flooding in the video to just wet pavement.
   So far the rains don't usually last all day and the rest of the time it is quite sunny and hot, very beautiful, actually.







Monsoon Laundry : ) 
Actually there is a laundry line outside but of course when it rains... well things don't dry, so I brought everything in to hang under the ceiling fan also had more in the back room hanging to dry. Yes this was a major production since I decided I would do every bit of our laundry on that particuarly  rainy day. 
     Just so everyone knows there are places that do your laundry for very cheap, and also I had a Didi, a women that does  laundry that was included with my rent, but I caught her peeping in the windows a couple of times - yes a Peeping Didi, so decided I would just do it myself. And I am just weird, I like to have control over my laundry sometimes it may be a day or two before it comes back if someone else does it.

                          

Big Night out in Thamel

Pawan, Sadiksha, Colin and I went out to Thamel, a touristy area of Kathmandu. There a lots of shops and restaurantsbut we were interested in one shop and one restaurant in particular, "The Himalayan Khukuri House" - a Khukuri is a traditional Nepalese knife, used a lot by the army and Gurkha fighters as a weapon but also as a utility knife around the Nepalese household. and the " Fire and Ice" restaurant for  Pizza.  I heard rumors about this place from other people that came to Nepal, and it is true, the pizza is fabulous !!!! oh and the picture below  those are not shoes on the shelves they are all knives. I was cringing the entire time, I'm a knife phobe..

Messing around in a store full of knives, I guess would bring out the psycho in anyone! Colin said the look even scared him : )

Colin returned to normal when the pizza came : ) and yup there will be no losing weight this trip!

Swayambhunath

This is one of Colin's school fieldtrips, they are nice enough to let me tag along with the group : )

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/nepal/kathmandu-swayambhunath-stupa

 

Of  course there has to be monkey pictures Swayambu is nicknamed the Monkey Temple right?

Can someone please lend me a hand : )

Everyone needs a break even our monkey friend

When we returned from the field trip a group of us went for a traditional Nepalese restaurant. Boy that food is hot!!! I could only manage to eat the dal, I took a bite of something evil hot and almost had to steal a papadam like cracker off the guy's plate sitting next to me.

 

so now for my story

             Okay so  I mentioned briefly in the introduction of this blog that my side of the trip was/is a bit different then Colin's.  The craziness of my trip started the day we were set to leave for Vancouver where our flight would take off for Nepal. 
      I started getting a small rash, a few odd red dots here and there nothing really, but when we arrived in Hong kong I knew I was in trouble. The rash had spread up my legs on to my thighs and the dots had become huge dark red blotches of all shapes and sizes I started to panic, was this - whatever it was, going to continue, will it be all over my face by the time I get to Nepal?  and my legs hurt so bad.     
       The next flight from Hong Kong to  Kathmandu was about 5 hours, and it was the longest flight of my life. I hadn't slept the entire previous flight which was about 15 hours I think,  and this smaller  plane was so hot, and I was so uncomfortable, and the thought that maybe I was patient zero for some unknown something  was really starting to freak me out.  finally we made it to Kathmandu, into the taxi that Colin's school sent for us, and back to the apartment we rented. 
      I immediately  hopped into the shower hoping to relieve  the  pain in my legs which I did...  but not from the water but from transferring the pain I was having to the back of my head instead,   right after  slipping and bumping it on the tile step coming out of the bathroom. I completely forgot about the pain in my legs!    
      I rolled around on the floor in the fetal position whining, swearing, feeling the huge bump on the back of my head grow, and the other huge lump of "Poor Me forming", then I thought okay this might be how it goes. If I have some weird karma that needs to ripen right now okay fine, I can do it... but dam WTF !! "where's the frosting" 
     The next morning I found only one of my favorite and really only shoes I can wear outside, on our door step partially chewed up and the other one completely missing,  I thought really... now the dog ate my shoe! I actually had to laugh. First horrible skin thing, huge bump on my head,  the dog eats my shoe it was so ridiculous I had to laugh, and then of course I cried they were my Keen Uneek sandels ! this was all in our first 10 hours in Nepal too funny! 
  Incidently our manager did find my other shoe so I found some duct tape and fixed the other on and so far so good!

      So after the shoe incident we met up with Carolyn,  had breakfast, Then Colin and I found a taxi and went directly to the clinic. This place is  very expensive it's called "CIWEC Hospital Travel Medicine Centers with Doctors all trained in the West and catering to international travelers.  
    The doctor was very good.  It was Saturday so the exam was automatically $100 US then I needed a skin specialist, blood tests, urine, and when it was all said and done $345 US and the verdict was....  I was not Patient Zero for anything thank goodness! but I was having an autoimmune response called Hypersensitivity Vasculitis. The doctor said it can happen when there is an infection or something and the bacteria cause holes in the blood vessels and the blood leaks out EEWWWW yuck ! It was absolutely horrid to look at before I knew what it was,  but  knowing what it was kind of made it worse. I am a total blood phobe😬 * I have a picture but I refuse to put it up, but you can google HV,  to see what it looks like and just imagine watching a few spots turn into that!  
          The doctor gave me antibiotics, allergy medicine, some cream, and in 8 days it was gone.  I couldn't believe it, I didn't think anything that looked that bad could go away! 
    I am still having little physical odd things happening.  I was doing a lot of Kora- "Wallking around the Great Stupa while reciting mantras" and  I developed the scariest looking monster blister of all time! large enough to be on the heel and the side of my foot at the same time, Colin was even getting concerned, it looked like a huge tumor or something, and it wasn't going away it was  almost 2 weeks and started to turn purplish in some areas. It was going to be off to the clinic again for me, and then finally it started going away.
Okay now that was done, I know... sorry all this icky stuff but I thought it was so strange, and kind of comical that Colin was making all these friends and all this wonderful stuff was happening and moms in the background completely falling apart, Like a cartoon where the main character is going along oblivious to his sidekick getting bumped and beaten by stuff. So my role this trip - The bumbling sidekick : )

Okay so  I do have friends, this is Carolyn and I, and we just ate apple pie ala mode and are quite happy... happy to see each other too : )



    I was also fortunate to find part time work as a  Didi Nepali for housekeeper and laundry person 

As well as a Master chef ; ) - Here are some of my specialties - I am still locating food items so the menu is a bit limited right now.

 Honey Infused French Toast

Pesto Tortilini with Cooked Carrot wedges, with a garnish of
Fresh Mango and sliced badly buttered bread : )






And then there was "Day of the Beans" not the proudest time of my career

In the Company of beans 
 So I was very excited when I found some black beans, Colin and I thought Black Bean soup would be great!  - I found an easy recipe for black bean soup and went about soaking the beans overnight, the next day I began to cook them in water 1 hour - then 2,  I noticed the beans didn't have much taste even with the onion, cumin oregano etc. and the texture was different, still too hard,  they were also kind of white inside. So I decided to look up what black Bhatmas ( Nepali) was, (Yes of course this would have been better to do before starting to cook) and found that these are actually black soy beans- a whole different animal- (legume, we're vegetarians). 
         Luckily there was an easy recipe that looked interesting and I could still use what I was already cooking.  I  just added Chili powder, ginger, a little more garlic, drained the water and threw the beans  into the frying pan for this new recipe called Easy Bhatmas Sandeko.  
         I cooked the beans for another hour, this is hour 3, finally they started to taste okay. I added a little soy sauce to it - I mean at this point how could it hurt ? and it actually tasted okay. I was satisfied with my Franken beans, figured they could now be eaten with some rice and we could get some kind of dessert to compensate if Colin couldn't tolerate them.  

Then this 4:00pm text from Colin at school: 
            "Hey Mom, let's get a veggie burger at 
             Friendship Restaurant,they had black bean soup
              for lunch here at school today" 
 That was it! I hate beans, it's over!  I needed some closure so I ate the dam beans for lunch the next day and thus ended  " The Day of Beans" saga  Note: I took this dish off the menu!
                                                      

                           Yup, just about as good as they look !
 

Our Apartment Manager Pawan has also become Colin's close friend and mentor. Pawan owns a bike shop and runs a program very similar to Bikeworks in Seattle - What a coincidence!

At Pawan's Bike shop     Pawan and guys from the shop ride almost every morning, They asked  Colin to join them on two rides, I have to say these aren't just any mountain bike rides this is the foot hills of the Himalayas, the rides included having to carry the bikes up 1/2 mile and riding downhill for almost an hour  going through small villages  and through creeks, Colin said it was the gnarliest ride he has ever been on!   the other ride was through the ancient city of Bhaktaphur. Colin actually did a header over the handle bars on this one  he was okay but pretty scratched and banged up - Had a helmet on thank goodness!

 

 Colin meets another  Friend and Mentor    As we were walking down the street, the street we go down everyday,  there was this beautiful flute music coming from a noodle shop so we peeked in  and it was Sameer.   We  started talking, Colin has had many lessons at home with a G scale flute  but he has always wanted an E scale, and as it turns out  Sameer  was able to get Colin a specially made E scale Bansuri flute made by a master flute maker!   And now he has offered to help Colin practice,  we are so grateful to him!

 

Colin and Sameer practice session

Logistics - where we are staying

these buildings are actually two households. and we rent the apt below and in front of one  of the families

We rentthis corner Apt

Getting out of the gate can be a bit tricky.
The dogs are like.... of course he'll let us out why wouldn't he?

Two Trips in One

 My Disclaimer: I am not a professional Blogger I just enjoy sharing pictures and  thoughts about our trips : )

So,  if you do not already know us Teresa, Larry and our son Colin, we are the Lamb family.
      for the past 7 years we have had the great fortune to travel to Nepal and live in India doing various wonderful things * see our previous blogs * and now Colin and I are back in Nepal again.  Larry could not join us on this trip  because of work, but will catch up on the next one.  For now he will be our US sponsor and international support team for the two  months we are here - Thank you Larry! we Love you!

Two... Two ... Two trips in One!
 So far It seems that Colin and I  have two different trips that are running parallel to each other.
The main trip being all about Colin learning Tibetan and experiencing daily life in Nepal. The friends he meets  and wonderful places he goes etc.
   And for myself you will  mostly see me behind the scenes bumbling my way through, finances- OH MY GOSH WHAT DO I GIVE AS A TIP !  miscellaneous health issues, fending off a  group of young boys begging and picking my pocket at the same time, getting the cat we are caring for to the vet and other mundane things -  more about all this later.
   Seriously though  I hope this blog will give friends  a glimpse of what it is like to live in Nepal - well, what it's like for us to live here, everyone has their own adventure when they come.  And  hopefully this can provide some helpful information too.

 The Great Boudhanath Stupa in Bouda, Kathmandu