Falling in love with Hanoi

We love Hanoi.

This place rocks. It has all the modern conveniences we're used to (multiple constantly functioning outlets in the hotel, no power outages, I haven't squatted once to use a public bathroom yet!) and the weather has been completely clear since we arrived. So, we begin when Seth and I got off a red-eye flight into Hanoi with a stopover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When you look at the map, it seems we took a bit of a roundabout way of getting there, but whatever. Also, sidenote: Air Asia, I hate you. Since we were flying through and into Southeat Asia, and we hadn't needed a jacket since we were near the Himalayas, we didn't think to bring a jacket on the flight. We got on and some people were wearing their heaviest down coat. Seth was in a tank top, and I a very thin cotton shirt. Neither of us was wearing long pants. And unlike most airlines which come with a complimentary pillow and blanket, with Air Asia, you buy a blanket. On the flight out of Kuala Lumpur, we broke down and bought the stinking $12 blanket, complete with a blow-up travel pillow and a sleeping mask. The flight attendant wouldn't take our $20 bill that wasn't crisp and new (i.e.- 2004 issue or newer), which happened to us also once in Hanoi (that one was ripped a little in the corner) with the local currency, I mean jeez people, and then she gave us our change in Malaysian ringgot (their currency which kinda sounds like an unfortunate parasite you would call in sick to work with, right?) And we still haven't been able to exchange it.

But I digress. Immediately upon checking into our hotel in the Old Quarter of the city, with about 2.5 hours of sleep under our belts, we set out to explore. The sun was shining and we were not about to waste it! We had a tourist map which told us that the nearest attraction was Hoan Kiem Lake, so we walked that way. About five minutes in, a woman selling bananas and pineapple off an enormous old scale which she balanced on her shoulder came up to us and put her hat on me. Then she put the scale on my shoulder. I posed for a picture, then she did the same with Seth and put his hat on her head, posed for a picture and told him he needed bananas so she gave him a plastic bag of them. Then she wanted $10. This time though, I was prepared! I gave her $5. Which still was too much, but at least it wasn't the $60 the Indian guy in Kathmandu got out of us, which still makes me kinda sick. The bananas, on the other hand, were decent but not the tiny explosions of flavor we have experienced elsewhere. Also this is a scam to watch out for, and we've seen it happening about 3 times since. All the women selling *specifically* bananas and pineapple do it, and they're not the only ones with the big scales (I'm sorry but that's the fastest way I can describe it. I'll include a picture). Anyway we kept going, pretty unphased since we at least got some bananas out of the deal. We found the lake and hung out at the temple in the middle, which had a $1 entrance fee. This is something else really great about Hanoi: no exorbitant white person tax so far, with the exception of the $45 visa on arrival. Ngok San Temple is otherwise known as the Temple of Jade Mountain, and it's dedicated to Confucian and Taoist philosophers, as well as war hero Tran Hung Dao, who " commanded the Đại Việt armies that repelled three major Mongol invasions in the 13th century" (Wikipedia). According to the legend, he was granted a sword by the gods, and after his victories he was hanging out by the lake when a turtle God appeared to take the sword back. Naturally there's also an enormous 450lb. stuffed turtle encased at the temple. 

OK so next we ate our first authentic pho bo. Everybody said: don't eat at the nice restaurants, go to the little holes in the wall. So, we found one that was crowded and went for it. The foodies will like this part. When  you eat pho bo, you get a big plate of sticky white rice noodles and a separate bowl of soup. The broth is a yellow, kinda sweet tamarind broth, usually made with honey and fish sauce. Inside the broth you will find pieces of barbequed pork, but not Southern US style -- we're talkin generous brown fatty slabs of meat, which progressively melt more and more into the broth as your meal goes by. The pork lady, whose job appears to be solely cooking the meat, also grinds up the pork and makes it into little succulent patties, which the cook adds to the broth. There are a few more leafy vegetables in the broth as well as pieces of green papaya (adding a crisp freshness to every bite), and at every table there is some sliced mildly-pickled ginger in clear vinegar for you to spoon out and add to the flavor, along with the red chili sauce. You just put the rice noodles into the soup and grab them (and some meat) with your chopsticks, put it all on the spoon, add some fresh mint and other leafy herbs from the 3rd plate provided, and stick it in your mouth. We got two orders of pho bo and two delightful Vietnamese spring rolls, all for a whopping price of $5. It was unreal.

Walking around the city, trying to find the Hanoi Cathedral for about an hour, we did our usual quiet absorbing of a city. One thing we noticed immediately about Hanoi is that it has sidewalks! But the sidewalks are mostly used for motorcycles and mopeds. The mopeds are a force to be reckoned with here, and must make up about 70% of all the traffic in the city. So, you can technically walk on the sidewalk, but you just have to dodge the occasional moving moped, walk around the parked ones (many of which are for rent so there are also men asking if you want one), and walk around the people eating outside cafes, the people chilling outside their stores, the stores outside of the stores, etc. There is car exhaust in the air which makes you stop breathing one second, but then you smell the delicious pho bo, or other grilled meat, or exotic fruit, spices and incense so keep sniffing like a baset hound ignoring the car exhaust! But then a moped revs its engine next to you and you have to hold your breath again. On one street, you might find a lot of hole-in-the-wall restaurants (of which we have officially frequented many at this point) which all have tiny plastic stools about a foot off the ground onto which people sit while eating something with chopsticks from a stool about two feet off the ground. All on the sidewalk mind you. On another street, maybe there are a lot of cafes, or bars, or fruit stands, or on another, people will be people selling shoes and working on them right outside the store -- I saw a guy sawing down a woman's stiletto, right on the edge of the sidewalk with a loud, round saw thingy. There are different streets dedicated to selling different things. Besides the whirring of power tools, buzzing of mopeds, and car engines, there are people constantly honking and announcers trying to sell things, random bells from all directions, and people speaking in every language all around you. This city is so alive, but also very pleasant: people ask us if we want to buy their service, but usually after we say no, they leave us alone. It's so laid back. We really like Hanoi.

We stopped by a cafe and I got some "hazelnut jelly freeze coffee" which is basically a hazelnut frapuccino with sweet hazelnut-flavored jello blocks. I bought it out of intrigue, and was a little disappointed to find out it was exactly what it sounded like and not so delicious so I don't really recommend it to anyone unless they're REALLY big fans of both of those things, and even then proceed with caution. We went to an army museum where we learned about the Vietnamese resistance to the French and American forces in Vietnam for the majority of the 20th century. It made me feel happy for the Vietnamese people that they finally gained independence after about 60 nonstop years of fighting, but also a little uncomfortable as an American. There was a courtyard with some of their military conquests on display, i.e. American army cars and planes. There was a MIG fighter jet, a Huey helicopter, and surface-to-air balistic missile used for shooting down B52 bomber planes, and American bombshells that had been harvested for their explosive material to make bombs for the Northern Vietnamese troops. There were also several artilery and anti-aircraft pieces, because a lot of the war was Vietnam trying to shoot down American planes. We watched (OK Seth watched; I slept through) a 10-minute video about the war in Dien Bien Phu, which is a city in a valley and the Vietnamese won and it was hard. I WAS TIRED. But Seth says I have to tell you: Dien Bien Phu was the decisive battle that meant the permanent end to French occupation and colonialization of Vietnam. Impressive factoid (says Seth): the Vietnamese troops hauled artilery pieces by hand, with lots of elbow grease, to the tops of the mountains surrounding Dien Bien Phu, AND created a massive tunnel system that encircled the entire city. So between shooting really big guns from the tops of mountains onto the French troops and having so many fortifications around the city that nothing could make the Vietnamese troops retreat, it was a pretty decisive battle.

We took a stoll over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and had to walk through the enormous Hanoi Botanical Gardens to get there (a whopping cost of 5 cents per person, and a really delightful experience with people playing and exercising outside, peacocks, doves, friendly children saying hello, and a big beautiful pond with a fountain). At the mausoleum, President Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) is usually on display there, but wait! He wasn't this week. He won't be until December. But wait, you might say. There's a bigger "but wait." "Patrice, don't those years in the parentheses mean he died 55 years ago?? Patrice, you're a fool." No, I'm not a fool. Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body is always on display glass coffin in his mausoleum. I'm completely serious. And when you go visit the 55-year-old corpse, according to Wikipedia: "Rules regarding dress and behaviour are strictly enforced by staff and guards. Legs must be covered (no shorts or miniskirts). Visitors must be silent, and walk in two lines. Hands must not be in pockets, nor arms crossed. Smoking, drinking, eating, photography and video taping are also not permitted anywhere inside the mausoleum." But alas, Minh was not in his box when we tried to go. In fact, there were armed guards around the perimiter who (very kindly) informed us that the Mausoleum is closed until December, because, and I'm not making this up, he occasionally goes to RUSSIA to go through a renewed embalming process in order to slow down the decaying of his body. Luckily the museum was open for another ten minutes that day so we ran through with a guard behind us, making up facts about the items we saw on the spot since we didn't have time to read the placards. They didn't make us pay the $1 entrance fee to run through the museum so I guess they could rush us out all they wanted.

We looked for a 5-story pagoda on the nearby Thuy Khue Lake to watch the sunset, but we couldn't find it (it's a really big lake!) and instead just watched the sunset, which was really beautiful anyway. We hit the sack by 8:30, completely exhausted. The next day we woke up and got ready for a street food tour of Hanoi at 11. I could lie to you and say I was grossed out and it was all super unsanitary and not worth hanging out with a woman I didn't know and hardly understood, but why would I tell such a terrible lie? Maybe to talk down my experience. The truth is we were completely blown away by everything we consumed, and in the end each gained at least five pounds. Before we came, we were determined to treat Vietnam as a buffet. We ate lots of dishes I will never be able to pronounce the names of, much less remember, but a few that stood out:
- a dash of coffee, crushed ice, and on top a layer of whipped egg whites and honey. It's called "egg coffee."
- hoa qua dam: fruit (jack fruit, watermelon, avocado, melon, lichi, dragonfruit, banana) plus sweet coconut milk plus crushed ice. Wow.
- pig heart. Not my favorite.
- beer.
- mushrooms and ground pork in a thin rice "pancake" dipped in the tamarind/fish sauce/lime juice/honey broth, plus garnishing
- spring rolls with green papaya and sea crab
Our tour guide was one of the happiest, most delightful people I've ever met. She was 24 and always referred to herself in the 3rd person as "Ms. Moon" and called me "LADY." Everytime we needed to cross a street together, she would say, "Sticky RIIIIICE" as in, stay together and nobody will get hit by a moped. Obviously, Seth and I have absorbed that into our lives and will forever anounce "sticky RIIIIIICE" whenever we need to cross a street together.

We vowed not to eat after the street food tour, but had expanded our stomachs and inevitably went back for more hoa qua dam (FRUIT) and I found people selling rambutan on the side of the road so I bought half a kilo and ate it. THAT'S INCLUDING THE STICKS AND LEAVES AND SHELL AND PITS SO I'M SURE I DIDN'T EAT HALF A KILO OF ACTUAL RAMBUTAN FRUIT. Oh god I can't believe I'm coming home right as the holiday season starts. Afterward we walked across a 115-year-old concrete and iron Long Bien Bridge, a famous spot in Hanoi that was bombed some during the war in the '70s but is still in pretty good shape considering its age. It stretches 1.5 miles long and goes over what looked like a banana plantation as well as the Red River.

Oh yeah! Then we saw the Thang Long Water Puppet Show! This puppet technique was developed by farmers who worked in the rice paddies. From behind a curtain, puppeteers control puppets with long poles while the puppets dance around on the water. It's a traditional, unique form of puppets and was accompanied by beautiful live music.

On day three we had a museum day. A short summary because I need to go to bed but I also want to finish this post:
- At the History museum, we learned about how the Vietnamese were basically occupied from about 1890 to 1975 by the French, Japanese and then the US, and they fought constantly from about 1910 to 1975. This is a nation to be reckoned with. They fought hard for their independence and what a country they have become after all that work! Makes you wonder how all that fighting and influence effected their culture. But one thing I thank the French for: making the Vietnamese switch from Chinese characters to the Western alphabet (minus the tonal markings) so we can at least read things here. That's pretty great. But still, occupation bad.
- At Hoa Lo prison, we learned about how poorly Vietnamese prisoners were treated when the French occupied Hanoi, which was terrible and included famine and executions, overpopulation and disease. Interestingly, we also learned about how well American POWs were treated at Hoa Lo, which I'm not positive wasn't a bit of Vietnamese propaganda (sorry for the double negative: it was propaganda). There was a picture of John McCain getting treatment for illness, POWs playing all kinds of games and celebrating holidays, and getting souvenirs when they were released. I'm no huge fan of John McCain, but I thought it was because of torture in Vietnam that he can lift his arms about the same amount as a turtle can lift his front legs. But whatever, everybody does propaganda. Overall the museum was really interesting and well done!
- At the Ethnology Museum, we really tried to read everything but at this point we were completely museumed-out. Basically all I can tell you is that there are 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam, 70-80% of which is the Viet. The remaining populace is a bunch of different groups with there own languages, lifestyles and religions. A lot has changed in the last 25 years and these people are becoming more modernized (like less elephant riding or breast-bearing and more English speaking) but they still retain their heritage. Ok, duh Patrice. You get it, they're still unique. Behind the museum are about 10 to-scale replicas of (or in some cases relocated) houses. Each house is associated with a different kind of ethnic group. They're made for visitors to be able to walk inside and see how the people live. A few of them are on stilts (accessible by steps carved into long logs), and many have cool bamboo flooring that's a little scary to walk on. First, I thought it would be cool to have in my own house, then I thought I'd probably trip over it and/or fall through a hole I accidentally created while tripping over it, so I'll let the Tay people keep their bamboo bark flooring.

OK! Well, if you made it this far, congratulations!! You must have had a lot of time to kill. I'm off to bed. Halong bay cruise tomorrow, then Hoi An\ on Sunday. Have a fantastic weekend everybody.

From Osaka to Chaos: Welcome to the Third World

We weren't in Osaka for very long, but as per our new usual, we still walked and walked until we couldn't walk anymore, then walked a little more. We eventually found Osaka castle, which was definitely the most impressive castle we saw in Japan. It was well-preserved and the walls next to the moat were just monstruous. We learned later, that wasn't even the outer moat! It was inside the first, which had been filled in many years ago. The story of the castle was even more interesting though. Hideyoshi Toyotomi is Japan's biggest rags-to-riches story. He was born a poor farmer's son, then eventually rose through the ranks (and bloody battles) to become the unifier of the nation and built the castle. He actually was the first to lead the invasion into Korea in the 16th century, which resulted in a massive Korean genocide that rocked the populace. He wanted the territory, and he wanted the people of other surrounding countries to respect him and pay homage to him. He had won enough battles at that point though, so in order to occupy himself while everybody was off in Korea fighting, he stayed at home rehearsing a play. I came to the conclusion at the end of our castle-museum tour that this guy had some little man issues. Once he finally had a son by his concubine for example, he had the rest of his family killed, including his wife of many years and their daughters, in order to secure his son's position as the next ruler. Oh yeah. And when he died, he wanted to be enshrined as a god. His son lost a battle fighting to keep his position, and then commited suicide, effectively ending the family line. Oops.

The castle was cool, and Osaka seemed like it would be a pretty cool place to hang out, but it was not foreigner-friendly like Tokyo and we had a hell of a time trying to figure out our way around. What it did have, however, was Brian Richards! We found Brian at his hotel ten minutes after he got there, and all went out to dinner. We  drank sake, ate okonomiyaki one last time, this time with potatoes, bacon, cheese and seafood, and also takoyaki. Takoyaki is otherwise known as octopus balls, which means someone just takes a small piece of octopus and undercooks some dough around it. Not the most exciting form of octopus, but I was glad to try it. Afterward we looked around for a bar and found a sign for one that offered drinks for under $9 called "Continue." The font looked like it was from a video game. Lo and behold, upon entering, we realized we had just gone into a video game bar. At the bar itself, you had various consoles set up for the patrons to actually play while drinking! Most of them were Nintendo and Sega. At the far corner, a group was playing "Street Fighter." The walls and the rafters were adorned with everything video-gamey, like toys, controllers, game cartriges, memorbilia, and there was even a corner where board games were available. The entire bar was devoted to gaming and drinking. Brian and Seth were in geek heaven. That bar is perfect for them, and anyone else who happens to be in Osaka and likes to drink anything that's not wine (unfortunately) while playing any game you could ever want, unless it's capture the flag. Or a sport. Darn it you know what I mean.

I wouldn't write about the transit, but something really weird happened after we finished stuffing our faces to kill time at the Benningtons in Incheon Airport. We were on our way to the check-in counter and ran into two people we had only met for a week in Gwangju and hadn't seen in two years, i.e. our predecessors from the school. I saw them and said, "WHAT." And then one of them said, "WHAT." And then we all just kept saying "WHAT." And then we just caught up for about twenty minutes. It was so serendipitous. They were the first people we ever really talked to in Korea because they showed us around the school and helped us figure out what we were going to be doing -- basically we were the new them when we came, just like our replacements are the new us now. And then, they were the last people we would ever talk to before leaving the country. We really came full circle on that one. I think it was the perfect way to leave Korea!

So. We flew into Kathmandu. Wow, Kathmandu. Where do I start. Ok. First impressions:
We had to get a visa on arrival in the open-air airport, and of course hung out in a really long line forEVER behind some Koreans and a group of about 20 college sophomores from the US who were getting 90-day visas, probably to hike Mount Everest or something. The process of getting a visa isn't too bad, and maybe takes a total of about 4 minutes per person, but this big group of kids took a long-ass time and meanwhile exchanged stories about their CRAZY dreams and like, really CRAZY things that happened to them. It wouldn't have bothered me if I wasn't so sleep-deprived I'm sure (it was about 2AM Japan time), but there were only 4 customs agents working in their 19th century wooden booths and we just wanted to go to the hostel. Of course the pre-arranged cab to take us to the hostel didn't show up, so a 23-year-old promoting his travel agency gave us the same price as we would have paid anyway and put us in his unmarked yaris with his "uncle" and himself. He said "I will talk to the reception to make sure you don't have to pay for the cab you arranged in advance." I didn't have any cash and he said the hotel would pay him anyway. We got to the hotel, and he talked to the guy at reception. This guy. This guy opened his book, and the only thing on the page FOR THE DAY was: "Patrice Thompson - 2 people. Airport pickup 10PM." And you could see the "whoopsies"on his face before he told our new travel agent friend that we WOULD have to pay for the service that was never rendered, presumably so his boss wouldn't notice he messed up. I argued with him and it didn't take long for him to change his mind. He paid the travel agent with his own money.

We woke up to the sounds of the JP Road in Thamel. To set the stage, all the movies of India you see where there are cars and rickshaws navigating through bumpy, unpaved roads around people (or people navigating around them) with the sounds of honking and bells ringing from temples, and incense burning, and people haggling, and people in beautiful colorful clothing, and really old buildings and temples everywhere? That's an accurate depiction of where we are right now. I haven't seen one 7-11, or a McDonalds, or really much of familiar things at all. We are really out of our comfort zone (which is a goal of traveling, of course). As soon as we walked outside around 9:45 to start exploring, we were bombarded with people trying to sell us things: "hey, where are you going? Can we take you there? Very cheap. Do you want to buy this necklace? Very cheap. Are you going trekking? Come to my travel agency. I give you good price." We finally kind of shed ourselves of them and were on our way to Durbar Square when a 22-year-old came up and complimented Seth on his hat. Seth said he had a nice hat too. They started talking and the guy, Sunny, who wasn't trying to sell us anything apparently, had us follow him into an alley where he did not sell our organs, but instead showed us a temple in a little clearing. We left the clearing and some men in colorful robes approached us and happily put some red color on our foreheads for good luck, and flower petals on our heads for happiness. "Wow, thank you!" We said, thinking, what a cool service. "Five of your dollars and your god will be very happy," they said smiling. Oh. We started looking for money when some other men passing by said, "Don't give them money! It's bad karma. God will be angry. You should give them food." Their faces dropped. Sunny confirmed this, saying we could do what we wanted but with money we would make God angry. So they went to a little shop and picked out some cookie packages, the price of wich came to $1.42, which we paid. Sunny explained, if you give them money, they might not spend it wisely on themselves like with smoking and drinking, but everybody needs food, and it goes into the body, so God is happy.

Sunny taught us many things in the hour and a half we found ourselves following him around, like how to say "thank you," and the steps to worship at a Hindu temple. You take a candle, and move it in three circles in front of you clockwise: once for a good life, once for a long life, and once for a happy life. Walk around the temple clockwise and ring the bells you see as you go, then put the red color on forehead of the god statue for good karma, some flower petals on the top of your head for happiness, and some red powder on your own forehead for good luck. He showed us some really, really old temples, like 1600 years old. One of them had a statue of Mary, Jesus' mother. She was much sexier and golder than the Mary we all know, but Sunny said she's a god too. Around this time, I asked Seth, "what does he WANT??" Quietly, Seth said, "he's just a nice guy." Maybe he heard us because a minute later he assured me that he didn't want money; he just wanted rice and milk for his 3-year-old sister. He showed us a few more things, like a famous tree they put a lot of color on during the Holi festival, and then he took us to store where he got some groceries. Whatever you want, Sunny, we said, we really appreciate you showing us around. Another time we saw a businessman sticking pasty, doughy sugar cookies onto a huge, colorful wooden head. Sunny said, "if you give that god food, you will have a good life. If you give him sweets, you will have a sweet life." The businessman wanted a really sweet life I guess, because he just kept forcefeeding the head cookies! Then I did it too. Why not. A lot of the things yesterday were done with a "why not" attitude.

Now, I can see the skepticism on your face, like, "this is really dumb. He's going to swindle you," which is exactly what was going through MY head yesterday. But how much could groceries cost?? Well, you're right. He wanted $120 worth of groceries. $120. What?!?! Ok, touche, Kathmandu. We took stuff out and got a smaller bag of rice, and got the cost down to $60. Still, it's dumb, and not worth a two hour tour, but man did he get us. Such is the way of life. The smart outsmart the people who have been in Kathmandu for 12 hours. The weirdest part? The guys running the shop started making casual conversation with us in the middle of this ordeal. We're standing there, having just been blindsided by this super friendly guy, trying to cut costs, and the shopkeepers start asking us, "oh yeah? Where in the USA are you from?" I guess this is probably not an uncommon thing.

We went back to the hotel and licked our wounds with some extremely affordable mutton curry and samosas in the safety of the hotel on site. And, being a little jetlagged, we took a nap. But Monday was a huge festival day in Kathmandu, one of the biggest festivals of the year called Indra Jatra in Durbar Square, which is a square with about 400 temples within walking distance of our hostel. So of course we had to go. We walked outside confidently, this time not being so nice to people who started talking to us, and headed to the square. We waited with a crowd for about an hour and a half, just having no idea what was going on. We were all packed really close together and it rained a bit. We weren't really sure what we were looking at, but one guy with a motorcycle helmet seemed to get a little too close to my derrier, and Seth was a few people behind so he couldn't see so I did my best to ward him off. Eventually we walked with the crowd into the square and the police said we all had to get closer together because an enormous effigy was about to go through. They phyically pushed us all together, against a building. I saw the headlines: "Two Americans were crushed today..." I made eye contact with one of the voluteers helping the push effort, and mouthed "no way" and I guess he took pity on me and Seth because he pulled us out of the crowd. Right about that time, motorcycle helmet took the opportunity of everybody being packed in to give my left boob a squeeze, so on the way out I dropped my elbow into his back, HARD. I hope it hurt. Seth found out later he was also violated in another way in that crowd, as in someone pickpocketed him, although he didn't lose more than $2 or $3.

I know what you're thinking. "Ok, so then you went home." Nope. Not us. We hung out where the volunteer put us for a few minutes (and told us to watch our bags), and then he said the Kumari, the 13-year-old child godess for whom the festival was taking place, would make an appearance around 7:30 (we'd been waiting since 3:30 and it was now 5:30). To give you an idea of where we were, the Nepali royal family was watching from a porch, along with many other foreign diplomats. There was a band playing, what seemed like a group of Nepali marines standing in uniform, police in riot gear, and people. People everywhere. Sitting on the sides of the temple, all the way up to the top. Pouring out of every corner and entrance possible. There was even a monkey on the roof of a building. But the volunteer changed his mind about where he wanted us. So he pulled me and Seth in front of a military procession, and at least five police and guards tried to stop us until they saw we were with him. In front of everybody, with the Nepali royal family looking on and all the people, we were taken to a different group of photographers and tourists, where we stood for about twenty minutes while people took pictures of Saudi diplomats and  other important people getting into their cars, ten feet away. By 6PM our patience was starting to wear thin, so we decided to go back to the hostel room. One of us (not me) didn't listen to the other's (my) suggestions on how to get back, so we got lost, and ended up taking a rickshaw back, and called it a day. That was enough.

So. In summary. We were not very smart yesterday. But we learned a few lessons. Like: most people who approach you in Nepal want to scam you just like in Southeast Asia even though giving money is bad karma, how to worship at a Hindu temple, watch out for horse poop, don't wear wool socks in September, listen to Patrice when she thinks we're going the wrong way, and for goodness sake don't get stuck in large crowds. I'm going to chalk that up as one of the craziest things I've ever done.