As we were flying back into Kathmandu after the Everest trek, my priorities were very, very simple. Must... have... long hot shower. Wait, wait – must ALSO have some other food beside rice/noodles and some bland mo-mo's!
Right. My first day back in civilization was spent basically pampering the heck out of myself. I took up David and Kristin's advice, and had an hour long “trekking massage” for about $12 – mix of Thai, Swedish, and who knows what other styles, but it was a great way to work out the kinks from the the hike.
Then, an overdue haircut and even better, a bare blade shave at a very local barber. If you've never had the chance to do this, man, it's pretty awesome. Think of it like a combo pedi/mani, but for dudes... for about a buck, you get a head massage, warm lathering with foam and then 2 very close passes with a sharp blade – Gilette Sensor ain't got nothing on these bad boys!
Uh – the one caveat is that you really need to trust the guy who's giving this, since he'll have a sharp knife at your throat Let's just say that ain't the best time for anything more argumentative than football/soccer scores...
That evening was fun too – as our combined group met up for a post-trek beer or three at the now labyrinthine Kathmandue Guest House, house in a converted old palace in Thamel.
Then, as if 130 kilometers of hiking wasn't enough, John talked me into meeting up the next day for some mountain-biking. Kathmandu actually has some great places to check out within a 30 minute ride – provided you don't get killed working your way through traffic.
The funniest sight I had was cycling past a car with two Nepalis, who both did a double-take and grinned when they saw that it wasn't a local, but a brave/insane tourist riding past. I'm sure they were saying something like “Five bucks that dude doesn't make it.”
As for the bike ride, we had a great early start, heading up partway up a hill in a national park on the outskirst of town. Alas, while we were prepped for most things such as flat tires, etc., a chain breaking was not in the plans.
John did some amazing work with our two Leathermans, plus some athletic tape to try and jury rig something together to get me back to Thamel, but no dice. The next hour or two was spent mostly coasting and pushing my bike to town – where the bike shop guy was incredibly apologetic. A 56 year old rock star who's in the peak of fitness, he took a lot of pride in his bikes so gave us a pretty steep discount.
Then to ease the pain, it was time to sample some of the other Nepalese beers – Gurka in this case. My knee was tweaked a bit, but the beer did seem to go a good ways towards starting the healing. Mmm... Gurkha beer...(wonder if BevMo carries it?)
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