Good Morning Kathmandu!

There's not much to say about Rosebud....other than, I went to sleep
with a big roach (I think it was a roach) and woke up with a rat (on
the curtain rod). We both scared each other when I opened the
curtain in the morning, the rat ran straight down the window and
across the room and I jumped straight up onto the bed. Good morning
Kathmandu!

I literally ran over to Hotel Ganesh Himal to confirm they had a room
for me (no way I was staying at Rosebud another night), and what a
difference - Hotel Ganesh was like a 5-star hotel compared to Rosebud.
Nice bright reception area, dining room, free wi-fi, free filtered water and
foreigners too! I ended up having breakfast at the hotel since I was
too lazy to find a cheap breakfast spot in Thamel. The price wasn't
too bad - less than 200 Rupees (that's about 3 bucks) for coffee, eggs
and toast. The best part of my breakfast was meeting and talking to
Christy (from Orlando) for couple of hours. She had been working in
China as a teacher for about a year and was heading back home
tomorrow. We talked about the Chinese people, the Chinese government, and
Tibet (she didn't get the Permit to enter Tibet and was very
disappointed about it).

I spent most of the afternoon at Helena's Restaurant eating too much
food and trying to connect to the Internet (connection speed is a
major drawback in Nepal). After couple of hours of trying, I gave up
and walked around Thamel. Thamel district is a
trekker/adventurer/souvenir-collector mecca - every adventure/trekking equipment
store has amazing fake copies of The North Face, Mountain Hardware,
Columbia and Marmot clothing, bags and accessories. It appears The
North Face waterproof duffel bag is the most popular item since every
adventure store carries them - I almost got one until I realized I
already have the Patagonia Black Hole and don't need to buy another
bag (I still have too much stuff!). There are also stores that sell
everything from statues of Buddha and old masks to various 'antiques'
that probably were made last week. And of course, just about every
other store sells pashmina scarves and cashmere sweaters.

I finally decided to stick to my original plan to head over to
Mongolia...I could go south and east to Burma - Thailand - Malaysia -
Indonesia region but I decided I could do that on my way to Australia.
Now I just need to find a cheap flight to Ulaan Baatar.