Million dollar ideas

Sometimes, when away from work it is tempting to imagine ways to not work, and sometimes when one is traveling thoughts turn to various ways to make a living that would involve unlimited opportunities for travel, which is how the discussion on the roof of the Bamboo Bar devolved into a plan to make our fortunes writing smutty books to sell on Amazon. This will not, of course, pan out or even be seriously considered in the harsh light of reality. More importantly in a world where there are people writing sumtty books about Bigfoot, dinosaurs, and aliens with tentacles what worlds are left to imagine?

We did not do too much today. Tomorrow we leave for Bhutan which is going to involve a lot of airport time, riding over the mountains in a smallish airplane, and another round of the passport control tango, so having a down day seemed wise. Plus our time in Bhutan is rather go go go, so sitting on rooftops seemed like a reasonable idea.

We also went and got massages which was very relaxing and seemed like good preparation for our trek. Today we talked to a woman who just came back from the Everest base camp trek who had never trekked before. An18 day trek and serious altitude seems like a very ambitious place to start. Still, I think it would be a fun one to do someday. 

With the festival in full swing, the streets were much more quiet today. For dinner we headed to an area that very much caters to expats and tourists which was quite hopping.

The restaurant we went to had good food and uncomfortable chairs. A lot of folks in their 20s who looked like they were doing the post college travel thing. I think I was that age once. I overheard at the table next to us someone talking about how they were surprised someone who was on their trek was 44 years old because that is pretty old and she didn't look that old. It then occurred to me that a) I am almost that age and b) that was probably not much different than his mother's age. 

After dinner D headed back to the hotel because she was not feeling great. Chris and I did a bit of wandering around including going into a very large, very modern grocery store that appeared to have a stock that was 50% candy, 20% tea, and 30% everything else. I suspect that they know their audience.

One observation about shops - there is an amazing variety of cheap knockoff clothing and accessories. Because it is Nepal a lot of the products are knockoff outdoor gear - jackets, bags, pants, boots. I have never seen such a marvelous variety of north face logos. My favorite though were these sunglasses. They decided not to try to hard with the branding. 

Tomorow we are off to the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon.