Far away, and only yesterday

LH's life is much more interesting than mine right now.  (Makes me wonder how the blog can grow old without a "plumbing" tag.)

The second night was at Tintale, which is quite high at the top of a long, exhausting upward slope. We stayed at a kind of lodge / house. I talked with a handsome guy who was a teacher at a private English medium school, seemed to be well-off, and when I asked if he read Nepali novels, it turned out he had read ALL of the novels I've translated (in Nepali, of course) and seemed genuinely impressed to meet the translator! The proprietor of the "inn" (I'm not sure what to call it - they serve dal bhat and provide space for sleeping) was a very jolly Rai guy, and we had lots of laughs. He urged us to stay another day so we could "dance and sing together." We were informed that Tintale gets knee-deep snow in the winter. The way to the outdoor bathroom was so treacherous I peed in the road during the night rather than attempt it (it required going out through a room of sleeping travelers in the dark trying not to wake them, opening a creaking front door, stepping over a plank across the threshold, going to the street, going down a steep slope with uneven steps, being careful not to trip on a 2' high hose in the path, hopping down a 3' step (all slippery mud), negotiating the toilet door locked with a tiny lock - all while holding a flashlight and toilet paper, then dealing with a squat toilet. Luckily I didn't have the runs). Dinner was a noisy affair, as a couple of the guests had drunk a lot of rakshi and got a little noisy and obnoxious, but they soon went to sleep.