I've been bored out of my mind. Monsoon has come early to Nepal and combined with nationwide strikes, makes Kathmandu really dull.

Kathmandu is a city loaded with danger for me. There is shopping like I've never experienced- but yet I can't shop. For the last three days, there has been a bandh (strike) and almost all shops have been closed and there are almost no taxis to get anywhere.

Yesterday Ant and I tried to take advantage of the lack of traffic and walked to Swayambhunath Temple (or Monkey Temple). It was a pleasant walk and we got to wander through different neighborhoods along the way, in particular one Tibetan one. The temple itself was pretty cool. There is a LONG staircase up to the top of the hill and there are small buddhas all along the way, along with Ganeshes and garudas. A pretty nifty site indeed.

When we FINALLY reached the top (and I thought I had escaped the smelly men in front of me) it began to pour- a la monsoon. Luckily, being this is Nepal and they are used to this kind of thing, they have lots of overhangs. As we waited out the downpour, I noticed that the stinky guys were staring at me again. I pointed this out to Anthony, but he just said that they had been appreciating the view of my ass on the way up and were hoping for another glimpse. RIIIIght.

On the walk back, we saw police vans go by with a large crowd hanging around in anticipation of action. We hung around for a few minutes and didn't even get to see a burning tire. There have been reports of violence in the papers but Ant and I haven't seen a thing other than a police van nearly run over a stupid kid who blatantly rode in front of it.

Today we went to Patan, a nearby city. I couldn't tell you were Kathmandu ended and Patan started but really, it doesn't matter. It was a pretty area but again, we got poured on, several times.

Tomorrow I will finally pick up my passport (2 days late due to strikes) and will be able to get the shopping done I wanted to. This place has higher quality goodies than I've seen in other places and I don't want to pass up cheap cool stuff. This whole strike thing has taken the fun out of shopping because you have to wait and wait and wait for the shops to open.

Being this is a highly uninspired post, I will end it here. Hopefully something more exciting will happen soon.