so okay when we last left off, our hero was left stranded in Dolanji, despairing about his laptop and loneliness. So Wednesday morning I got a taxi through Dhondup per mahi's recommendation of going a day early to try on more time to get my laptop. He came to town with me and even helped me book my train ticket (the next free train was 8:40pm) and find a place to while away the day. That was when I felt the most afraid and vulnerable for some reason. I suppose being in a completely unknown town, using unknown transportation with no one to help me... So got to the station that evening, prayed to God to help me get my laptop, got on the train after asking the driver which was my car - befriended an Indian lady who had grown up mostly in England though now lives in Delhi and does business in Oman and Dubai. She said that Friday was a holiday and at that moment I was so relieved I was going then and also all the more afraid of missing a narrow opportunity - 3 hours passed, then another 7 on the big sleeper train, which was a long 7 hours. Got to the Tibetan settlement and checked into the Rabsel house, a little nicer than the white house. Took a shower as it was 7 am and turned on the TV for news. They gae me free milk tea, which was very nice - I felt positively pampered. Then I got some breakfast and was off on my adventure to find my laptop I had an unsuspecting taxi driver offer to take me where I wanted to go - little did he know he would spend 7 hours with me. He was very modest and didn't try to extort me which I really apprecated. Okay so first we went to the speed post customer care office. They pulled up my package and directed me to the foreign post office. My guy expertly found the place despite cryptic directions and construction obscuring it. That was 1 hour. The next 6 were spent running between the 6 floors that is the foreign post office. More beaucratic red tape I could not have created if I tried my hardest. I fell in to picking up my package with a phillipine couple - we both were speechless with how long the process took - including waiting for 45 minutes while a fat beaucrat ate his nasty lunch in front of us - none of us having eaten yet. Yet I was on the verge of enlightenment in terms of my patience - no matter what happened I was calm and extraordinarily patient, as though nothing in the world phased me. It was because I finally tried what Kate's been blabbering about this whole trip - opening my heart, looking at the good, being hopeful and trusting others. It sounds ridiculously corny but it's such a powerful force on others - when you're honest, others tend to be more honest too. So after much gnashing of teeth I escaped with my package and no import tariff, which made me happy.

I paid my cab driver 800=$20 and went back and played. It was a real reason to give thanks on thanksgiving. For dinner I tried to approximate a traditional dinner with Tibetan food - chicken in a butter and garlic sauce (turkey and gravy), tingmo (stuffing/rolls_ and veg. spring roll (salad?) Anyway I enjoyed it and went back to play more. My laptop was like a piece of home sent to me, it felt like it was a piece of technology out of time in such a backward country - it stymied my pangs of homesickness. That night I also arranged my flight to Nepal - nay, my deliverance from evil. Definitely somebody had a hand in this one too, as the total was $160, and I had $150 in traveller's checques and a little over a 1000 rs (they won't take credit cards and there are no ATMs in the Tibetan settlement) I had just enough to pay for my room and get a rickshaw - not even a taxi - to the airport. Thank god there's no airport tax in Delhi. Then I was home free - flew on the posh Jet Airways flight to KTM and then I already had a few nepali rupees enough to get to Dawa's - then I walked to Thamel and promptly withdrew 15,000 ($200+) which should last me to the end of the semester granted I don't buy any gifts or eat in Thamel at all. THough I made this evening the exception, in celebration of escaping the hell that is India at fire and ice, reading newsweek. I saw manu afterwards and it made me really happy seeing someone I knew. Also just being at Dawa's brought a smile to my face. Kathmandu is highly civilized compared to Delhi, which is why I love it.