DAY 370: One of my worst fears in life is to be stranded at sea, the lone survivor of a boat sinking or something. The fear isn't the actual being alone or being miles away from being rescued or even the threat of sharks, it is the fact that at any given moment, a big giant whale's tail could pop out like in those nature documentaries and slap me down silly. Every time I see one of those whale documentaries on TV and see that happen, I cringe.

One of the worst fears I have pertaining to this Blog is that I don't do something interesting on the road to write about. Even at home I get antsy when I just sit around and do nothing and I feel like time is just wasted when I should be out doing something. But doing something was harder in this circumstance, as it was the third day recuperating from The Incident on The Everest Trail in the Himalayas -- that and the fact that I had an awful pain in the neck from sleeping on a hard pillow, and a pain in my leg from some strange insect bite I got in the overnight. But while I was still a bit exhausted and a bit dizzy when walking around, I figured the least I could do to be productive was get a haircut.

Thamel was still pretty much closed for the Dashami holiday, but a few businesses remained open to cater to the tourists in the area. One such business was an old-fashioned barber shop/massage parlor, down a dark and sketchy narrow alley where everything else was closed (picture above). The barber was waiting out by the street for clients and he seemed nice so I gave it a whirl.

The barber was thorough and cut my hair finally back down to the short, fuzzy style I have on my passport photo. In the other barber chair was a British guy from Guernsey, the British Channel Island where Lara (Peru, Bolivia, Brazil) came from, although he said he didn't exactly know her. The guy wasn't there for a haircut but for a back massage, and he raved about it when he was finished before my hair was finished being cut.

It was just me and the short Nepali barber in the shop in the back alley, and immediately after my cut he started with the touching and rubbing. "You want massage?" he enticed me.

I'm sorry, we just met, I thought. This is really out of the jurisdiction of the barber/client relationship, you know. "Sure," I said anyway. Never mind that we were two lone men in a secluded back alley in Kathmandu; my neck was still sore and I wanted him to knead it out for me -- plus the gay connotations involved were nothing compared to a big whale's tail coming out of nowhere in the middle of the ocean (not that there's anything wrong with both). The barber was gentle with me in the back massage as I remained in the barber chair and simple leaned forward for it to happen. He cracked my back and my neck in all the good ways and rejuvenated my joints.

I wandered around Thamel again that sunny day afterwards, passed the snake charmers and the tourists who had never seen one before. I still wasn't 100% just yet, but I could feel myself able to focus on objects stronger than the previous day -- that is, until after the time I thought I could handle a beer at the curry restaurant I went to, which just got me more tired and sleepy. I bought a bunch of bootleg CDs -- I collected all twelve of the Buddha Bar CDs since they were so cheap -- and even bought a CD wallet to keep them in to minimize the bulk of jewel cases.

When I was too tired to walk around, I went back to my room and finally watched the bootleg I, Robot DVD I got in Beijing but never got around to watching. With my new haircut, I entertained myself for a while by trying to simulate the suspicious facial expression Wil Smith has on the cover of the movie.

I slept early again that night and all was fine; in the safety of a bed in a landlocked country, I had nothing to fear from big whale tails in the middle of the ocean.

If this is your first taste of this Blog, please forgive me for how lame this entry is; I didn't have much going on as I was recuperating from an almost-fatal incident on the trail to Mount Everest, which you can read about here.