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Apparently you can "follow" our blog. Not sure how, but if you are reading this you should figure it out and you should totally do it. Here is a special shout out to our two, count 'em TWO, followers (i.e. "stalkers"). Stay warm in Rhody Gail and Ann, and know that there is a guest room in warm Kathmandu for you any time.

How many words are 14 pictures worth?

Nagarkot, Nepal

After only 2.5 hours we made it to the End of the Universe.

Looks nice. Is that our room?

And this is our patio. Right?

Perhaps this is our room? Oh, Lord Vishnu's you say?

Bad dog! Don't drink the holy water!

Oh, here's our room. No need for panorama. But what a view.

We'll just hang out here anyway.

Beer and internet by candlelight. Nirvana's not so hard to find.

Now it's time for some trekking. The distant vistas were hazy, so we settled for close-ups.

I'm glad I just walk these valleys, not work 'em.

This is farm land?

But a Foreign Service Officer's work is never done. Yes boss?

Other trekkers on the trail. Or maybe just local folks walkin' home. Hard to tell.

And I'm spent.

Kukur Puja for Tihar Festival

I love this photo. Several of our friends organized a traditional Kukur puja (dog worship/prayer ceremony) for the Tihar festival, as mentioned in the previous post. Here you can see Ragamuffin's (name changed for canine anonymity) forehead tika and garland. He was a proud pup.

On a sidenote, Shortbus is very disappointed about the lack of cat worship here. Fortunately, she is spoiled enough at home that she's forgotten about this discrimination.

Is this heaven? No it's Nagarkot.

Well, perhaps Nagarkot's not heaven, but after one month in the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu, it feels a bit like it. Nagarkot is a small village in the mountains ringing the Kathmandu Valley. We are above 7,000 feet, surrounded by pine tree forest and have a view of rolling mountains to the north and east. If the clouds clear a bit, we're supposed to have clear views of the Himalayas far to the north. Being out of Kathmandu means, best of all, that we've escaped the smog. And the honking. And the traffic jams. The trip, however, got off in typical Nepali fashion when our driver, hired days ago specifically to transport us to Nagarkot, realized that he'd forgotten to get gas and had already started to climb into the mountains. So back we went in search of a gas pump. After getting what appeared to be a thimble full (less that a quarter tank) we were back on the "road." As an apology, I believe, he stopped and bought us some locally bottled water...that may or may not give us diarrhea. As usual I drank some for Elyse, to look like she had some, then drank my own. We'll see how I feel in about six hours. Now that's taking one for the team.

Twenty miles and two and a half hours later (no exaggeration) we reached our destination. It was definitely worth the detour and the wait. Currently I'm sitting in a cozy common area in our guest house: The Hotel at the End of the Universe. The only thing better than its name is its physical setting. The "HATEOTU" perches atop the tallest hill in Nagarkot providing us fantastic vistas in all directions. Rustic wooden cabins dot the hilly property. Amongst the low profile buildings are gardens, sitting areas, and, at the pinnacle, a small Hindu shrine. The common room is all dark wood, stone and windows. It also serves as the hotel bar, restaurant, and WI-FI hotspot. Perfect! Our little room upstairs is simple and small. Basically it's a bed with walls. Seriously. The bed has walls on three sides. It's like a big boat cabin. But two of those walls are windows, so the view is pretty great. And it only runs us about $20 per night. The plan for our time here is to read, hike, relax and breathe clean air. We will revel in the silence and the cool mountain air. It may not be heaven, or even the field of dreams, but I'm glad they built it, because we came.

Party All the Time

Oh boy, what to write about now? So many thoughts to share, so many stories to tell. Perhaps I'll talk a little about one of the great perks we stumbled into immediately upon arrival. The two biggest Nepali festivals take place in October!

The first was Dasain. We arrived on a Thursday. I worked on Friday. Then I got 10 days off! My colleagues thought I was a genius. The first 9 days were for Dasain and then 1 extra Monday for Columbus day. (Did I mention we get off Nepali and US holidays?) The stories and traditions behind Dasain are confusing for a non-Hindu, so if you want to learn more, go here. All I know is that it celebrates the victory of good (personified in the Goddess Durga) over evil (a buffalo demon Mahisasura) and is, therefore, a very auspicious time. Unless you are a farm animal of some kind. Then the auspiciousness decreases. Lots of sacrifices are made during Dasain. They say in one square in Kathmandu (mom, stop reading until the next paragraph) a massive animal sacrifice takes place and attendees are literally up to their ankles in blood. On a more enjoyable note, I did get a tika blessing on the street from some sadhus , roaming Hindu holy men. A tika consists of a fat orange/red dot and some sticky rice on your head. The dot represents the all seeing, all knowing third eye and the rice...is in case you get hungry I guess.

Then I worked for a week. But next week, we get off another three days for Tihar, the second most important Nepali holiday. In Tihar celebrations, Nepalis try to make it up to all of the animals they killed a few weeks ago by honoring a few of their favorites. Crows, as the messengers of the lord of death, are presented feasts to keep them happy. Then dogs, who guide people across the river of death, and cows, the "mothers of the universe" get adorned with tikas and flower garlands. It will be a nice day for them, because the other 364 days of the year these mangy creatures dodge cars as they wander the streets and scrounge in the garbage for food. Then, on the final night of Tihar, people light their homes to entice Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, to drop by. For this reason, Tihar is known as the Festival of Lights. It's a little different from the other Festival of Lights, but I think we'll take out the menorah anyway. I hope I'm on Lakshmi's nice list.

And I'm proud to be an American

This is the first blog post of Serenity Now (…Insanity Later), entry by Keith. There is so much to say, but I’ll try to keep it short-ish. First, to catch you up in case you missed it, I took a job with the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service Officer back in October, 2010. Since then we were assigned to Kathmandu, Nepal and I went through lots and lots of training. I speak Nepali now. Kinda. I’m a Political Officer, but this time around I’m doing my Consular tour. In a nutshell that means I work on, among other things, immigrant visas, non-immigrant visas, adoptions, refugee resettlement, fraud prevention, and, most importantly, supporting American Citizens in Nepal. Elyse continues to work on brain stuff.

Now here we are in the ancient and exotic city of Kathmandu, home of Hindus and hippies. Most of the hippies have left since their influx in the 60s and 70s, but we can still visit “Freak Street.” We’re in a big valley at about 4,500 feet above sea level and are exactly 9 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard Time. I’m still not sure where those other 15 minutes went. We’ve got a nice furnished apartment, not far from our new Embassy, and soon will have a gas guzzling SUV. I find it ironic that we had to leave the States to become more stereotypically American. We now have this big SUV, are members at BJ’s wholesale club and yesterday, for the first time in our 7+ years together, we made a barbecue chicken dinner and ate at the dining room table. Now we’re watching Wheel of Fortune on the Armed Forces Network. (Do Pat and Vanna sleep in formaldehyde? Because they look the same as they did when I last watched in 1989.) In my previous experience in developing countries, when faced with a few questionable options, you initially go with what you know. Especially when what you don’t know can give you the “Kathmanpoos.” Hopefully in a year we’ll be eating water buffalo momos while watching a classic Bollywood musical. For now, in week two, we’re easing our way into the water. Although, that water has been distilled, bleached and boiled.

The People Have Spoken

Thanks to everyone who voted to name our blog! As you can see, the Seinfeld fans won by a nose, with 28% of the vote. Redpoint was a close second with 25% of the vote, which is strangely appropriate. You'll get it next time, Repointers.

Help us name our blog

Namaste friends and family. If you are reading this, then you have made it to our new blog. Congratulations on being tech savvy. The purpose of this blog will be to share our experiences in the Foreign Service and life in Nepal with friends, family and any other interested readers. Basically we’ll just tell stories and share thoughts about anything we find interesting, frustrating, funny, or weird. There will be pictures too!

So let’s get down to business. The first thing we need for our new blog is a good name. And for that we would like your help, because we can’t decide. A list of contenders is below. Please vote on one (see side bar for poll). Of course, you can suggest your own as well, although we reserve the right to ignore it. No offense. So here are the candidates:

1. “The Diplokatz” - Yes, this one is truly awful. It is just here to represent the obligatory corny pun blog name. If you vote for it, we won’t be friends anymore.

2. “The Brain and the Bureaucrat” – Can you guess who is who?

3. “Shortbus Conquers the World” – Shorty suggested that one.

4. “Redpoint” – For the non-climbers reading this, to ‘redpoint’ a climb means you have worked on the route multiple times before finally ‘sending’ it successfully, without falling or resting on the rope. It may take two tries or two hundred, but since the challenge is half the fun who really cares how many times you fail? Can you see the inherent metaphor? I thought you would.

5. “Serenity Now!” – This will make the most sense if you’re a Seinfeld fan, have lived in a developing country and worked in a bureaucracy. (Learn the wonders of Serenity Now here)

That’s the best we’ve got. So please vote and/or provide us your own suggestion. And once we’ve chosen a name, tune in here to see what happens next. (Hint: it will likely involve Shortbus doing something awesome.)