A place near No Can Do

After a looong 3 and a half days of travel from Mamallapuram in India : 2 hours bus, 40 hours train (with a bunch of crazy flute-playing tibetans, 2 poles and a south korean), 10 hours bus, sleep at the border, another 10hrs bus, I'm finally in Nepal! Woo hoo! And it's raining :(. I got fed up with India, everyone is after money the whole time, it's very different from the friendliness I saw in Iran and Pakistan, and it just got too much.

On the bright side, it looks like they have bacon here, so the possibility of a bacon sandwich is very high indeed, oh joy of joys.

Since I last wrote, I have fallen victim to the infamous "pack-slashing" routine. I had heard of this, but never paid it much attention. Fortunately it was my daysack, and the guy didn't cut through enough to get at my stuff, but it was still annoying. My pack now bears the proud scar from this traumatic incident.

I gotta tell you about the "two stuck dogs" in Mamallapuram. While I was on my way back from the dance festival, I noticed a couple of the street dogs standing facing away from each other, barking a bit as usual, but they weren't moving. When I got closer it looked like they were tied together or something, but I couldn't see any rope. Then when I got closer still, I realised what it was - they had been, ahem, doing what dogs do, and the male had "sunk it to the nuts" so to speak, and was now unable to retrieve himself. They just had to stand there like an irate pushmepullyou.

Getting into Nepal was no hassle, as I was crossing the border at about 11pm. I didn't bother with Indian customs as the guy was asleep and it would have been rude to wake him up... Nepali immigration was asleep too, but I had to wake him up to stamp my passport. Otherwise I could have just wandered in unopposed.

Today i've got to wander around embassies and get info for my visas to Myanmar and Thailand, swap my paki and india LPs for SE Asia, and maybe even get a shave. The Beard was great for disguise in Pakistan, but the women don't seem to be really digging it in quite the way one would have hoped... it's also prone to maintaining foodstuffs, which is great when I get hunger pangs 5 hours into a bus ride and find half a fried herring in there, but it doesn't do my sex appeal much good.