We just spent two wonderful nights at Nagarkot Farmhouse, where we had a room with a view of the Himalayas and some lovely gardens. Nagarkot is two hours away from Kathmandu, but a world of difference after the stress of the big city. It's famous for its beautiful sunrises. It was hard to come back, partly because it was such a lovely place and partly because there was no taxi or bus service from the hotel, about an hour walk with our packs. The hotel arranged to have a guy shuttle us on the back of his motorcycle one by one to the bus stop. Anyway, we made it back, for better or worse.
Nepal is going through some interesting times, with a new constitution in the works. There's lots of debate and fighting going on, and we run into different opinions about how things are going. Many groups are fighting for representation. There is also news of fights between Maoists and other groups, including a physical attack on a newspaper that had been critical of strikes. Many journalists demonstrated in opposition today. We see news of demonstrations, but so far nothing has affected us.
We also see religious differences in the areas we go to. Patan had both Buddhist and Hindu areas, while Nagarkot seemed primarily Buddhist. Our bus today took us through a Brahmin area, and we passed an area that seemed to have some Christians, including a line of bikes with Happy Christmas! and Jesus is the One Path on their bikes.
Tomorrow we head for Pokhara, where we think we will have internet access. Our hotel at Nagarkot had a computer but it never worked. We'll be at the Butterfly Lodge, which uses profits to educate lower caste kids. KR
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