Nepal - we leave

On our very last day in Nepal we decided to walk along the lake to lounge at Krazy Gecko, which happens to be owned by A's cousin. We didn't introduce ourselves but instead ordered a slow progression of drinks and snacks while lounging in the sun. Well, I lounged in the sun while wrinkleless N opted to remain in the shade. 

N had a flight that afternoon back to Kathmandu and on to Korea so we returned to the hotel. The elevator wasn't working so she asked one of the front desk staff to help her get her luggage down from the 5th floor. By the time the man arrived, the elevator was working again. After saying goodbye to N, I despondently headed back up to my room. I decided to take the elevator. It started to go up and then suddenly stopped. There were no lights so I couldn't see the emergency button so I just knocked like a madwoman on the door. The elevator got power again briefly so when it went off another few seconds later I knew where the buzzer was and I pushed that like a madwoman. Finally the doors opened and I got off on whatever floor that was and walked the rest of the way. My best guess at the time was load-shedding -- the power in Nepal is selectively turned off at certain times of the day so some lights and outlets don't work -- but I think it's more likely that they turned off the elevator manually and had forgotten about me.   

Nothing exciting happened the rest of the day. I wandered around from coffee shop to coffee shop reading, writing, and drinking tea. I discovered the boardwalk along the lake that we had somehow missed in all of our adventures, I packed my luggage, and I watched some terrifying serial killer movie.

The next morning, I too flew back to Kathmandu. I was even less calm about the flight without N to die with me. I hung in the KTM airport for what felt like forever -- running into the newlyweds! -- and flew on home -- through China and NY. It was by no means fun and I'll never do it again... 

...until next time.