I've been boating with an ever-increasing team of absolutely lovely boaters. Yoga sessions, serious attention to eating and drinking and occaisional river trips have all been good. It seems that the objective of coming away from this trip svelte and fit is being happily dashed.
Meeting Ngaio off the plane and hearing James' classic kiwi accent has been like visiting home without going there. On a four day trip down the sun kosi, we pitched our candy striped fly with matching groundsheet, and the boys learned about girl talk under the stars. John, our token pom, has been a nice balance to my excessive enthusiasm to paddle constantly.
It's the first time I've re-visited anywhere, and Nepal is a great place to come back to. The locals have had a pretty hard time here over the last few years, and it's amazing they've retained their friendly openness. I'm finding it more difficult to be constantly delighted about some things (small children, tourist shops) but the essentials of Nepali river trips, chai, samosas and days and days of boat scoutable class four are outstanding.
We've managed a nice balance between self support trips and staying in villages - and even had a Nepali cultural evening put on by the local school for us one evening. The boys did some sort of haka as their contribution, and Ngaio and I tried to keep up with the graceful hand and wrist movements made by the local women. For those who've been boating here, we've had great trips on the Balephi, the Modi and Madi Kholas, and are planning our next move... maybe way out west.
I've been unemployed for that glorious amount of time that means I've forgetten entirely about what it means to go to work, and have only the vaguest feeling that I'll need to find a job in the future. It's fabulous.
Polly
