I had a nice day.  I got up this morning and wrote morning pages and got everything packed up and ready to move to a new guesthouse.  It rained and rained all day so the morning move was done in the rain.  I took a taxi because I didn’t want to lug my large, heavy suitcase while carrying my not so large, but still quite heavy backpack down the muddy streets of Kathmandu.  I showed the taxi driver the card for the guesthouse and said ‘Durbar’.  He said it would be two hundred rupees which seemed reasonable.  He weaved his way through the crowded, narrow maze like streets of Kathmandu to a main road.  I knew how to get to the guesthouse and was surprised he went the way he did, but it wasn’t until he turned left onto this road that I knew we weren’t going in the right direction.  I had him pull over and we called the guesthouse and got it figured out, but then he wanted five hundred rupees instead of the two hundred.  I told him no, that three hundred was the most I’d pay.  We argued and I made him pull over and got all of my luggage out of the taxi.  I then refused to pay him anything since he hadn’t gotten me to my destination.  He kept trying to haggle with me and get me to pay four hundred or three fifty to take me to the guesthouse, but I refused.  He was grabbing my stuff and I didn’t feel comfortable anymore and just started walking away – big backpack on my shoulders and lugging a very heavy, green suitcase through the rain.  After walking a bit down the street he caught up to me again and said 300 would be fine.  I got back in the taxi because I really didn’t want to walk and I also wasn’t sure how far the guesthouse would be.  He got me pretty close and I paid him the 300.  The whole experience definitely reinforced my never take a taxi policy.  I really don’t like fucking with stuff like that and here you always need to negotiate a price before going somewhere.  The meters are never used.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful.  It rained;  I went for a walk.  I got a massage at the guesthouse from this guy who advertises for massages in the guesthouse.  I didn’t think it was as good as the blind one I had the other day, but it was much, much less expensive.  I’d do it again for sure.

Tomorrow we are getting up early and going to Pokhara which will hopefully be really great. I’m looking forward to being out of Kathmandu.  I have high hopes for Pokhara which will hopefully be met.  I’d love to find a place I can just hang out for a while.  I’ve come to realize I’ve got quite a bit of time here and even more time in India before going home.  If I get bored in Nepal I’ll just go to India sooner rather than later.  I wouldn’t need to wait until the end of September.

It’s still early to be making any decisions about the future, but I might decide to go home before M and M’s wedding in December.  Traveling around is great, but I miss my friends back home and the life I could have there.  My mindset changes on it quite frequently and this city stresses me out so I really should wait until I’ve been able to clear my head some more.

I also bought a small backpack tonight.  Of course I don’t need more stuff, but it’ll be nice for traveling on the bus because I’ll be able to put my laptop and other more valuable things in the backpack and keep that near me.  It should be helpful while taking trains in India as well.

Ok, I’m surprisingly tired for how inactive I’ve been all day.  I guess I was sort of active.   The bus leaves at 7 am so I have to get up by at least 5:30 tomorrow morning…. that I’m not looking forward to, but I’ll survive.