Accountant Adventures: Monkeys Also Love Coke

Chillin' with Buddha

We got a call shortly after 5pm that the road was open and we could head out. We had spent the time waiting in a hotel room playing cards. If the road had taken much longer to get open we would have stayed the night for sure. We all piled into the car again to head out and realized that the back window wouldn’t roll up. You can’t drive in this part of the world in monsoon season with a window that doesn’t roll up unless you want to get drenched, so we had one more delay and we took the car to a repair shop to get fixed.

Anjil stayed with the car and the rest of us went for dinner so that we wouldn’t have to stop and have any more delays on the way back to Katmandu. We went to Big Bites Fast Food restaurant and I got a chicken burger. I don’t know how they put fast food in the name because it took longer than any other restaurant we have been to, to get our food. Mine was awful it tasted more like a seasoned hotdog burger instead of a chicken. After I ate half of it, I decided to stop and just eat the bun, because at least that wasn’t greasy. As I was picking at the bun one layer at a time, I uncovered something inside my bun. A cricket had been baked into the bread! Luckily I didn’t eat it but it didn’t help with my already upset stomach to see it in there and wonder what all else I had eaten.

We talked about driving halfway and staying at some place that would be beautiful to see the sun rise and head out at that time but the driver, Anjil, wanted to push through and so we did and arrived safely back in Katmandu around 1am.

Thursday night we went to another of Prajwal’s Uncle’s houses for dinner. We sat on the floor in the living room around a table and chatted and watched television. There is a channel in Nepal that shows Bollywood movies that are still in theaters for free, doesn’t seem at all legal by American standards. I was talking with Prajwal’s Uncle who has been to something like 50 countries and studied in Pakistan, when he was young, and fell in love with a Pakistani Muslim girl. Prajwal’s Uncle wanted to marry this girl and so he had to go to her mosque to ask for permission to marry the girl from her holy leader. Once he got to the mosque he found out that he would have to bow to the leader and kiss his feet, he didn’t want to do this, he only bows and kisses his parents feet, so he broke off the engagement and left her.

Today we went to two museums, both with lots of dead stuffed animals. One had birds hanging sideways or upside down on branches and the other had the birds laying in a cabinet, it was very strange. We also went to Swayambhunath Buddhist temple high on the top of a very high hill in Katmandu, where we were able to see the whole town stretched out in every direction. There were lots of pilgrims there, mostly older overweight women who were sitting on the ground waiting to get food. The monastery was very crowded with people, pigeons and dogs and was also very dirty. I get sad when I see these places that could be so beautiful if they were properly taken care of and they are not.

Praj was thirsty and got a coke while we walked down a road to get a little exercise and enjoy some views. As we were walking down a hill a monkey came running up the hill and towards Praj with his coke. Praj dropped his coke and screeched while running from the monkey. The monkey quickly picked up the soda and carried it into the middle of the street and then set the coke on its side so that it flowed onto the street so he could lick it up. Then he grabbed it and tried to take it out of the street but was holding it upside down and poured the entire coke on the street. It was hilarious!