Monsoon is Come

Three weeks of waiting. It has been driving me bonkers. You may choose to blame my recent irritibility on the sudden lack of living space I have developed since my brtoher moved in. You may choose to blame it on the fact that no one had any work for me until the month before I left. I choose the blame it on the fact that it has been stinking hot, occaisionally overcast but never raining and that monsoon has been pending for 3 weeks.

Well it arrived today and in amazing fashion. 5 minutes prior to me leaving work the heavens opened up with all manner of cats and dogs whining, barking and screeching their way through the sky to come crashing down all around us. It was like a cyclone. Perhaps if you are a Tracey, Larry or Katrina survivor then you will disagree. I mean, the only experience I had of any of those is that the price of bananas went up to $12/kilo for about 6 months. But this was insane, like nothing you have ever seen (assuming of course that you are not a Tracey, Larry or Katrina survivor). There were no rain drops, just sheets weighing metric f-tonne's and washing everything in sight away.

The brief 2 second dash from the carpark to the front gate through the sheets of cyclone-like rain had myself, Swifty and my bag completely drenched. Quite astutely I decided against riding home, and subjecting Reeta-didi to washing mud slash poo slash whatever other refuse is kicked up off the ground in a storm from my clothes. Plan was to a) find a taxi with a roof rack for my bike or b) the staff bus to get me and Swifty home.

The bus driver, who up unto this point (about 49 weeks into my experience) has done a bang-up job of not being able to speak much English at all, told me that the bus would be going the long way today and that would have to be dropped off last in the best English I have heard this side of the equator. With the other option being a ride through mud and muck, I said I didn't mind.

As the sweat from the heat and the water soaking my clothes started blending and giving me that uncomfortable itchy sensation you always get when you are wet and don't want to be, we started weaving our way along the Ring Road (which BTW looks exactly the same no matter what part of town you are in) and dropping off staff, Swifty up the back like a king on his horse. I watched as we took on tuk-tuks head on on the wrong side of the road along the (predominantly dry) streets. But inside the Ring Road was another story. As started heading north through town the sewers were showing their protest to 8 (dry) months of abuse in the form of trash and other waste matter being shoved down them at any opportunity. I saw motorbikes parked on the side of the road being washed away as the gutters turned from lumps of concrete to white water rapids (except that the water was brown and gross).

People stumbled along with umbrella's useless against the deluge and every man and his spade was out trying to clear gutters and sewers to try and stop the rising water level from entering their shops.

Monsoon is back and it feels exactly like it did when I arrived a year ago.

Rain on my Parade

It was so hot.  It was totally impossible to concentrate. Our new building isn't finished, but we have still moved into it.  We don't have curtains, the guys in my office have some moral objection to opening windows, there's no fan and guys come in an out plugging and unplugging wires into and out of the walls causing my PC to switch itself on and off at regular intervals.  With the temperature hovering somewhere around 30 and humidity starting to go through the roof I was losing my mind and was just hoping against hope that it would rain!

In a flash of anger, my mind turned to the Red Dingo Australian restaurant in Patan that serves the most amazing thickshakes you will ever eat in your life.  There's nothing like making yourself fat to deal with emotional problems.  Following that I stopped in at Puri Sabji place.  So I followed up my thickshake that is so disgustingly unhealthy for you that you need a spoon to eat it by chewing on oily bread, fried potatoes and what is mostly oil.

I thought it wouldn't hurt to stop by Rosy's to see if I could get my stereo back for the barbeque we had planned the following day.  Bad decision.  Rosy was not home.  In the time it took to eat my two meals, and stop at Rosy's the weather had turning into something from a movie like the Perfect Storm.  At one point I rode through a mini willy-willy without realising it.  There was so much dust and wind I had to just shut my eytes and hope that I came out of it the other side.  It was so rough on the inside of that thing that I'm surprised I even stayed upright.

That's when the delude began. The rain was so heavy that I started thinking back to that Myth Busters episode where they tried to work out whether you get more wet by sprinting through the rain or by walking.  Conclusion?  I was out there way too long for it to make a difference.  As I pondered whether the water slowly seeping into my mouth was rainwater or gutterwater I realised that it probably didn't really make much of a difference.  The streets cleared and many people were caught out by the mini-cyclone that seemed to have gripped Kathmandu with only about one in every 100 people carrying an umbrella.  Everyone and everything was out to get me.  I even started to wonder if the world was doing it on purpose.

Of course, I made it home safely and realised that I owe myself a lot of money.  You see due to me negativity of late, I have instigated a system that Nunny referred to as my "Karmic rupe system" where I owe myself 100 rupees for each negative thought.  I think I better even out.

I had the most gorgeous chocloate thickshake at the Red Dingo.  O.....M.....G!

Following that, remember Puri Sabji?  The food so good that it prompted Brendan and Mike to develop a new system of currency?  Where every single item one buys can be broken down into PSU's.  Puri Sabji Units.  "Are you sure that you want to buy those brand spanking new awesome and gorgeously attractive spectacles?  You know, they're worth 100 PSU's.  You could feed a family Rob, do you want that on your conscience?"  Puri Sabji is also good for other reasons.  It takes them no time to prepare and it leaves you completely satisfied!  How could one not be satisfied?  Its oily bread, potato, oily soya beans all wrapped up in a nice little spicy oil sauce.  Pretty much, its like being in heaven.  And did I mention?  Puri Sabji has created its own currency!!!!

Unfortunately I missed Rosy, but as I struggled through the wind and dust to find my way out from her house I provided endless entertainment for the kids and dogs all well sheltered inside the shops from the storm.  Dustkciked up by the insane wind licked at my heels as I desperately tried to get home before the rain began.  I was too late, but the pleasing cool - that always comes with rain that was building all day - was such a relief.  The roads became mine as cars, tuk tuks and motorbikes disappeared in an instant.  I finally got the rain that I have been waiting for for weeks.  It has been so hot and dusty it was such a relief to get a drop of rain.  It brought back some memories of monsoon when I first arrived and was such a novice around here.

I made it home drenched, but full, content and could hear the pitter patter of rain on my roof.  ahhhhhh

Someone pedantic, work out how much I owe myself will you?

Ta.