Thik Chha, It's OK.

Nepali people have about a million ways to say "It's OK."  The most popular ones are Thik Chha, Hunchha, and Lalala.  You can actually just say "la" as many times as you want in order to communicate how OK you are with the idea.  I think the point is that everything is always OK.

Yesterday, Santiago, Maria and I went to Thamel, the tourist part of town.  It was OK.  We decided to take the bus there, both because it would be much more exciting than taking a taxi and because it costs 12 rupees whereas a taxi costs 250 rupees ($1  is about 70 rupees).  Even though the buses seem terrifying at first, they actually aren't that bad.  Usually, it's easy to figure out which ones are the buses if you go to a major intersection.  At the intersection, there will be little boys standing outside big vans yelling something over and over.  For example, the end destination of the bus we wanted was Ratnapark, which is near Thamel.  We had to look for a little boy standing outside a van yelling "RathnaparkRatnaparkRatnaparkRatnapark" really fast.  If you get confused, you just ask the driver "Ratnapark?" and he either nods or points.  Once we were on a bus, we met a man who was an English literature teacher in the southern area of Nepal called Chitwan.  We told him that we are Mexican (just because clarifying that I'm not Mexican would have been too complicated), and he was very excited to talk to us in English about all of his favorite Hispanic authors.  He also had a lot to say about how he could identify with us because Mexico has many of the same issues that Nepal does, but all of our lives are OK anyway.  He was an extremely nice and very smart.  Before we got off the bus, we exchanged phone numbers and he said that we should call him if we ever have trouble in Nepal.  Even after we got off the bus, he followed us around for a long time just to chat.

This is a picture of Thamel.  It's amazing!  The road is realtively clean and smooth, there is space to breathe, there isn't that much traffic, and the chaos has some order to it. 

This is a picture of me at one of the shops.  It seems that the main thing to buy here is shawls.  They are made of yak wool, pashmina, or cashmere, and they cry out to you (literally) to touch them because they are so soft.

Another souvenir that is popular here is singing bowls.  You get a metal bowl and a stick, and when you rub the stick on the opening of the bowl, it makes a nice sound.  We found out that another option is to get a really big bowl and put it on your head.  When you hit the bowl with a stick, you become surrounded by a pleasant humming sound.  He shopkeeper said that this is a nice way to meditate.

While Kathmandu has so many interesting things and beautiful shawls, saris, and clothes, there are also some extremely ugly things.  This is the ugliest sweater I've ever seen, and I just wanted to share it with you.

This is Rani Pokhari, a Hindu temple near Thamel that is dedicated to Shiva.  This temple is fenced in, so you can't actually to into it.  The pond is surprisingly clean compared to everything else I've seen so far.

Rani Pokhari is downtown near the Ratnapark bus station.  When using the bus, this is a good landmark to help you know that you're near Thamel and you should get off the bus.  I don't have a picture of it, but we ended up riding in a tuk-tuk on the way home, which works the same as a bus but is much smaller.  A tuk-tuk has three wheels (one in front and two in back) and a space in back for people to cram inside.  Hopefully I'll remember to take a picture of one soon, because I think they're really silly.