Day 40 (slide show)
I started packing today. I leave about 5pm for Bahrain. I was to meet Arjun for breakfast and sure enough he came rolling in right on time. As he sat down he told me he had been up all night with some new sponsors for the Porters Progress. He was insistent that I come to his office in Themal at 11:00am. I told him yes but I had to pack and my mind was already on the plane. As I scrambled to figure out how to pack my gear I noticed it was starting to rain early today. I was going to have to walk 20 min in the downpour. I took off with my poncho on which helped but there was a lot of mud along the way. As I walked in he had the leaders of the Porters Progress waiting there. They had a presentation for me with all five of them in attendance. I was made the first Lifetime Member of the Porters Progress of Nepal because of the help I had given them. They also made me the US Ambassador and told me they need my help and to keep promoting them in my travels. I told them I would do my best. Its quite an honour. It's 2pm now and I'm sitting in the lobby waiting for the shuttle to the airport. I'm looking forward to moving on. Crazy things happen on days like these. I'm on the plane now but I have to mention a few things that have happened. As I was waiting for the shuttle at the hotel a nice guy came in and was looking around. When he saw me he came over to ask how I liked the hotel. I told him it was fine and it was a good location to. We started talking and he just got to Kathmandu and was going to be here for 3 to 4 weeks. His name was Walter and he was from Switzerland. He had come to Kathmandu in 1990 and trekked to Tibet. That's a 3 week trek. He said they were a group of 5 guys and they had a great time and had a lot of stories. Anyway I only got to talk for about 1/2 hour. I wish I could have meet him earlier. Real nice guy. He would have been fun to kick around with in the city. Next crazy thing happened at the airport. My bag was overweight so I had to pay the overage and I asked if I could get bumped up to Business class. No problem she said. "WOW Cool." Not finished yet. I run into Leonard and Enric from Spain. I run into these guys everywhere. I think they said the same about me. After leaving them I realized I had paid all my Rupees for tips and was hungry. Just like in Hong Kong. I had enough for a bottle of water maybe. I walked into the restaurant and nobody was there except a guy from Edinburgh. He says "Come on over and sit here." Turns out he is a Botanist and works for the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. He just got off a 3 week trek of the mountains of Nepal to discover new species in the area. We had a great time and he bought me lunch. Thank you Dr. Mark Watson. I wish we could have spent more time together. So now as I said I'm on the plane in Business Class next to this young lady that doesn't speak any English. I was able to figure out that she works for the Nepali Embassy in Bahrain. There isn't any talking going on here until all of a sudden in perfect English she asked me if she could go to the toilet. I said sure and started to laugh. Crazy day.
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