I'm only 550 pages into Harry Potter (200 left) but yesterday I called my all-too-friendly Vipassana friend in Kathmandu and he's leaving the country in three days. After spending a rediculous sum of money (my travel budget for the entire trip) to various officials, unnofficials and corrupt whoevers, he's cleared a visa to live in Israel to make money for his family. It's eerie how everybody's final dream is to leave. Worse still how America tops the list of places to go to. My one-man campaign of convincing all of Nepal to move to Canada instead of becoming disgruntled Taxi drivers in New York isn't working fast enough...

Right, so he's leaving the country on Sunday and I want to see him before he leaves, so I bought a bike a few hours ago and am setting off tomorrow at 7 in the morning. 200km should be pretty easy to do in 2 days, but if I leave early enough I have a chance of pulling it in a day. It should be a nice ride, no cars or busses on the street. Wish me luck anyway.

I took the bike around Pokhara and the whole city's in this lofty Sunday afternoon mood. I'm guessing it's been that way for the past 18 days or however long this strike's been going on. It's like the entire city has taken to playing FingerPool and Cricket as the prime method of demonstration against the king. Whatever works.