In the newspaper today, it was disclosed that Nepal ranks #8 on the miserability index. That is, Nepal is considered to be the 8th most miserable place to live – just below Syria and Kosovo, but above Namibia, Djibouti, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. Must have something to do with the persistent power outages, air pollution, noise pollution, crumbling infrastructure, and lack of employment opportunities. There are big plans to invest in a range of infrastructure improvements in Nepal over the next ten years now that the political situation has begun to stabilise somewhat.
I hopped on a Yeti flight today (yes, they even have an airline named after the Abominable Snowman). It took me back to Kathmandu from Pokhara for the last few nights before I fly out. I was instructed to make sure I had a seat on the left side of the plane so I could admire all the Himalayan peaks as we made our 25 minute journey. I didn’t think it would make too big of a difference with all the haze and smog that has accumulated since my hike, but we did punch our way up over most of the diffusion in our simple prop plane so I could see all the peaks along the way. And yes, they were pretty cool to watch as we flew past.
Now back in Kathmandu, I ventured out for a haircut while the offering was cheap. Like many things around here (including taxis), there always seem to be strings attached to any price that’s been quoted. One of the bizarre customs with hair cutters in Nepal is that they also provide all kinds of massage services. This has put me off many times, but I did stumble across one place that already had two Westerners getting haircuts, so I thought I would get mine done. I tried to find out the price before we started and I could only get “As you wish” as an answer. Finally, after getting him to mention 200 ringgit (just over $2), he started in and pulled out the exact same clippers I use to cut my own hair. After finishing with the cut, he starts slipping in little additional services that were related, like shaving the back of my neck and behind my ears with a straight razor. But then he starts mumbling something about putting some ointment in my hair and he starts in on his head massage. Then, before you know it, he’s trying to work his way down to giving me a back massage – at which point I had to cut him off, knowing the actual haircut was finished. The whole thing was totally bizarre.
