Today’s newspaper reported that Nepal ranks #8 on the misery index. That is, Nepal is considered the 8th most miserable place to live, just below Syria and Kosovo but above Namibia, Djibouti, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. That must have something to do with persistent power outages, air pollution, noise pollution, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of employment opportunities. Nepal plans to invest in a range of infrastructure improvements 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 flew 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 much difference with all the haze and smog that has accumulated since my hike, but we punched through 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.
Yeti Flight from Pokhara to Kathmandu, Nepal
Map of the route “The News from Nepal”: 216,595 m, 772 m of climbing and 228 m of descent, elevation between 658 m and 1,321 m, time 00:49:20. It starts at 28.19883, 83.97833 and ends at 27.70224, 85.36009 (latitude, longitude).
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 quoted price. One bizarre custom among 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 a place where two Westerners were already getting haircuts, so I thought I would get mine done. I tried to find out the price before we started, but all I got was “As you wish”. Finally, after I got 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 started slipping in little additional services that were related, like shaving the back of my neck and behind my ears with a straight razor. Then he starts mumbling about putting ointment in my hair, and he starts his head massage. Then, before you know it, he tries to work his way down to a back massage, and I had to cut him off since the haircut was already finished. The whole thing was totally bizarre.
