After such a busy day, I slept in a little. It was rather stormy about 4am with buckets of rain for awhile which I enjoyed, but kept me from sleep. The next thing I knew Navaraj was knocking on my door delivering the morning bucket of hot water. During breakfast the family let me know that there was a strike today. So I will just hang around the neighborhood.

After work yesterday I quickly changed and took a taxi to Bodhnath stupa to enjoy the sunset and the energy. I circumambulated it twice and then was standing looking at the sun shine its last on the building when a monk greeted me in perfect English. He introduced himself as Kenpo P. Dorjee and offered to show me the monastery before he taught the young boys their evening English classes. So we walked together to the monastery and he showed me the two main buildings and told m that on Thursday evening and Friday they were having some devotional services and invited me to come. I asked him a few questions about Tibetan Buddhism and how to enter the temple if I can come back and he shared his cell phone number (!) and told me if I get lost to call me and he will meet me at the stupa main gate.

I will go post this soon and see what a “band– strike” is here… so far I hear traffic noise…

Jimmy Carter is here to meet with the various political factions – the Carter Center is very well respected here and is trying to rebuild the political and social structures of Nepal. There is a nice story on the front page of the newspaper.

Enjoy the fotos!