Namaste Nepal En
Rain, rain and more rain!
I am sitting in the Marco Polo Hall. An ancient laundry woman is carrying on her back a huge bundle of tourist's bedding and clothing to be washed. She is protected from the rain beating down on her by two plastic bags, one for her head and another much larger one for her clothes. A little while later an American woman, come to claim her clothes which are not dry due to the rain. She asks incredulously " But ...you don't have a spin dryer?" What innocence!
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It is an ideal day for a visit to the library. I have just found out that the British Library is not far from my guest house and well supplied with books. This place I predicted would be where I would spend many hours, certainly on other rainy days like this one.
Meanwhile I have to wait until 10 o'clock for the library to open. In the meantime I browse the publications in the hall. I find a leaflet entitled "Visitor's Guide to Nepal, Printed by His Majesty's Government of Nepal, Ministry of tourism", there is a sentence that refers to the Pashupati Temple dedicated to Shiva:
" Entrance to the temple is permitted to the Hindus only" The word "permitted" is typed on a piece of paper and glued over the original word "restricted." I imagine the poor Nepalese worker who patiently cut and pasted hundreds, no probably thousands of these words on all these leaflets.