Well the Banda is on in a big way. Most of the stores in Thamel are closed, there were a few protests on the street, but for the most part, a quite day. I did some gift shopping that I had set up last night on a trip through Thamel. It's is still surreal to see a very wide street with only people walking on it in the hundreds. This past saturday Nima and I went on a cycling tour south of Patan. Riding through some of the towns I would swear that I had traveled back in time. There were women threshing wheat over stone that had a groove in it that likely was created over centuries. Some had taken to the modern convenience of vehicles by laying the wheat in the road an letting the trucks, cars, buses and motorcycles run over it in order to thresh it. We road about 18k south when we reached the top of a hill that was about 2-4k down to our destination. The road was so bad that I felt as though I was riding a jackhammer down hill at 5kmph. What a blast. When we got to the bottom there was a festival at the temple, Tiki Bahirab. To our, mostly my, good fortune this festival only happens once a year. We'll just chalk it up to the long list of good luck I've had with festivals here. Needless to say this involved the beheading of a few hundred male goats. Seems as though the men were really losing out on this day. I took a few pictures, I don't have an obsession with the beheading, but we just don't have a belief system like this in the US. They sacrifice animals in order to appease their gods, we practice ritual canabilism on Sundays (body of christ, blood of christ). We ended up walking back up the hill as neither of our bikes is particularly good.
I have considered Nima a good friend for most of my time here, but last week he showed me how good a friend he considered me. one of the other volunteers is planning a trek when her volunteer portion is done. The trip would be 2-11 June, Nima said, no I can't Joe leaves on the 10th. It's so nice to know that our friendship means that much to him that he wants to see me off to the airport.
Oh, and there won't be pictures of the festival at Tiki Bahirab, that chip got fried by my camera