29/5/06 Hey everyone, thanks for all your messages about my grandma it means a lot!!! Hope you guys are doing ok! Here's what we've been up to. We walked up to Patan Durbar square - sneaking in the back way so we didn't have to pay haha!! Claire bought flip flops and a necklace and I bought 2 necklaces and some pretend converse boots - called Classyvast!! We are really getting the hang of haggling and got everything pretty much at half what the stall people originally asked woohoo!!! We made friends with a Nepali stall guy called Osso, we are going to go back and learn some Nepali from him, while he tries to sell us everything on his stall. We tried to be cultural and went to the museum but ended up in the café and then left oops!! Maybe next time. We walked passed the red and white Machendranaths which are part of a local Nepali festival. They are 2 tall chariot things that lean very threateningly and if they fall over it is seen as a bad omen for the town, there will be no rain for the crops. If however they fall on someone and kill them this is meant to be a good omen for the dead person...how? We found a new bar/restaurant to go to at night called Ja Zoo - our latest night out so far has been 8.pm There is a Ghecko who lives in our room and eats our mozzis called Peter. 30/5/06 Lazy morning We taught one of dads pse lessons - on our gap year - very scary kids eek. We sat on the roof for a bit then went to see the tall things again as they are on the move. When we got there we decided to get henna tattoos on our hands. Very traumatic experience; a crowd of about 30 people came and watched us, and the guy charged us lots of money grrrr!!! He didn't speak any English either so didn't tell us what to do with it after. After tea we went back our with mum and dad to see the tall things - there were loads of people there and it was lit up with lots of candles - very pretty!!! Went to Ja Zoo for drink then home to watch the O.C. 31/5/06 We went to Thamel today - half hour drive in a mini bus which cost us 10rs - about 6p - except they dropped us off somewhere we didn't know so we were quite lost for a while and had 2 walk for ever. We got to Thamel and went straight for a large juicy steak with chips - have to keep our energy levels up and feed our tape worms. Thamel is the hippy central and where lots of people start their trekking from - you can buy lots of equipment and dress like you are from the 60's if you really want to. We bought the world costing us about £10 woohoo - I got a coat down from 1100rs to 500rs we are getting fab at bartering and strangely quite enjoy the arguing. We got quite lost in Thamel and had to ask for directions from a westerner. We got a taxi back home and collected our kurtars from the tailors - they are quite groovey but a bit hot as it is scorching!!!!!!!!! Had tea. 1/6/06 Did pretty much nothing today - we are quite lazy at the moment. We went to buy groceries for the house and get some dosh out the bank. Then we went for a walk in a direction we hadn't been before and nearly got gummed to death by a rabid puppy so we came back to scared to venture further - we are such wimps. At first it was a long way off and really cute then it started to scamper playfully over to us, at which point we turned and fled - scary monster!!! We went to see the school play in the evening - 'Much ado about Nothing' - the kids were all really good actors - was cool. 2/6/06 Even lazier today Just went to the supermarket. We cant go out to far today as there is a huge Maoist demonstration going on in Kathmandu centre - they are expecting 1000,000 people to turn up eek!!! Also the king in coming to our end of town to put a yellow vest on a red thing in a tall thing - part of the festival of Machendranath, so we may go and see that later. Mum is flying home today for the funeral - her flight is at 9pm but because of all the crazy demonstrations etc she had to set off for the airport at 3pm doh!! We are going out for pizza tonight and are sooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited woohoo. We are getting up really early tomorrow to go to Chitwan National Park, hopefully to ride heffalumps and get eaten by leeches yay!! Speak to you guys later lots of love Bear and Bootxx P.s. answer these questions we will tell u what it means in the next instalment of bear and boots excellent adventure. 1. What is your favourite colour and why? 2. Whats your favourite animal and why? 3. How do you feel when you see a large expanse of water?