Kathmandu's psuedo-hippies

This blog post has nothing to do with the fake hippy community that lives in Kathmandur or its even more laughable counterpart in Pokhara. I'm just letting you know it exists. Also, are Luke and I the only foreigners here who aren't trying to GET INTO Nepal? We saw two big white tourists walk by us a few days ago (we could easily picture them as football players in high school or college or something) and they're both sporting shorts, t-shirts, North Face backpacks, and local kopi hats. Picture a little cap that looks almost like some kind of tall French beret, pushed in at the top. Only old Nepali guys seem to wear them and these two jokers who looked ironic in them.

I got my new Indian Visa (I will have spent a grand total of a week in India, and it will have required me to get 2 separate visas and spend about $150 on them) on Friday so Luke and I are ready to leave Nepal, maybe forever. The local beer sucks (Nepal Ice, Gorkha, Everest beer and everything I'm forgetting), the beaten rice that identifies Newari food is dry and lame, the hippies here are annoying, and the poverty is pretty intense, but Nepal is fucking awesome. Other than that beaten rice stuff, Newari food is some of the best I've eaten on this trip through Asia (I've been trying to identify my top 5 meals in Asia and what Luke and I had last night makes the list). The hiking was spectacular and the people here (especially those trying to sell you something) are so friendly. I highly recommend Nepal to anyone thinking about traveling. Not so much Viet Nam. In fact, fuck Viet Nam.

I didn't really have a point in posting today, I just felt like since I have cheap internet access I should write something before I disappear again for a long time.

Oh yeah, and there is this local fruit called Lapsy. It's only available in Nepal and Luke has been experimenting with it. You can buy these little packages of dried Lapsy almost anywhere and what neither of us understand is that there are probably 20 varities of it, and none of them taste or look alike. Not even a little bit. Luke first tried it because it looked like black licorice and we would have described the flavor as: slightly spicy not-quite-fruit, with a peppery aftertaste. I tried it and then spent 20 minutes trying to get the taste out of my mouth. Luke, ever the adventurer, got some more last night and it couldn't have looked any less like our first attempt. Two packages: one looked like dried papaya and one like dried pineapple. The papaya-looking one was again, peppery for some reason and as Luke said: 'it tastes like a fruit that they're trying desperately to make sweet, but isn't.' Then we had success. The pineapple-looking package was awesome. We checked the back of the package and 'Lapsy fruit' was the second or third ingredient in this package of Lapsy fruit. First and foremost was sugar. Artificial flavorings was maybe fourth. It tasted just like pineapple. I think the local Lapsy growers have been trying to find a way to make this palatable and they've finally hit upon it: make it pineapple instead and then add equal parts sugar. Brilliant.