I'll have some booze with my tea, thanks

I know i haven't updated in a while... sorry. The outreach on saturday went well and monday at work was good too. I'm in Thamel for Rosh Hashana right now. I went to this big dinner last night that was filled with pretty much every Israeli in Nepal. The whole thing was in Hebrew and I didn't really understand any of it, but I met some nice Israelis and an Australian Jewish family. I went to services this morning, but I couldn't follow it at all and dashed out after an hour. As soon as I left, i realized that I'd been kind of holding my breath and my chest had been super tight because I felt so uncomfortable. So, oh well. I'm sure G-d knows I tried really hard.

Despite the whole rule thing that you're not supposed to touch money on Rosh Hashana, I kind of spent a lot today. There's this place called "Adrenaline Rush," which is a travel agency near my hotel. All the volunteers use it and they give PA volunteers really cheap rates. Plus, they're really nice and really reliable. The guides on our rafting trip were from Adrenaline Rush and they were super compitant and safety concious. So I bet you're dying to know what I spent my money on, aren't you.

Well, I walked in yesterday, trying to figure out what to do this weekend. And, (sorry mom, I know you won't be happy about all this...), I booked a Canyoning day trip. Canyoning is this sport where you rapell down mountains and through waterfalls and stuff. Anyway, today, I ran into my friend Rebecca. She's doing Chitwan National Park this weekend and invited me to come along. She also expressed a desire to do Canyoning with me. I hadn't been sure of whether to do Chitwan. It's one of the "must-dos" of Nepal, and involves a safari through the Jungle where you'll see Elephants, Tigers, Rhinos, and all sorts of other animals. I'd heard that the Elephants were trained cruelly, and I don't support that. However, I really really really want to ride an Elephant just once. I'm not going to bring down the whole industry anyway. I know that this is totally hypocritical and totally against my vegan ideals, but I decided to ignore that fact. Well, I agonized over it for days and decided against Chitwan, but when Rebecca came up to me with her spectacularly cheap deal (about $54 for 3 days, 2 nights, all inclusive), I decided to through morality to the wind for the weekend and just do it.

We walked into adrenaline rush and booked it on the spot. We are now both going canyoning the following weekend. So in the course of 20 minutes, I saw over $100 fly out of my wallet and into Birat's hands. As a thank you for handing over so much moolah, they let me use their computer for free and gave us free tea. Ramesh, the owner asked if I wanted milk or anything in my tea and I said "Actually, I think I could do with a fair bit of booze in my tea thanks. I just spent most of the rest of the money I'd alloted for Nepal!" But he assumed I was joking (I wasn't) and brought me a lovely cup of milk tea.

So soon I will be riding an elephant and rapelling down waterfalls. And if any of my animal rights concious friends are reading this, know that I feel really guilty already and will totally protest the training of the elephants just as soon as I get home... but for one little bitty time, I"m going to spend my 12 bucks to ride an elephant and see some well protected wild animals. It's complicated though. Because of the tourist support of Chitwan National Park, all the wild animals there are well preserved. Without the constant stream of Elephant-riding tourists, it's likely that Chitwan would be turned into farmland and poaching would greatly increase.

But on a happy note, here's what my Chitwan trip involves: traditional Nepali dance, high class accomodations, all my meals, Elephant Safari, a trip to the Elephant breeding center, an Elephant bath (with me on the Elephant, meaning I get a cold shower too), bird watching, and some other cool stuff. And the canyoning involves a half hour hike and then a four hour abseilling and rapelling trip down the canyon walls and through waterfalls. I think it's worth the $105 I spent... So, um, I'm going to go wash down my purchases with a lime daqiri at Maya's. And being as Maya's has buy one get one free drinks, I should feel pretty okay about the money I spent by the time I'm through!