Even without any rupees on us, we were completely relieved to be out of Tibet and out of China. Nepal seemed so friendly, warm, and comfortable. In Tibet I felt like we were constantly on pins and needles - at any time another failure could end our trip and getting help would be a big pain in the neck. In Nepal I felt like nothing could stop us. The weather was warm, the people were on our side, and we could buy candy bars when we stopped.

The promised pavement showed up in Barabise. We also found a bank there. The town looked like a town from a western. It had a wide street town the center of town with two and three story wooden buildings all along either side. Many of the buildings were painted with bright colored trim. It seemed like the first bright colors I had seen in a long time. Also there were lots of brightly painted billboard-sized ads.

The bank was funny. Inside it looked the way I imagine banks looked in the 19th century. It had a counter about four feet high with glass above that. Behind the counter a few people sat at desks apparently doing nothing. On the desks sat many dog-eared ledgers, strewn about loosely, like a pile bricks. But the place was most notable for its sparseness. Other than the ledgers, counters, and people, I saw almost nothing else. I remember seeing only one calculator and certainly no computers.

Someone told me that I had to go to the second floor to change money. I saw a man, probably the manager, sitting alone at a nearly empty desk in a nearly empty office but I didn't stop there. I was led instead to another room with a counter almost identical to the room downstairs.

Behind the counters sat a bunch of older men with big long ledgers. Some had the ledgers open and were tediously filling in numbers. I'm almost certain that no one on this floor had a calculator. A capable younger man did my transaction, changing US$20--our last American moneyl--to about 1,300 rupees. I had to fill out a lengthy form in triplicate, answering questions about my place of birth, the serial number of the twenty dollar bill, etc. The young man had done all the calculations by hand. When he finished he took me downstairs and double-checked the numbers on a calculator--probably the only one in the building. He eventually gave me a receipt that I had to take to another teller to receive the rupees.

Joan and I celebrated having local currency but getting some lunch at a colorfully painted tourist place.

The rest of the day seemed really long even though we were finally on good pavement. Around five we stopped at a pretty place in the road to rest and admire the view of the river. Soon a crowd of about 30 Nepalis walked up to do the same.

We both felt frustrated that we couldn't find a place to rest peacefully. Later we figured out that it's common for Nepalis to take strolls together, sometimes in big groups, every evening.

Just before Dolalghat, our target for the night, we had to climb a huge hill after which we had a terrific paved descent into town.

Dolalghat was just about 100 meters longs but the road through town was crammed with buses, cars and people. Kids swarmed around the bus, holding plastic bags of fruit up to the windows and yelling at high volume and high pitch the same phrase over and over again. Like voices we heard before, this too sounded like the imperial probe droid from The Empire Strikes Back.

We looked for the hotel that Ben had mentioned in his notes, but we didn't see anything that looked remotely like a hotel. Finally we just walked into a restaurant, which turned out to be the hotel; the rooms were upstairs. Joan watched the bikes while I checked it out. The friendly owner led me up a confusing set of ladders and stairways to a great room on the roof. I was a little worried about getting the bikes up that route. But he showed me another outside staircase that was a lot easier.

The room was great. There was a pleasant porch in front of the room that overlooked the bridge and the large Sun Kosi river (I think it was the Sun Kosi). Also we were high enough to be above the street noise.

We heard a lot about Dahl Baht, some famous, ubiquitous and cheap Nepali food. I had no idea what it was but I knew it was always served all-you-can-eat style. Ben's notes had said it was really great here and Chris, the Philadelphia bike courier we had met, confirmed this earlier the same day.

Once we were moved into a comfortable little rooftop room, we went hunting for Dolalghat's famous Dahl Baht. Moments later we were frustrated and disappointed. We went from shop to shop in the small town asking for Dahl Baht and performing the international charade for "eating" (pretending to pickup food with your hands and putting it in your mouth). But even though many of these places had food and the people we spoke to were actually preparing food, they looked confused and shook their heads then went back to what they were doing.

Finally we went back to our hotel and on the second floor found the friendly owner, who spoke a tiny bit of English. He said that his restaurant would serve Dahl Baht at 7pm. That explained a few things. Some of the other places might have served us had we come later.

We had San Miguel beers until 7pm. Still no Dahl Baht. Finally at 7:15 or so he served us.  Indeed it was good and indeed it was all-you-can-eat. I ate three giant plates full of rice, vegetables, and lentils. (Dahl Baht literally means lentil rice).

To complete our ignorance, several days later we discovered that Nepal is one hour and forty-five minutes behind Tibet, not two hours, as we had thought. They must be the only country in the world with a time zone 15 minutes off everyone else. (We read somewhere that the real point of the strange Nepali time schedule is to be 15 minutes AHEAD of their rival India).

Before going to bed I shopped around a found a sure sign that we were in for some great eating in Nepal: Kit-Kat bars!

Next: Kathmandu at last

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