books

It's Saturday. Fin de semana. Nini and her family are still stuck in Lukla. The flights flew today, but the available seats couldn't clear the backlog of travellers. Maybe tomorrow. The options out of Lukla aside from airlines are (1) a five-day walk to Jiri and then a day-long bus ride to Kathmandu or (2) a chartered plane or helicopter. Option number one would make her family miss their flights back to England on Wednesday, so that's out. Option number two is more than expensive, so it's out also.

I've been tying a few things up, as we're at fewer than two weeks remaining in Nepal.

I've read a lot more here than I used to. There's more time to think here. But all that accumulated reading was around fifteen pounds - not including the borrowed books. This kind of already-read weight is not going to make the trip home.

Most of the books were used - left at our flat by traveling friends who came through. I packed up about twelve pounds of these used books in a kitchen towel and plastic bag and headed into Thamel, the tourist part of town, to hock them. There are a lot of used book stores there. I think used book stores are one of the highest manifestations of human society. All those texts passed from person to person at such a reasonable price.

So the Dalai Lama's autobiography, Peter Matheison's The Snow Leopard, some lonely planet books for countries I've never been to, some fiction about India, Papillon, and more have been put back into the cycle. And what did I get in return? Postcards!

Well... postcards and 800 rupees (~USD11.50). I was in the mindset of Nepali financial scales and not tourist financial scales when I was at the first bookstore. When the guy said he'd give me 800 for five of the books, I shouted "deal!". I didn't even counter-offer. I probably could have gotten 1200, without even resorting to hysterionics. Way to go beecher.

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