18th April – Shangri-la

Better sleep tonight and wake feeling really good! we got a name of a small nepalese village about 7km from roses yesterday and so after 4 attempts we find a driver who actually knows the place (apparently taxi drivers don't get outta town much) and after a bumpy ride on a metal road we arrive. no idea how we're getting back cos its a full on farming village, not even a general store it seems. The women are all dressed in traditional dress tho the guys are in jeans. we met a couple of kids, they all have big wide faces with red windswept cheeks and snotty noses but they're super cute and the little girl thinks dennis is very funny, they can only say hello and giggle whenever we say it back to them. Have a walk around, all the houses are big cream 2 storied jobs but they have the most colourful window sills and shutters. Theres a lot of the drying racks everywhere and we find lots of chickens and some very big bulls. Everyone we pass (its not much on this dirt road) looks at us like what on earth are we doing there but we get big smiles and hellos from everyone and they don't seem to mind us. one old farmer on a tractor tray just stared at us with his mouth open after we said hello. start a longish walk back to town but end up hitching a ride with a rich bloke in his nice SUV. Spend the afternoon chilling out and catching up on blogs etc in warm cafe. Couple of yaks kebabs and feel like normal food tonight so find somewhere “western” looking, its sooooo toasty and have a gooood burger. we had a chat to the singaporean ownder, he said its been soooo slow there since the tibetan trouble...most people head onto tibet after shangri-la. He also interestingly thinks that the government are watching the chinese muslim communities as well...thought it apparently if one minority group can do it, so can others and they haven;t always been treated well...also worried that they could have a lot of help from neighbouring islamic countries. Who knows.