Fearless

15th of September

Tired as I was after my long flight, the idea of a long night sleep was very tempting. Even thou I'm not a hostile or in an way fearsome person, I do like to think that it's a bad idea to be in the way of my sleep. This fearless rooster had an other view of this, even after I went out in the dark and stared hungry at him.

These roosters don't seem to get much attention during the day, but what they lack when the sun is up they well enough make up for against the stars. They other stars. From 3:00 to sunrise these tasty overgrown chickens, destined to keep me mentally present, clearly had a lot of saved up energy to spend, not giving it a thought that I might glue their beaks together in the morning.

Soon the morning came, and with it all the sounds of the city. The sun seems to be in a hurry over here, it rises as quickly as it sets, in just a few minutes. There is a huge difference between how shining it is during the day and how pitch-black it gets during the night. As soon as the sun goes down, everything shuts down. Since there is no streetlights to these dusty roads there can't be any traffic during the night, nor can there be any constructions who continues as long as the sun does it's part. No more cars, scooters, no more house being constructed or even dogs barking. It's just the crickets who never stops singing.

At a close by hill there is a big Buddhist temple devoted to monkeys. At least that's what my teacher in Nepali said. He called it the Monkey Temple and took us for a guided tour around it, but we found it a bit lacking of monkeys with just a few here and there. My idea had been the view Mowgli saw at his Monkey Temple, but that's what I get for entering with a cup almost full.

Since I am sort of stupid as many of my friends would agree with, I tried to get a good close-up photo of this seemed to be calm and nonchalant monkey. He was by a short fence, scratching his bottom and looking empty out on the view. I took a step a little bit closer. He looked at my, it felt like he sighed, and continued to scratch his bottom. I took a little step closer. He now found the spot he was looking for and scratched it really hard, neglecting my very existences just beside him. So I took a little step closer. This monkey was probably done scratching his ass by now, because he launched for my face in a, what most by but certainly didn't feel like, defensive manner. He rasped my arm before he went back up on the fence for an other assault. Even his monkey-friend came and pushed me, actually pushed me like you do when you say "Back off, bitch", while I was retreating. I bet that monkey would have done it even if I hadn't been on the retreat, because even if I'm four times the height these brave monkeys seemed to know what they where doing. I on the other hand will never do that again, maybe cause I'll die of rabies. That will have to wait until the morning.

Taking the car in Kathmandu is not for any Scandinavian driver, nor Italian for that matter. There are people walking everywhere, scooters passing by and even cows just hanging around just about anywhere. Still they drive like everything's wrapped up in protective rubber and can't be harmed. I kept calling our driver mr. Fearless, but even he got tired of that after a while.

Our driver had apparently also been scratched by a monkey some time ago, but he didn't visit a doctor about it. I'll do this as soon as possible, don't get me wrong, but these people feel somewhat more fearless then me. I don't say it's good, just inspiring.

Let's see if that fearless rooster dare to keep me awake tonight as well.