ROAD BLOG AHEAD

So Lena returned having been teargassed a bit and totally drenched in the amazing downpour that ended the demonstrations. The rain helped with the teargas LOL. She got some great pictures, but we still have to figure out how to get them off the camera so I can edit and post them. With no laptop working, that’s the hard part - my digital camera uses a different media card than my IPAQ so I still have to go through a regular computer to translate. Grrrr.

I’m sick tonight which is annoying. Sinus infection I think. Actually, we’ve both been feeling it for a few days, Lena and I. By this morning I was ready to rip my head off and leave it somewhere. All the signs and symptoms of an actual bacterial infection rather than a head cold or allergies. The good thing is that here in Nepal, antibiotics are an over the counter thing. You just have to know what you need or want. As we went out for some breakfast while things ere still open pre curfew, we passed what is, for Kathmandu, a pharmacy, which is a cubicle with a folding door like all the others with a little man in it and walls with floor to ceiling medicines, everything from vaseline to quinine pills and more. So we stopped and grabbed some amoxicillin because this wasn’t clearing up on its own. Under four dollars for a ten day supply. Says something about the US drug industry.

So, by this afternoon I felt pretty crappy. I wrote the earlier blog and then, when it started raining, went inside to read or knit. And I fell into a deep, feverish sleep, that kind where you’re not awake, too deep to move, but having weird dreams that intersect with reality. And I hurt. Lord did I hurt! Every joint and muscle screamed and my head just throbbed. When Lena got back, I was lying there, running a high fever and soaked with sweat. Not much help to someone who has just gotten rained on after getting teargassed and chased halfway home through rioting Kathmandu! But my wife is a trooper and rose to the occasion. Eventually my fever broke. I’m still feeling less than prime, but nowhere near as nasty as I did at three p.m. And Lena is doing fine, though a bit wheezy from the gas. She’s gone off to shower, trying to get the last of it off of her skin and hair so we’re not sleeping wtih it tonight. I’m wishing I had a few more brain cells as there’s lots of stuff I want to post here, both ideas and stories of things I’ve seen and heard these past days, but I’m just sick enough not to think very well.

Apparently curfew did lift at eight pm as planned. There’s actually traffic on the road and people out walking. They DID try to storm the palace this afternoon as I suspected from the sounds. Didn’t succeed, but they did try. More details as I have em. Don’t believe what the mainstream press is now putting out about the King honestly trying to make concessions - what he’s offering is rather like a pickpocket offering to return someone’s empty wallet that he stole. Too little for sure and, it looks like, definitely too late to be believed.
Xxxxx

Something really big is going on here in Kathmandu as I write this entry. I’m sitting on the balcony and I can hear the sounds of literally hundreds of thousands of voices, shouting, cheering, screaming, chanting. Whistles, shouts. Possibly coming thisway, I can’t be certain, it’s from every direction the echoes. Some gunfire. But the most massive human commotion imagineable. A police van just went by going, it seems, teh wrong way. Now more traffic. The city is echoing with it. The loudest noise seems to be coming from approximately the direction of the Royal Palace, not too far away. Wouldn’t be surprised if people have stormed it. The hurrahs sound like some sort of victory, but the screams do not. I’ve been here since the beginning of the popular uprising, the revolution if you will and have never heard anything like this, even on the busiest of days with the biggest demonstrations.

This may be it, the last straw. Or it may be just another stand. Either way, it certainly is making a loud sound that will surely be hear around the world. And of course, Lena is out there somewhere. I’m past being worried by now and know that what comes will come at this point. The energy of human momentum is staggering, huge. I’m listening to a helicopter pass overhead, too low, heading in tat direction. Way too low against the sun. The birds are screaming, huge flocks of crows rising up out of the trees, calling out and swirling. Another helicopter, too low, too loud. The only thing that has choppers like that here is the army. I’m trying to see, but I don’t have a clear line of sight and my binoculars are back in the luggage left in India. I’ve regretted that ever since!

Since the helicopters swooped in, the crowd noises have diminished. They’re circling, but I don’t know this city well enough to figure their circuit. I’m going to go and check out the news - both the broadcast news and the word of mouth on the street.
Ahhhh… the crowd noises are back…

Awhile later…
A storm is coming in. No longer ;;lssible to tell what is gunfire and what is thunder to the north. If it rains, I’ll have to go inside where I have no wi fi signal - my ipaq won’t tolerate a drenching. People running down the street, away from the palace. I hate not speaking Nepali! At the moment, theres no one around who speaks English or Tibetan, so I can’t extract info from the hurrying people. No Lena yet, She’ll come in when she absolutely has to LOL.

The only intelligence I have so far is that protesters broke through the police barricades and, as I suspected, have headed towards the palace which is completely ringed by soldiers. They say four kilometers, but I am not four kilometers from the palace and the hubbub is well inside that, so I suspect that’s optimistic OR at some otr point of the city.

Of course, the King is probably totally elsewhere today. He;s an idiot, but he’s not THAT stupid. Maybe the rain will cool down the hottest heads. If Kathmandu weren’t mostly built of brick and stone, I’m pretty sure much of the city would be in flames by now. The thunder sounds like shelling in the distance. Or maybe it is shelling, since it began about the time the helicopters headed that way,.I am hearing ambulance sirens too, so something has occurred. I’ll post as I know anything.