ON THE ROAD AGAIN (BUT NOW I'M IN BANGKOK)

Here I sit at the Cyber Cafe in Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, waiting to board my flight to Bangkok and feeling ultra-crappy. Erg. It's both physical (some variation on the dreaded Chennai flu - God, if you're really out there, please don't let me awake to find another red devil-bat eye!) and emotional (it's depressing & draining to say good-byes, especially knowing it's probably the last time you'll see/hear from most of the people with whom you've just spent three intense months and for whom - sometimes simultaneously - you've felt varying degrees of both loving and loathing).

So here's what I did yesterday, Feb. 10, my last real day in Kathmandu and the day on which we're celebrating my birhday (which is really Feb. 15):

• Slept in and woke up with flu/hangover combo, complete with horrible headache and menacing stomach sounds.
  
• Ignored above and ate leftover tandoori chicken/goat (which is called mutton here for some reason), Laughing Cow cheese/crackers and instant coffee for breakfast.
  
• Went to maddeningly slow internet cafe.
• Had to race out of maddengly slow internet cafe to apartment due to flu's lightening fast effect on digestive system.
  
• Back at maddeningly slow internet cafe.
• Attempt, unsuccessfully & again, to call United re: pending seat assigments.
• Went to tasty lunch at Four Seasons with Nic and Sharon. Had last order of fab chicken momos (10) and some strong White Russians (2). Nic treated.
  
• Went back to warm, sunny apartment and treated my cold, cranky self to a long, deep nap while Nic ambitiously decorated the apartment with birthday balloons, bowls of dry snacks, and bottles of red wine and dark rum. This was after she'd made/delivered beautiful invitations to the evening's festivities and spent many hours over the last few days locking me out of the apartment so she could mysteriously labor on "my birthday present."
  
• Took a long, hot shower and "dressed-up" for evening festivities (i.e., put on a skirt and relatively presentable t-shirt, eyeliner, mascara & lipstick).
  

TO BE CONTINUED, AS FLIGHT IS BOARDING. . .

Flight boarded, left, arrived and I am now at the ultra-swank Novotel in Bangkok for the night. Where I will shortly be ordering room service and looking out at the gorgeously landscaped and softly lit garden. Or watching Hostel 2 on Pay-Per-View. (No Wild Things 1, 2 OR 3 for this ladeez.) After taking a big, wonderful bubble bath. Before sprawling out on the ENORMOUS bed with special temperature control. Ahhhhh . . . sorry, back to yesterday's agenda.

• Guys (as in Adam/Steve) arrive. Drinks are served, dry snacks are munched, gifts are exchanged. I haul in a lot of booty.
• Specifically: Custom Drago t-shirts! Combo card/print thingie that Steve made and which I will hang on my wall at home!! KICK-ASS PHOTO ALBUM from Nic that covers entire trip from Kathmandu to Kathmandu!!! I feel so lucky!!!! Nic is the best!!!!! So are Steve & Adam!!!!!! I love everything and everyone, and appreciate it all. In the overall theme for the evening, I then become sad that I am leaving and greatly wish I wasn't.
• Others arrive, more drinks, dry snacks, blah, blah, blah. We leave for dinner, a return trip to Kilroy's. Which involves a short walk past many police armed with big sticks and/or rifles (the country is in upheaval right now and there are lots of extra police in the touristy areas), gay bars, seedy "dance" bars and the Pussy Cat Bar, which has the added bonus of . . . SHOWERS!
• We eat, we drink and we be merry.
• We head to Sam's Bar, crowd around the fire pit and become merrier. Take pictures. Remember that I am sad that I am leaving and greatly wish I wasn't.
• Close the bar and decide what to do for rest of my last night, although it is already the next day.
• One of the guys chooses to make a late-night booty call to a young & nubile Australian. Sad goodbye (for me, not necessarily him). The other guy thoughtfully chooses to accompany me, Nic & others back to our apartment for nightcaps. Yay (for us, not necessarily him).
  
• Many nightcaps are had. Many cigarettes are puffed out the window. Much music is played. Someone delivers blow-by-blow summary of life to date, complete with sobbing and hugging and fistfuls of Kleenex. (No, it is not me. I am sad, but not THAT sad.)
• We talk about the trip. It is confirmed that one of us will neither e-mail nor stay in touch by other means unless they need a place to stay in NY at some undetermined future point. Say sad goodbye (for me, not necessarily him) to thoughtful but no-contact-from-here-on-out guy.
  
• Next-door neighbors are not sad. They are MAD, very MAD, about the late night shenanigans. They prove this by banging loudly on the wall between our apartments. Quietness ensues for a short time. I go to bed at 3:15AM. It is not quiet.
  
• I awake at 6AM without a hangover but with the flu's dramatic effect dramatically effecting itself on my digestive system. I am sad that I am leaving and greatly wish I wasn't. I've come full circle. There's a Journey song in this somewhere, I just know it.