Red Wedding

When a man offers you home brewed liquor from a magic lamp, you better believe you're going to accept some.

Scrounged some "formal wear" together this morning.

Today we attended the wedding of our volunteer coordinator. It was a traditional Nepalese ceremony - lots of food, lots of music, lots of people, lots of waiting.  We arrived at the groom's house around 9am where festivities began (including the ceremonial fermented brew we were offered).  There was a traditional band of young flute and percussion players, and they were fantastic!

We eventually left the groom's home as a giant mob of sparkling saris with a motorcycle entourage around us. We paraded down a main street, led by the band, for about 20 minutes, stopping traffic while onlookers waved and smiled. Eventually we all got onto buses and headed to the venue where the bride was for the rest of the ceremonies. 

Parading through the street

There was so much delicious food, and it never stopped coming. It was a bit of a bizarre mixture of traditional Nepalese/Indian and Western style foods. There were french fries and dhal baat and paneer and ice cream cones. Nepal also seems to have an obsession with this Danish beer, Tuborg, so we had a lot of that as well.

We stayed at the wedding for about six hours and it still wasn't finished. I guess the Nepalese make sure you're good and married before it can be over.  It was an amazing experience on only my third day, and I feel very honoured that we were asked to be guests.

Last night I went out with my two new girlfriends from New Zealand. We hit the town to see what the nightlife in Kathmandu has to offer. We went to a couple small bars first - drinks here are dirt cheap - and eventually ended up at Purple Haze, which is THE place to be on a Friday night. We only saw a couple other tourists in the whole place. You start to recognize who is a local and who is a traveller.  Later we somehow ended up at a "fast food" joint called Crazy Burger, which was neither very crazy, nor did we have any burgers.  I find it's best to stick with local foods to avoid any disappointment. 

New friends!

One pollution drink, please.

Fingers crossed - I ate a lot of weird stuff in the past two days and totally had ice cubes, so let's hope for the best! Basically I'm working under the rule where I accept whatever I'm offered, and another rule where I have to order something if it has a hilariously translated name.

Tomorrow my New Zealand friends head out to their placement at a nature reserve, and I continue with my orientation.  Starting to really look forward to meeting the kids I'll be working with.

Goodnight from the roof.