OK, traveling is great, there's no doubt about it. But there can be challenges as well. I of course made that a little more likely by traveling to a developing country with a very uncertain immediate political future. However, nothing could have prepared me for what happened here in Kathmandu last night.

As you may or may not have read recently, Nepal is in the middle of a very tumultuous time. They are just two months from one of the most important elections in the country's history, and things are not going particularly smoothly. The Maoists, who just left radicalism to join party politics last year, are not happy with the way things are and are threatening to disrupt the country as much as possible until a republic is declared BEFORE the election. In the mean time, there are many groups who split off from the Maoists and are causing trouble in their own right. There is a group from the Terrai region that wants to create an independent status for the region, and they are causing lots of trouble out west. They are blocking off roads and preventing supplies from arriving from India, resulting in a near crippling gas shortage that has people waiting in day-long lineups to buy what little fuel is available. Also, there have been a few bomb scares in the city, luckily none close to my neighbourhood, but no one is totally sure whether to look at the maoists or the monarchists to blame. Simply put, things are shaky in this country these days.

This weekend I went away to the mountains with my sister and some friends. It was great to get out of the city and great to breathe some fresh air and relax. Unfortunately, when I got up Sunday morning, there was word spreading around the campground we were at that there were "Bandas" (sort of like a strike, literally translated as "closed") in Kathmandu, and the buses to get back into the city were going to be late This was likely the first of the acts from the Maoists. This made me a little nervous but I was assured that we would be fine getting home. Sure enough, the buses eventually came and we got home. Driving back into Kathmandu, things seemed a little different. There were maybe a few more riot police around, but I was told that it was just because of a big event that had taken place that afternoon, and that everything was good. I was also told to ignore the massive burning piles in the middle of Ratna park. Apparently they were nothing...

Sure enough, things - while a little eerie - seemed totally peaceful, and I got home feeling relaxed and went to sleep.

I didn't sleep for long though. At about 1am, I heard a bit of a noise outside that woke me up. The streets in this city are constantly noisy, so I didn't think much of it - until I noticed the noise getting louder. At this point two things became clear: This was a large mob of people, and it was just about right in front of my house. I looked out my window, and sure enough there was a group of 50 or 60 young Nepali men screaming and yelling and moving down the street towards the busier part of town. I walked out into the living room to find Lindsay, Matt and John there trying to figure out what was going on as well. We quickly realized there were several groups, you could here them in every direction, and they seemed to be converging on some location down the road.

Immediately Matt and I began to ask if the king or parliament had made an announcement. I started to wonder how quickly I could pack up all my things if I had to leave the country on quick notice, or perhaps just take shelter in the Canadian Consulate - luckily I had registered with them when I arrived. We argued about whether the crowd sounded angry or happy, it was really hard to tell. But Lindsay was convinced it was a riot or protest, based on the sound of guns being fired into the air. We went onto the roof and watched more and more people passing by - the crowd was getting big and we were getting worried.

Lindsay - our local coordinator and operator of the volunteer program - took out her cell phone and texted our closest Nepali friend in the area. "What the hell is going on" she typed to Neer and then waited as we all discussed our options and tried to work out whether we were safest just to stay put or not. I suggested that perhaps they had announced a republic finally, while Matt thought perhaps the Maoists were having a big midnight rally. John suggested maybe there was an assassination or something. The way things are around here, it seemed anything was possible.

Finally after a few minutes of waiting and listening the crowd get louder and louder, we got the answer from Neer - Lindsay took our her phone and read us the following:

"Nepali guy won on Indian Idol tonight."

Ah. Of course.

Hope you are all well. Just so you know, Simon Cowell has a presence everywhere.  :-)

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