Moving day once again. We are up and packed, and head out after breakfast to walk the 20ish minutes to the Himalayan Mountain Institute.
As it happens, it is located inside the same grounds as the zoo, an entity I normally shun. But Matt wants to see tigers, so we first walk through the park to the Mountaineering museum for a look around. Over two floors, the museum shares the stories of the men who attempted and succeeded in climbing the great mountain, Everest. Stories, photos, and lots of gear from the original 1953 expedition all the way to one as recent as 2005. Very interested was an exhibit that was like a raised paper mache circle, about 2 feet across, affixed to a flat board. I could walk around it and read the marking for each continent, and the listing of the highest peaks for each. South America only had about 8 listed, Asia had about 20. We checked out the area for North America and were shocked and dismayed to see that the 14ers from the great state of Colorado were nonexistent! The names for spots 8 – 12 should have all been Colorado mountains (they list wound up with some measely 6,000+ peak). As I left, I signed their guest book and under the comments section, wrote that they need to check us out and correct their errors. I’m sure they’ll get right on it!
From there, we walked back the other side of the loop, and Matt was rewarded with a couple of incredibly beautiful pacing tigers.
He was sure one of them would answer his whistle, but I was saddened to see both of the great beasts pacing back and forth along a 15 foot strip. Like being in the asylum. We saw a few beautiful leopards as well.
Back to the hotel to do our official checking out and stow our bags by the front desk, we set off into town for lunch at a place I researched last night for authentic Mongolian/Tibetan food. We enter the little cafe, nod to the Tibetan monk in the corner, and Matt goes for the chili garlic chicken, and I order pork momos and a chicken noodle soup with handmade noodles. A game of cribbage (yes, I lost), and here comes our steaming hot food.
I dab a little hot sauce and soy onto my first momo (almost exactly a steamed dim sum dumpling) and sink my teeth into the tender-chewy party through to the chopped meat interior. Aaaah, heavenly.
The soup garners particlar attention due to the presence of copious fresh vegetables – something I have been missing. I go back and forth from one dish to the other. So good, but I cannot come close to finishing. We are both plenty satisfied and I am thrilled with the experience. The magicians in the tiny kitchen:
The manager and me out front:
As we head in the general direction of our hotel, we stop into a few “Tibetan curio” shops. Matt is looking at silver rings and I am suddenly taken with a necklace of moonstone and onyx (but orange) stones. The purveyor says the stones are local, but who knows?
Our driver is waiting when we return to the hotel, so we hop in the car and head out for the Glenburn Tea Estate. The ride is about 2 hours, and we drive into a lovely estate indeed – with the main house dripping with green foliage from the edges of the roof, a beautiful wide veranda that runs the length of the house, and a lovel Indian woman who ties silk scarves around our necks upon arrival.
We enter the sitting area,
have some tea, and chat about what’s going on at the inn. We unpack, get settled, and read in our rooms until the requested visit to the salon to have a drink and chat with the two other couples here (one from London and the other from Montana by way of Israel). The usual conversation about travel, the world, work and summer camps. We adjourn to the large dining room, where they serve momos and homemade soup for dinner! Ha! I’m not too hungry, but enjoy their yummy soup, with even more veggies than this morning. Off to sleep in our spacious room before a busy day of hiking tomorrow.