Around the Neighborhood

Today Brian gives a tour of his neighborhood in east Lazimpat/Gairidhara.

This is the street we live on. I have to give a lot of credit to the house owners that live here, they do a very nice job of keeping this street very clean and looking good. Usually there are kids in the street playing some games, but this morning I guess they were in school.

This is our apartment building, we're up there on the top floor with the open terrace. You can see the flowers from the house owners garden blooming over the fence.

As you get to the end of our street, this is one of the shops. I usually buy my eggs and some vegetables here. Apparently they just got a new shipment of Miho noodles in here today. 

At the end of the street we live on we come into this street, none of them have names that I know of. There is a butcher shop up on the left, but they never seem to have chicken, so I haven't shopped at it yet. There is however a big pile of sand on the side of the road left over from some construction I think. There is also a school up there on the right, you can hear the kids sometimes during the day.

By the butcher shop there are always four stray dogs who make this area their home. Here are two of them woofing at some rival dogs from down the block. All the street dogs tend to make their homes near butcher shops.

This leads out to the main road crossing the bridge over the open sewer stream. Sitting in the chair at the back of the photo is the woman I buy most of my vegetables from. There are several girls/woman who run that store and they use to really get giggling when I would buy vegetables there, I'm not sure if it is because ai was a foreigner shopping there, if it was the fact that I was man doing what is traditionally a womans role in a country with clear divisions of labor or a combination of both. Last night though while I was paying for my food a younger woman who spoke English told me that the older lady loves me, because I remind her of her son. As she gave me change I usually respond with thank you in Nepali (one of the few phrases I know) and instead this time she said "Thank You" in very clear English. I left with a big grin on my face.

Taking a right once across the bridge you can see the largest convenience store in our area before we get to Lazimpat road on the left, the pink building. This is where we occasionally buy wine to go with dinner. We had recently bought their last bottle of red in their limited supply. The last time I went in there though there was a large wine selection, thanks!

Os we near the next intersection there is a large vegetable stand and in this picture on the left is where we buy our yogurt. 55 NRS for a liter of plain fresh yogurt. I use this stuff cooking , and in lassies all the time.

Really the only thing I don't like in our neighborhood is this dirty stream. Everyone uses it as a dumpster and all the sewage from the houses runs directly into it I think. Usually there is a dog or crow down there looking for treasure.

This is the nearby community center and police station. It kind of looks like it was a temple at one time, and I'm fairly sure there is one out back. All the taxi's hang out at this intersection too.

Taking a right and heading toward Lazimpat road we come across the fruit vendor I always use. Today she had mangoes for 90 NRS/Kilo. That seemed good to me and I picked up a few. Looking forward to all the things I can make with mangoes now that they are in season and reasonably cheap. Definitely beats paying 3$/mango I pay back in the States. 

This is the barber shop where I get my hair cut. They also give scalp massages in the process, and only charge  50 NRS. Got another good haircut today, these guys are first rate. I haven't tried the street vendor food yet, but those samossa things on the left actually look good, I may have to try some.

After the barber shop it's a left to head to southern parts of the city or a right to head up to Lazimpat road proper. I'm really liking the area we live in and the people here have all been very welcoming to us. Our house owners, the K.C. family are especially nice people and have made living here very easy for us.