Here’s putting a lot of confidence in the US Postal Service. I am not in Los Angeles this morning, though I feel I should have gotten myself there in time for my appointment with the Passport Agency. Even though it turns out my birth certificate is a little schizophrenic, I could at least have had the satisfaction of being turned away in person by a callous bureaucrat after great travel and expense. Instead I’m just waiting by to see if my passport happens to show up in my mailbox or not. Of course I was bugging the Passport Customer Rejection Center for a long time to track the progress of their scotch tape dispenser. Here’s the irony. They admitted they had been dragging their feet so they waived the fee on an expedite order and quickly completed their official crayon doodles. Then they sent it out regular “Priority” mail rather than Express. I’m looking this gift racehorse in the mouth and I say it’s a beat up old burro.

Regardless of whether a certain SherpaTrek writer will be joining the rest of the group for the upcoming Nepal departure date (still no passport), here is a run through of the action-packed travel itinerary. It starts with a Sunday morning flight out of Salt Lake City to Los Angeles and then a long stretch to Taiwan. I still can’t imagine how an airliner can stay in flight for such a distance (but I sure hope it does). From there it’s a relatively short hop to Bangkok for a day and a half of shopping, and then the last leg of the flight to Kathmandu, which will be on Wednesday. That gives the group two days to take in as much as possible from the bewildering choices for sightseeing. Personally I think the best itinerary option for those two days will be to not get sick. That might involve such conservative sightseeing options as hiding in the hotel room and not touching, eating, or drinking ANYTHING. I doubt that will be an option though. Pema is inviting the whole group to spend some time in his downtown apartment, and like fate, there’s no avoiding the chicken curry.

Times are tense in SherpaTrek Central. 3 days and an early wake-up until mass deployment of the crack blogging team to Nepal. To recap, I’m still waiting for my US passport to magically appear in my hands. Luckily, I sent in an expedite order to the Passport place because they just finished last night and have sent it out overnight express. Fingers crossed. My backup plan is to fly out to Los Angeles Tomorrow Night! and ask someone in person to politely put their typewriter and scotch tape to work and make a nice picture book for me. Ah, but there’s a wrinkle in the plan. I will need a registered copy of my birth certificate as proof of citizenship (because of my Farkistani accent they need extra proof). Now I had to fax out an urgent request for my birth certificate to Idaho. I tried to submit an online form, but the Atari 800 web server they are running had a glitch somewhere in its 48k on RAM. They said they needed to order a new BASIC cartridge off of eBay.

I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs from trekkers who are just getting into Kathmandu and resting up for their own adventures on the trails. First of all, it’s a relief to learn that the recent Maoist cease-fire is holding in consideration of the tourist industry. Loose Cans explains about how to deal with the ubiquitous street hawkers. It sounds like they’re kind of pushy, and they won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Maybe if I throw a wad of cash in the opposite direction of where I want to go, it will throw their attention way off of me. Ammon gives some details on the experience of walking around in the city. It’s amazing that he says the streets look a thousand years old, even though they’re only 300 years old. I’ll look out for the cows and monkeys in the middle of the city and try to remember that the cars drive on the left side of the road. So the picture you see here to the right must be a very slow day. First-hand accounts claim that even the most peripheral, insignificant streets at the oddest off-hours are swarming with savage, horn-abusing motorists.