Fifth day - 13 Jan

When I got up it was reasonably warm. I had a shave with hot water (!) and checked out as I had to contact Choephel so went to an internet café. I sent him a message and he then phoned me to say he couldn't come until tomorrow. I went back to Hotel Tibet and said I needed to stay another night. They actually let me have it for free! I went out and had a big breakfast then walked around. The small, dilapidated streets were full of Tibetans, Indians, beggars, dogs, monkeys and cows :) and with all the shops and cafés, it was quite a pleasant stroll. 

I went down to the temple complex which is also where the Dalai Lama lives. To be honest, it wasn't as picturesque as I'd expected but still nice to visit. I also went to the Tibetan museum which has photos and stories of the occupation of Tibet. It was of course very sad to read people's stories and it brought tears to my eyes to read them. I walked around some more, taking photos of the Himalayan mountain sides and went to a café to write this. I ordered some Tibetan momos, which are little balls of pastry with vegetables inside. It had a very hot sauce with them, which gave me a bit of a headache, but they were nice. The tea here is also good; made with milk instead of water, it's nice and creamy and I'll be drinking a lot of this while I'm here. Choephel phoned me again (I wish he'd just send me messages as it costs me about €3 a minute to receive calls) to say he could come for me this afternoon. I decided to stay here as it's a nice place to be and I'd already got the hotel for free for tonight.

I went back to the hotel to relax for a bit. While I was there, there was a power cut for about 20 minutes and I didn't want to go out until it was back on or it would have been too dark outside. I had a look around the streets, of which there are only two main ones that run parallel to each other and one or two others of any note. There weren't many enticing- looking restaurants but I ate at one on the square and read my Kindle. It is very easy to find vegetarian food here and being Indian (or Tibetan) it is very tasty. 
After that, I planned to prof-read my latest story in the hotel bar but it was closed by then so I did it in my room. Tomorrow, I will wait to be picked up and then I should start finding out more about my forthcoming voluntary work.