GMT +5:45

Yes, we've entered one of those weird and wonderful niches of the world that refuse to play by the rules. We're here in Kathmandu, Nepal (since yesterday) and are 11 hours and 45 minutes ahead of our homes in the Central Time Zone. People here are proud of there weirdness. Within an hour or two of landing here (from our Buddha Airlines (!) flight from Darjeeling past Mt. Everest (!!)) we, I think, correctly described Kathmandu as a hippie paradise. There's vegetarian, organic restaurants on every corner, massage, yoga, and treking shops scattered in between, and Buddhist prayer flags fluttering from every rooftop.

Now that we're almost (literally) halfway around the world from our family, and with only about a week to go before we take that long flight home, we're savoring our cultural experiences here while at the same time yearning for those red beans and rice and wheatfields. Travelling these last few days has been bittersweet - seeing and experiencing amazing and unique places, people, smells, and sounds... but only for a few minutes or hours at a time.

Since we arrived here (24 hours ago), we've walked among 900-year-old temples, been charmed by a snake charmer, bought some antique Tibetan turquoise jewelry, prayed at a Buddhist monestery, contemplated a future trek to Everest base camp, and tasted the best chocolate-cinnamon-yogurt you could imagine. It's been fun, to say the least. And impossible not to want to come back.

Next up is a 10 hour bus ride through the mountains back to India, where we'll hopefully put up temporary residence at a Buddhist monestary in Gaya - only steps away from where the Buddha first reached enlightenment centuries ago. We're planning about 4 or 5 days of meditation before we head back to Delhi, and then, finally, on to Atlanta.