Love begins with a question. in this case it was

"what is this music playing?"

it was addressed partly to myself and partly to the people i was eating at the restaurant with. the question was met with blank looks. just then a voice pipes up from behind me. it is oddly nasal.

"it's Loudon Wainwright the Third"

i turn around to find the source of the voice and am met with an unlikely hybrid of Tony Blair-on-acid and Woody Allen.

"Hi - i'm Ben and i'm from Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. who are you?"

...

fast forward three and a half months and i have just waved goodbye to Ben at Kathmandu airport. so, Ben - travelling companion, dal-bhat gobbler, haggler extraordinaire, teacher-friend, late-night whisperer of Leonard Cohen and general all round precious stone, Godspeed and thankyou for the memories.


'what is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they reced on the plain 'til you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. but we lean foward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies'
-from On the Road, Jack Kerouac.