Adventure Vet: Mo Mos and Thamel

I haven't posted in a while because I have been getting very well acquainted with the toilet. That's right people, I am talking traveler's diarrhea, which in my case was more of a severe food poisoning. I am going to spare you the details and just say that I was down most of last week, so little adventuring took place beyond the trek from the bedroom to the bathroom. But I have completed a course of antibiotics; I am 100% again, and have stories and pictures for you.

Since I can eat again, I decided to get out and try some local cuisine. This is Chicken Mo Mo.

You can get veggie mo mo, chicken mo mo, pork, etc. I have never even heard of mo mo before. I found them similar to pot stickers. It's meat, onions, spices wrapped in a flour casing and covered in a tomato based soup. They called it soup anyway, It reminded me of a spicy spaghetti sauce. Speaking of spicy, I fully acknowledge that I am a complete wimp when it comes to spicy foods, but seriously, what the Nepalese consider baseline flavor is crazy spicy to me and then they have hot sauce that, just the smell of it, made my eyes start to water. Dad and Dan, you two would probably love the food. It's not all painful spicy, I still ate almost all the mo mos because they were tasty...but my mouth was on fire.

After lunch Bikrash and I went to Thamel. Bikrash is a Nepali veterinarian that also works for HSI. We had a slow day yesterday so he was recruited to be my tour guide, more about that in the next post. Anyway, Thamel. Tourist central. Lots of fantastic cuisine from all around the world. I caught a wiff of pizza... I'm still dreaming about it. Definitely going back there! There is also TONS of shopping. It's sort of like Chinatown in San Francisco where there are strips of shops all packed together and overflowing with local crafts and everything says "Nepal" on it. Prices are really great though, as I will share below. Bartering is a must, so I was incredibly lucky to have Bikrash. He really bargained and saved me money. Thanks Bikrash!