Meet Alisha

This is Alisha - she is 21. She is beautiful with her blue hair and her calm smile. She is a Beauty Therapist in Kathmandu and the first young person I have spoken to who does not have an ambition to get better qualifications and then head overseas for better work. She is staying here with her mother and her brother. (Although my research is probably skewed by talking mainly to waiters, taxi drivers, and tour guides).

Her father died when she was small and now there is just the three of them. She has her father’s name tattooed on her wrist but on her upper arm, she has the beautiful smiling face of her mother. She told me, that she wanted to honour the sacrifices her mother had made for them and this was a way of showing it- a tangible, enduring acknowledgement. I thought it was fantastic.

So we go to the top of the world to go to the beauty parlour! Hilarious - especially since I NEVER go to those places, I’ve never even had a massage.

While Ann is having her hair cut, I get nails, hand and foot, mud massage, arm and leg and various types of body pampering. This is not something I’m accustomed to - I usually don’t like having strangers playing round with my body (in any circumstance)!

However- this was lovely and I swear my skin is not so wrinkly. My toe nails are red and my finger nails are pink - well they were.

After my cold shower this morning, using my pillowcase as a towel (no towels today- sorry madam), I discovered that the polish had completely slid off three three fingers!

But hey- I don’t care- the experience was fantastic and seven out of ten is a B+.

xoxo. L