One mostly amusing sidenote happened on my first morning in Kathmandu, which was also the first day of the general strike.

I woke up early and took a walk around town. On the corner coming into the tourist area, there were about 20 Nepali policemen in riot gear. Thinking this might make a good blog posting, I discreetly took a long-distance picture from way up the street. I then started on my way not thinking anything of it.

As I walked, one of the policemen came over to me saying that photos were not permitted at that spot. It wasn’t that they minded getting photographed (Nepali soldiers typically seem to like posing for photos), but for what was behind them. I should have known from all my previous visits that that was none other than the US Embassy.

I said of course I would delete the photo, but he said no don’t do that. You need to see our commanding officer. So they ushered me into a room inside the embassy and began to take an “incident report.” They said I shouldn’t worry, it happens all the time, but they were certainly thorough, taking flash pictures of me, my camera, the offending picture, and so on. After a call to their supervisor, they told me I could go. But I can only imagine it would have been a lot harder if I had had another country’s passport!

Needless to say, they had me delete the picture from my camera, and I didn’t take another.