In the "International Police" barracks, I was atended by a kind young man in civil clothes. Apparently only lower ranks dressed uniform there. After explaining to him whar had happened we went to someone important, who had a very militaristic and authoritarian pose although he wasn't wearing any uniform. I found strange but not surprising the contradition between the run down look of the buildings and the old fashioned look of the important man and all those formalities and poses of the policemen. The young man that took care of my case seemed a little bit out of place there. He advised me to go to the Immigration Office to ask for travel documents when I informed him that there wasn't any portuguese consulate in Nepal.

After leaving the police station, I went to the offices of "Rising Nepal", one of the main newspapers in Nepal. I choosed it because I knew where it was and it had editions both in english and nepali. I payed some hundreds ruppees for an advertisement in both editions for 3 days, where I appealed to the taxi driver to deliver my passport at the Karki Guesthouse. Apart from some slowness that was becoming familiar, nothing to note. When I left the office everybody in the office had showed his or her interest in my case of the tourist of a strange country who had lost his passport.

I had still time to go to the Immigration Office, just to discover that they couldn't issue any travel documents without any passport. That after talking to more than 4 persons and getting cheekly inside the counters, arguing that I was coming from the police. I was caught in a vicious circle: I needed some identification documents because I had no passport and those documents couldn't be issued without passport. They gave me no suggestion when I explained us that I wouldn't be able to get a passport since my country had no representatives in Nepal. I decided to wait for the next day, Monday, to go see if any embassy could help me. Sunday is working day in Nepal, but not for the foreign embassies.

Just before going to the bus stop, I managed to fax to a cousin of a work colegue that was secretary in the portuguese embassy in Bangkok. In the fax I explained my situation and requested advice.

The beauty of the views on the bus trip to Nagarkhot helped me forgetting a little bit my worries. The trip lasted for one hour or two, although the distance was no more than 40 or 50 Km. Nagarkhot is a place on some hills near Kathmandu, about 2000 meters high where one has a spectacular view to about 300 Km of snow caped mountains. Some claim that Everest can be seen from there, others say no. That didn't bother us much, because the it was not really important to see the holy Sagarmatha, the nepali or *true* name of Everest. After all there were so much mountains to see from there. Those peaks seem so near that is difficult to believe they are so far away. At the same time they look a little bit unreal, floating above the clouds and being snowed when we are seeing them from a warm place. We spent several hours just gazing at the landscape. It wasn't only for the distant peaks, the near mountains and the profond valley was also very beautiful, with some green areas, with forests or agriculture, lots of terraces for agriculture and other arid slopes. Blue of the sky, greens and browns of the land, whites of the distants peaks, clouds and haze, those were the colours of the scenery. We forgot time walking near our lodge and it was already rather dark when we went to dinner.

We stayed in a small lodge near the top of a hill. Our room had a splendid view to the valley. I remember thinking that I had never slept in a room with such a nice view. Although the conditions were exactly luxuous, we had a double room with attached bathroom for something like Rs 200. We had to cope with a bucket bath of almost cold water, but who cares. Apparently, the water was supposed to be warmed by a solar panel but it shouldn't be working very well. The place was run by a bramin hindu who confessed some of his prejudices related with ethnic and cast mixtures. He didn't look very close minded, but he respect traditions too much. Our discussions and jokes began when he and one of his employees asked us where were we from and Maria Jose said her mother is goan who has bramin ancestors although she is catholic and her father is portuguese. The employee was very amused with the fact that she was also a "milk and coffee" like him, whose father was sherpa and his mother a newari. He was married with a Tamang wife and he agreed with Maria Jose when she declared that "milk and coffee" people were stronger than "pure race" people, as they inherit the best characteristics of both parents. When they saw that the boss wasn't liking the converstation they exagerated a little bit, just to see his reaction. He ended up confessing that he didn't like very much those kind of mixtures, although he respected everybody. He said that if he would fall in love with some girl that wasn't bramin he would run away or abandon her, as he wouldn't cope with hs parents grief. Even being so traditionalist on these issues, the bramin boss was a pleasant talker and a very nice and interesting person. His employee, the "milk and coffee" was also very amusing and he made excelent chicken pulaos.