Safe

Hello!
Im at Jamgon Kongtrul's Monestery in Nepal, completely safe, with five minutes on a very slow internet connection.
When we heard about the attacks, it felt about as distant as you did back in the US-- Lava was very unaffected.
The drive to the border was amazing-- tea plantations, palm trees, waterfalls, mountains-- beautiful. Oh yeah, and and so many monkeys. I still get such a kick out of that.
Crossing into Nepal was funny-- it was a bridge over a river with horse carts and bicycal rickshaws and people walking as well as cars just going back and forth. Our taxi driver actually drove us across because he didn't know we needed to register.
On the Indian side, a man hand wrote our info into a ledger book (not even a form) in a little concrete house with lizards on the wall.
We took a short flight to Kathmandou and we could see the entire Himalaya range, including Mt. Everest, from the window.
Anyone who has a sense of mystery and exoticism about "Kathmandou" should know that it's overpopulated, congested, and polluted. I'm still excited to explore, though.
The monastery is on a large hill, surrounded at the bottem my houses and farmland. Up here, though, there's a lot of space, and a lot of little monks running around.
One of the shrine rooms contains the stupa with the body on the previous Jamgon Kongtrul (you can't actually see the body though) and practicing meditation in there is very amazing.
This is my second day here and the first with internet access.
I'll try to upload some more pictures when I can find a faster connection.
Safe and sound (except a bit of uneasiness about being in a place where all I can really do is look at my mind . . .)
Sending love to home,
Harry