Solano Stroll

Albany is a town in its own right, though it seems like an extension of Berkeley. Solano Avenue is its main street. The street's buildings, which were were probably once hardware and stationery stores, shoe repair businesses and the like, have for the most part been transformed into upscale boutiques and bistros. "Buy Local!" one sign insists, which seems ironic since the small-town California street is now filled with Tibetan, Indian and Japanese import stores, and with Tibetan, Nepalese, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Italian restaurants. A lot of Tibetan refugees live in Berkeley and and there's strong political support there for the "Free Tibet" movement, as well as several thriving Tibetan Buddhist communities.

Bob and I amble down Solano Avenue. It's a long street and we don't make it to the very end, but we enjoy the stroll. We stop at the Kathmandu Cafe for lunch and share a plate of momos (steamed dumplings with good things inside), but we part ways on the entree. I get a chicken wrap, but he orders goat meat curry. "Goat meat. Yuck!" I say, reading the menu out loud while his eyes light up at the prospect of trying something new. That's the difference between us.

What I really love about the cafe is its decor: on one wall are gigantic mandalas; on the other an array of elaborate tankas, and along the ledge a row of small wooden prayer wheels. A Tibetan CD plays in the background and we bounce our heads in rhythm to the music, which is a combination of percussion, gongs, Indian raga, and some twangy instrument that gives it a cowboy feel.

On our way back to the car we stop at The Bone Room where dinosaur bones, human skulls, "Disturbing Doll Parts," "Doll Busts", "Tiny" and "Broken Heads," "Painted Doll Legs," "Gnomes," and "Miscellaneous" are for sale, not to mention lion vertebrae, catfish spines, iridescent butterflies and bulging beetles. But the most amazing display is the albino Burmese python, who is very much alive, curled up behind a heated window in the back of the store. He is huge, beautiful and scary, his skin intricately patterned in pale yellow and white.

Ironically, after we leave this circus of the dead, I see a sign that says, "Ban the Circus! Circuses Abuse Animals!" -- ironic since this town would have welcomed the circus with open arms only a century ago. But I support the sentiment.

One last stop for designer chocolate. Here there are chocolate Buddhas and fertility goddesses for sale as well as white chocolate skulls, but we settle for simple truffles, one apiece, lavender-flavored, with a lavender design embossed on top.