Annapurna Basecamp Trek

 (Yes...a long overdue post. Eventually I'll try to get everywhere on here!) 

Obviously I didn't carry around my netbook or had much time to keep up with my journal on my trek so I will do my best to recall the intrepid journey.  

So at Hotel Manang in Kathmandu ("fancy" hotel in Thamel which included a toilet and hot shower in the room-what more could I ask for..) I met the group I would be trekking with.  Representation from the UK, Hong Kong, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and US (which was only me).  Everyone was friendly and up for anything with no complaints the entire trip.  Essential for surviving a long trek together. We had a couple group dinners in Kathmandu.  I skipped out on a mornings Kathmandu excursions as I had already been to the places they were going to. Instead spent the day with another group member who also had seen all the sights already. After a day in the Kathmandu we were off to Pokhara. Pokhara is in the north west reigon of Nepal and is where the beginning of the Annapurna basecamp trek is. I somehow managed to pack the minimum 7.5kg of clothes and equipment I would need for the trek into a duffle (big deal for me)!  We all packed onto a big lavender bus-which was luxurious in comparison to the buses/vans I had previously been riding on. Cushy seats and air conditioning.  Just riding on that bus thru the same streets I've seen in Nepal made it seem like such a different place.  It's nice to know I got to experience what the reality of transport is in Nepal (I was only in one accident in the month I was there...) We drove a LONG 8 hours out of the city and thru more of a rural landscape.  It was a beautiful ride--lots of green, rice terraces, water buffalo, women and men in traditional clothes farming, bright animated painted trucks with cheesy quotes in bad English, less diesel smell the farther we got out of the city, rivers and rapids, suspension wires connecting mountain sides with a dangling box that people get into to cross on the wire, clearer skies, bus playing Nepali music, small roadside stands with food and snacks, people bathing in the taps on the side of the road, trucks on the small mountain side road playing chicken with each other until one swerves out of the way just in time...We had a few stops including a lunch break. After more driving we got to Pokhara to another "fancy" hotel.  We all went out to dinner together after roaming the Phewa lakeside shops where I picked up a few more things I'd need or the trek.  The next morning we rode another 2 hrs to the start point of the trek.

Everyday of the trek on the way up was different terrain/scenery.  Green bamboo forests, rhododendron forests (which reminded me of The Princess Bride), rapid rivers, long swinging suspension bridges, waterfalls, rocky paths, muddy paths, various animal poop, open fields of talking (don't know what how to describe their sound) goats and goats in trees, wheat and other farm terraces on hillsides, scattered small local villages, hillsides with sweeping layered views of faraway hills and giant snowcapped mountains, snow-hail-rain-sleet, snow storm during last trek to basecamp...many breathtaking nature 1000 piece puzzle picture scenes. Took many photos but started to have some trouble with my camera a few days into the trek. As in sometimes it would turn on and sometimes it wouldn't.  

We stayed in teahouses in small villages along the way.  The teahouse lodging was modest.  Most of them had rooms with two person accommodation. And by accommodation I mean thin ply wood walls and spaces for the beds which were just pads on wood platforms. Tiny rooms but sufficient for sleeping.  The bathrooms were just squat toilets and occasionally they would have western toilets but somehow i preferred squat toilets by the end of the trip-that was a surprising realization...i also preferred baby wipe showers than
the cold shower but did enjoy the occasional solar heated “hot” shower. the food was pretty much a fixed menu at every place so we ate many things over and over.  i chose mostly vegetarian stuff-egg noodle soup, fried rice, noodles, Tibetan bread, dal bhat, chapati, rosti, potatoes, etc..I did develop a Mars bar obsession on the trek and  I've never even had one prior to!  They were at every stop and teahouse and were hard
to resist after all the hiking.    

Everyday we would hike anywhere from 6-8 hrs.  Most of the time it was not just leisurely walking .  That or I was out of shape...but either way it was challenging, some days more than others.  The days were broken down into breakfast-hike-tea break-hike-lunch-hike-teahouse-free time and dinner-sleep.
2 weeks of that is long enough for me!  Not too short, not too long.  I think if it was any longer I would need to be doing a summit of some sort.

Health was a big worry for me for a bit as a decent amount of the group got terrible GI issues, including my roommate.  2 others were even unable to make it to basecamp because of it. II made me remember when I was younger (before 1st grade) I always had a fear of having GI problems when i was at school (i was an interesting child...)and would get sick to my stomach if others were sick just out of fear of getting sick also.  Surprising that I became a nurse.   I'm sure there's some psychoanalysis that could be done about that but anyways-one night when the peak number of violently ill people was reached I seriously thought I was going to be ill. But I powered thru.  Not to mention I started to chlorine treat my already boiled water, used hand sanitizer religiously, and tried to eat without touching anything.  I even ate my toast with a knife and fork.
Ok so the toast thing was probably over doing it, but hey I did not get ill!  I also didn't have to take any meds for acclimatization.  phew.

To spare you more reading here are a few highlights:
-the trek up to basecamp in a snowstorm
-hiking up to Poon hill before sunrise to watch it over great views of the Annapurna range
-sledding down a high, freshly snow covered mountain side near basecamp on a plastic bag in--backwards
-crossing the Indiana Jones-like suspension bridges…Dr. Jones!!!!!!!
-jumping in the cold Modi river rapids then going into natural hot springs
-finally getting to hang prayer flags at base camp (way more fun then hanging them on my fridge at home)
-getting to practice taking landscape photos in such a beautiful place  :)
-attempting to learn traditional Nepali dances
-experiencing substantial heat, snow, sleet, hail, and rain all in one day-peeing in a Bamboo forest…yes, I just wrote that. 

Day 12

On the way work to this morning my microbus was playing an american pop/hiphop CD that included Rhianna, NeYo, and Usher. It was kinda bizarre given the setting. Last day at the clinic today.  Have to say it was pretty uneventful (patientwise).  I think the most interesting patient that came in had been in a knife fight and was getting dressings changed and sutures out.  It was such a short time to work somewhere that I didn't really get attached to it all.  Everyone was great though.  Especially my nurse friend, Mina.  She helped me shop for nuts today as I need some sort of protein. I weighed myself today and saw that I've lost 3 lbs already and i'm sure it's all muscle. maybe from a kind of unbalanced diet. She also gave me some parting gifts including fancy tika and wished me luck on my trekking with a white silk scarf. I wouldn't have been able to do the school project without her help!

At home Shamiksha was sick and stayed home from school.  I watched their neighbor perform some witchdoctor type stuff. He was motioning pulling and sucking out the sickness and throwing it out...interesting. I started separating my stuff/re-packing for my upcoming trek.  Weeee! Everyone has been telling me that the area I will be going to is beautiful, clean, and "heavenly." Hope it lives up to the hype!

Day 11

Today was my last day visiting the school i was working with.  My morning started with trying to buy over 200 bars or soap, toothbrushes, and toothpaste.  You can probably guess that there is no Costco here in Kathmandu so it wasn't so easy.  Now that I think of it I've only seen one "grocery store" and it was in the tourist district.
So somehow we managed to get what we needed (almost everything-i was secretly hoping some kids would be absent just in case we didn't have enough for everyone)  from this tiny, dusty, hole in the wall "store."  Then we were on our way to the school with our boxes on top of the taxi ripping thru dusty side streets.  Oh btw, there was another
cow traffic jam this morning which made me late for work, or on time Nepali style.  We neared the school and some of the kids saw us and started yelling excitedly.  I think we caught them after their exams were over because they were all out of control.  After getting everyone back into their rooms we started visiting the different classes.  Before handing out the supplies
we had the kids review that I taught the other day and they did surprisingly well.  Well except maybe the youngest grade, they were all over the place.  Everyone was thankful and seemed happy to receive what we were handing out.  I was happy that they remembered what I taught them.  Hopefully they'll actually use the stuff!

Day 10

Today I took the day off.  And so the entire family did also (minus brother). I told them that I would take them shopping and so we all took a trip into the city to the Thamel district (tourist town).  This is somewhere they don't go to very often.  Everyone got very dressed up and were so excited to go.  We all took a long bus ride together out of the village.  So much traffic.  And it wasn't even because it was what we would call "rushhour" it was because there was a GIANT cow just standing in the middle of the busy road! And I've actually seen this on other occasions but it never usually causes that long of a jam.  It was pretty humorous, but probably only to me.  


I finally found an ATM that would work with my card, I was starting to worry I wouldn't.
And I saw the first and only western chain restaurants! good ole baskin robins, kfc and pizza hut. i thought of you agatha (pizza hut)! I'm surprised i haven't run into a mcdonals yet.  After we finished shopping I met with Manoj and we went to a travel agency and got my ticket to bangkok which ended up
being around the same price that i found on cheapoair.com but without the international tax.  so only like $214 total after local tax. they were trying to get me to buy a Nepal Airlines ticket which luckily Manoj previously informed me they have ONE plan for everywhere and were pretty unreliable.  so instead i am leaving a day later on a different airline which i've used before. better safe than sorry.  kathmandu's airport is no where i want to be stranded. 

Afterward we had some food at Northfield cafe (where i went my first day) because they also had free wifi.  i had chicken for the first time since i've been in the home stay and it was pretty awesome.  i also had coffee, bottled water, and used a toilet.  i think i was most excited about the toilet.  haha.  well, maybe the coffee too.  i haven't been craving meat as much as i thought i would be. probably because the meat that i see around here (dead or alive) kind of freaks me out.  today i saw something that was hairless and a cross between a dog, goat, and a water buffalo. and the other day i saw a goat slaughtered on the side of the road when i was walking to work.  well actually i saw someone holding something that was spewing blood into a bowl and it took me a second to realize that it was an animals neck/body, and that someone else was standing by it holding a goat head. mmmmmm...meat.
oh yea! remember the jolly guy who asked to keep my old chewed gum? he was there again at the cafe and he ran after me (in a non-threatening but creepy way) in the street as i was leaving asking why the (fake) email
address i gave him wasn't working. i just slapped a taxi as it was passing by me and jumped in.  i really liked that cafe
but something tells me i should try somewhere new... 

Day 9

So today at work I went with Mina (nurse) to the same school again to teach.  My Nepali was slow and less than perfect but they kids seemed to understand.  Every time i would walk into a room they would all stay up and say "Namaste, Miss."  So cute.  I did my teaching and some simple teeth and fingernail checks to i think 5/6 classes and we were done. We rode the microbus to and fro-Mina needed to get to work and i didn't mind because it was kinda hot outside.  The winter here is coming to an end and so it's less cloudy than when I first got here.  On a really clear day from the top of their house you can see
green hills/mountains and snow-capped mountains behind that.  Throw in sunrise and it's pretty amazing.  I tried to get some pictures but it just doesn't look the same.   

Back at the clinic I met a friend of Dr. Bipin.  Kate (from UK), who works with Volunteer Services Nepal. They take care of orphaned children.  About 6 yrs ago she came here to to volunteer work with the organization.  She ended up meeting a Nepali man (her tour guide) got married in the UK, came back and has been living here ever since.  She brought along one of her volunteers, a wound nurse
from New Zealand.  We all chatted for a while about Nepal's various health problems.  She also told
me about the long tedious process of the legalities and expenses of establishing a NGO. She is a dedicated woman.

Back home I am more comfortable and can now communicate enough to stop at some of the small shops
up the road towards my home, mainly to fill my stock of bottled water.  I know, i know.  I'm contributing to the plastic waste crisis here.  But i really enjoy a healthy bowel. It's nice to be going "home" now.  I really actually like walking up the small dirt/rock road through wheat fields next to ducks,goats,cows and seemingly friendly but probably rabid dogs.  It's more fun than walking home from the Belmont stop with the hip hop transvestites. Haha. Sarita and Shamiksha and I planned our next day of shopping.  I was also meeting with Manoj (works with NVC) so he could take me to a travel agent for my plane ticket.  After looking online I was getting charged international tax for buying off US flight search databases. Tonight I just worked on my community service award application (for Rush) and realized I needed to include relevant journal articles backing up what i'm doing...bleh.  shouldn't be too hard to find as long as the internet works long enough for me to look one up!

Day 7 and 8

I've continued to work at the clinic that the volunteer program sent me to.  The staff is great and the medical director is a great teacher and has an inspiring vision and is very compassionate about it.  However the volunteer work I am doing is not quite what I had in mind.  I thought I would have more to do clinically or elsewhere in the community. I've come to the conclusion that everyone in Nepal has some sort of baseline acute illness at all times.  Jk. that's very ignorant for me to say but the patients that I am seeing have these complaints on/off for long periods of time.  And everyone is always hacking up a lung. (yes i wear my mask) I'm sure it has to do with the lack of healthcare resources and poverty amongst many other things.
I wanted to do something more than just work at the clinic.  I wanted to do something more
along the lines of health promotion as SO many of the cases we see are ID and can be prevented
with proper hygiene.  It sounds so simple but for here it is lacking.  I wanted to hand out soap or something in the clinic-save the world, one soap at a time!  But I figure that is temporary and a minute significance and chances are resources would be misused (taken and sold) or taken by those who don't need it
as badly.   Dr. Bipin started talking to me about a slum area with some of the poorest conditions in nearby Balaju in that area.  He suggested I think about doing something there.  Turns out there is a school there.  So I thought that rather than just handing out stuff I could try and educate the school kids there on hand and dental hygiene (both are terrible here).

So now I will be working in the clinic and also working on this small project before I leave. 
Today I visited the area he was telling me about (not alone of course..) and the school.  The
kids are beautiful seem so disciplined and studious.  The area was near a very polluted river.  All the nearby houses were just shacks with metal tin roofs. I was introduced to all the classes and teachers and let them know what I wanted to do. All in broken Nepali/English as Mina (a Nepali nurse coworker) spoke little English.  So I've been full force trying to get Nepali grammar down but it's pretty difficult. So lots of phrasebook using going on.I was invited to come back the next day.  So I (using my phrasebook and some locals editing) made a short, simple lesson plan on hand and dental hygiene in Nepali language and will be teaching tomorrow. We'll see how that goes, haha.  I also plan to distribute some hygiene products (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, etc.)to the kids hoping that their impressionable age will work to my favor and they will retain this information.  There are about 220 children in the school but a little bit of money (USD)goes a long way here.  If i can spend $400 freaking dollars on a SECOND i phone then I can spare some money to give basic supplies to 220 kids.  My nurse friend here has a family member who owns a store so she
said she could get the supplies for even cheaper.  I know it's not much, but if you could see
what this place looks and the conditions that these kids have to grow up in you'd want to do something also. No matter how big or small.

Day 6- Happy Holi

Today was the holiday called Holi (google it).  I was invited to go to the temple this morning.  Lots of incense, chanting, singing and clapping.  Afterward we got ready to celebrate Holi by getting water balloons and buckets.  Filling water balloons with the barrel of a pen and a plastic bag took way too long so we just started using buckets to throw water at each other.  Everyone in the neighborhood was out.  Some peoples
faces were painted with many different colors.  We used the power that is used for tika.  By the end of the morning I was covered in red and my clothes were soaked.  Keshab picked me up to do some sight seeing and see how Holi is celebrated other places.  We went to 2 different Durbar Squares (old palace squares) Baktapur and Patan.  On the way to these places you could see people everywhere in the
street with colors all over and throwing water.  I got hit with 2 more balloons in route, yellow and pink.  My clothes looked like they were tie dyed.  Even walking in the squares people just walk up to you and smear different colored powders on your face yelling "Happy Holi." It was like a party everywhere.  Other than Holi celebrations, the squares and streets all looked pretty much the same.

Back home I tried to wash the color out of my clothes.  Washing clothes is a long process involving retrieving buckets of water from a well and hand washing my clothes in a big silver bowl. It was kind of a workout. Note to self:never complain about doing laundry again! My pants are still kind of stained..  They look like 80's color splashed jeans.  Oh well, at least there's a good story behind it!

Day 5 Sick Day

OMG...I didn't think that I'd get sick this fast but, it's here.  The dreaded GI upset.  These are less than ideal bathroom conditions for stomach problems.  But I learned to deal with it real quick, not that I really had a choice.  It came with a vengeance in the middle of the night.  I was also sweating and tachy.  All I could think of was everything about this place that screams infectious disease.  BLeeeehhh. I think thinking of that
made me even more sick.  I didn't sleep very well at all.  After I dosed myself with the triple threat (Imodium, pepto, pepcid) washed down with Gatorade I was able to rest a bit.  Definitely not 100% this morning, but slight improvement.  Sarita also made me a special drink that would help. It was basically hot water
with a little bit of spice, sugar and salt.  I just feel drained because I wasn't drinking a ton of water in
the first place because people here drink tea ALL the time.  If anything it's given me time to update this.  (I write and copy and paste to the blog when I can)  Other than that I did a lot of reading, showed the fam how to play a game on my laptop and attempted to learn how to dance again.  Shamiksha is an awesome dancer and is so excited to teach me synchronized dancing.  I am pretty terrible, but but she's patient with me.  So far she's taught me a Nepali dance and now she's energetically choreographing something to Jai Ho.
In return I'm teaching her how to use my camera.  She loves it and caught on quick.  She's got an eye.  Sometimes we'll just walk around the village and take pictures.  By the end of the day my stomach was 95% better and I was able to eat.  Today was the first day I stayed home for the ENTIRE day.
It was kind of hard.  Really makes me appreciate everything I have at home.  From the basic stuff to relationships and entertainment.   

Day 4

So much chanting in this house.  4 am I wake up to Sarita (mom) scrubbing floors and cleaning. Then chanting.  Then cleaning.  Then chanting. Then more chanting. I got up at about 6am and everyone was already up.  I took a shower (cold) and attempted using the bathroom.
I will spare you details.  Let's just say it's not fun. I sat outside with the girls while they did school work and I read.  It was nice to see the sun coming up over the hills.  It's still a bit cloudy in the valley because winter is just ending.  I'm hoping that when I go to Pokhara to do my trek it will be clear.  I really want to learn how to cook Nepali food, it's pretty delicious.  The family I'm staying with is vegetarian.  It's amazing how much
variety you can have without using meat.  Grace-I will attempt to use the cook book you gave me when I get back home.  There's no refrigeration in the house so every meal or snack is fresh, no left overs.  I helped cut some vegetables for the morning meal today.

Today I rode two microbuses (remnants of a gutted van, jam packed, blasting music, that have some informal system of getting people where they need to be) to get to work.  It took about 45 min but I made it there with no problems.  Again, I blend in well until someone asks me something and I can't say anything back.  The place where I'm working is called the Nepal Center for Health and Development.  It's a super small clinic
with bare bones equipment and supplies.  They have an analog xray machine, super old lab processing equipment, 3 small curtained rooms, and somehow an OR. The OR was locked when I got there but I can't even imagine what would be in it.  This particular clinic does not charge patients to
see the doctor but does charge for tests and medications.  And if the patient needed a specialist referral that doctor may charge the patient. It was interesting to learn about the medical system here.  Or rather lack thereof.  Doctors have a difficult time making money and finding work and when they do they are not making much more money than other professions here.  Many doctors open private hospitals but have been known to
unnecessarily prescribe medications and order tests and make direct profit off of it.  The medical director of the clinic and also one of the doctors I will be working with talked a lot about his vision to continue to maintain the clinic with free visits and expand with acute care also. He studied medicine abroad in Bejing (cheaper there) and came back to Nepal and is leaving the 2nd week of April to study tropical medicine in Bangkok,Thailand (Mahndiol(sp) University) for a year and plans to come back. He has no intentions of going to practice anywhere else.  He seems very moved and dedicated to improving healthcare here in Nepal.
He's also a member of a UK based volunteer council in Nepal for health care.  I found out that nurses and Nepal don't really have too much hands on work.  For this reason I'll be working directly with the doctors in the clinic and minor surgeries.  My first full day was, honestly, pretty boring.  There is a huge language barrier so I can't really take any information from the patients.  After every patient the doctor explains assessment and plan and some pathophys and pharm.  So first day was mostly learning for me.  I'm hoping that I'll get
to do more soon.           
     I made it back on on the microbuses ok, despite getting water thrown at me.  Holi (water and color festival-where people throw water and colored powders on each other) is coming up and apparently
some people can't wait.   Back home I met one of their neighbors, Sushma (19, newly wed, wants to work/study abroad, very friendly made tea and mushroom veg) She gave me a Nepali makeover. Bedtime here is like 8:30!-but usually not electricity so not much you can do anyway).  And the city is too far from here for me to go wandering alone.  

Day 3-Meeting family

On my third morning I met with Raj, the guesthouse manager as he invited me for some tea.  After talking for a bit I realized that he was "educating" me on his other business of a tour company.  I was not moved by too much of what he was offering but will keep it in the back of my head if needed in the future.  Dip helped me find an electronic store to but a new adaptor for my plugs but come to find (at the store) that mine worked after all. I invited him to come along with me for breakfast since he helped me twice and I'm sure he probably wanted money or something.  I wanted to try this place I found in my LP book that had a great rooftop
seating area.  The food turned out to be pretty western and there were many tourists there. Kinda ehh.  On the way home I exchanged money which he bargained for a better exchange rate of 72-1.  I realized I got ripped off at the airport.  Oh well.  And no, he didn't steal my money afterwards haha.  Back at the hotel I met a a Japanese guy who was flying out to Thailand that morning.  Watching him eat a
bread roll was like watching Japanimation.  So expressive and his mouth was always very full and smiling. I was laughing inside. Then I met a guy from Australia who talked to me about having been hospitalized in Pokhara (Nepal) with septicemia.  He had been all over India previously and they suspected
he possibly had some sort of pneumonia which lead to further infection.  They first suspected meningitis and he talked about waking up from being delirious to them doing a lumbar puncture.  Second note to self: Always wear mask
     When Keshab came to pick me up he informed me that the family I was supposed to stay with had a death in the family so I would no longer be staying with them. Instead I would be a bit farther from my work site.  The place where I'm staying now is further away from the city and more in the hills.
The air is SO MUCH better and it's quiet and pretty.  The family has a mom, dad, brother, and 2 sisters.  They are all very nice and most do not speak English. Shamiksha (the eldest girl-12y/o) speaks English well and serves as the translator most times.  She is so friendly,energetic, disciplined, and studious.
     I have my own room in the house with a padlock which is luxurious for here.  I have a bed (which is basically a pad on the floor), side table, and 2 small wood chairs. Which is really all I need.  But again, I'm so happy I have my sleeping bag.  It's like my security blanket on this trip.
 

Day 2 in Kathmandu

So i was right about waking up to my lights turning back on in the early morning hours! Must remember to turn off light switches before bed.  Also, note to self: turn off lights at home when not in room (or home). 
My second day started pretty early.  My sleep schedule is still kinda off so I woke up throughout the night a bunch. There's a definite contrast in street noise from when I went to bed to waking up in the middle of the night. Night and day.  Almost eerily quiet.  I had breakfast at the guest house thinking I'd see other travelers but there was no one else there. Marsala omelet and black coffee.  After breakfast I sat in the lounge to wait for Keshab (program director) to pick me up. This is when I learned about Nepali time.  He was almost an hour late, but I was informed by others that that is not unusual in Nepal.  At least my standard of arriving to things in the knick of time is considered early somewhere in the world!  In the meantime I met a local named Dip who worked at the guesthouse and was a tour guide.  He helped me to find a sim card.  Which sounds easy enough but took forever as I had to also find a shop that would photo copy my visa for me. (phone network places require visa, passport and passport picture to turn into government
for security reasons-legitimately) At that time there was no electricity so we were wandering looking for somewhere that had generator backup.  Eventually I got it all figured out and had a working cell phone, weeeee.
     Keshab picked me up and we took his motor bike out of the tourist part of town in to Kalanki where the office is.  The bike ride was a ton of fun and frightening all at the same time.  Thank god for sunglasses and scarves otherwise I'd be blind and asphyxiated from the pollution.  The novelty of the diesel smell wore off quickly for me this trip.  (I don't know why I like it in the first place?)The office is small with just a few rooms, very modest furniture and plywood separation walls.  They had a welcoming ceremony for me in which I received a marigold wreath necklace (mala) and tika. They all gave speeches and I then had to give one also.  It was kind of an awkward little get together with language barriers and silent smiling faces just looking at each other.  There are no other volunteers the weeks I am here.  I was really hoping there would be. 
     After some time we left the office and had momo's for lunch and visited 2 temple sites.  Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple to tourists, monkeys everywhere) and Bodhnath.  Both were Buddhist.
I made the mistake of starting to walk counter-clockwise around the temple but was quickly turned around by a monk.  Opps, but will always remember to walk clockwise when walking around a temple. 
     It took a while to get back home on motorbike and there was no electricity by that time.  All the stores close pretty early in Thamel because of that so I just had dinner (chicken Briyani sp?) at the guesthouse.

First Day in Kathmandu

     After a looong 24+ hr combination of flights and layovers I finally arrived here in Kathmandu.
Oh, the smell of disel.   Nothing like a wiff of that to let me know I'm on vacation.  This place is pretty
nuts!  Before I go into that, I have to say the flight into Kathmandu was beautiful!  Flying over the Himalayas and into the valley was a pretty spectacular sight to see.  I tried to get a quick pic on my phone out of the window but it just didn't do it any justice.  They are truly majestic.  So i get to Tribhuvan airport, pretty tiny and desolate.  I imagined it to be bigger and full of tourists but there weren't many people there
when I arrived.  After filling out my visa application on some old wooden round table with a few other foreigners I picked up my visa, changed some money (70 NR-1USD) and was out. 
I never had to go through customs in either Dehli or Kathmandu..interesting. Keshab (my program leader) was waiting with a sign with my name on it in the arrival pick up area.  Super nice, quiet guy.
It was like 70's F outside and he had a longsleeved dress shirt with a giant wool sweater over it.  I was sweating just looking at him wearing that!  In the car ride there he filled me in on the Nepal's
political, economic, and reformation process (or lack thereof).  Did you know that Nepal runs on hydroelectricity?  The ammount of energy available in Kathmandu varies with season and weather.  It is supplied in shifts to different parts of the city throughout the day for a total of about 10 hrs electricity a day.  Which would explain why right now I'm sitting in my dark little guestroom with my headlamp on because the power just shut off randomly about an hour ago.  There doesn't seem to be any schedule that I can notice yet. I'm sure i'll freak out at like 3am when it comes back on and all of my lights will come on in my room.  So after I got dropped off at my guesthouse (a barebones, dirty, one room on a noisy city street) I decided to go explore despite my lack of sleep and probable hypoglycemia.  I'm in Thamel, a section of Kathmandu.  The streets around here are tiny and packed.  Probably the size of a super small Chicago sidestreet but with constant 2 way, traffic of taxis, rickshaws, and motorbikes. I've seen multiple near accidents today and have proabbly unknowingly almost got hit also.  I stopped at a cafe/restaurant to grab lunch.  Had chicken curry and its entourage.  Delicious and very cheap.  The manager of the place introduced him self to me and
then became very interested in helping me figure out where I was going to venture today.  Everyone is very nice but also trying to capitalize and get you to let them be your tour guide.  But he was a very jolly, helpful guy so he helped me to map out what things I should see.  Then things got weird when he insisted on keeping the napkin that my gum was in as a remembrance of me...hmm.  That one goes up on the list with the man in Peru that offered to be my alpaca. 
     After lunch and a few pics I went back to exploring.  On the streets are many many shops that seem to be there for tourists.  If you turn down side streets (which I did inadvertantly many times) you'll see there are more locals and convient stores.  It's very easy to get lost in the area because everything looks the same, there are no signs, and no real pattern to the roads.  There are no addresses.  The way I look at it though is how lost can one be in such a place?  If you look at it as always being "lost" or not knowing where you are when you're somewhere new it's not as scary. 
     I'll tell you something scary though.  Being followed by a creepy man for a few roads even after trying to lose him!  And it wasn't like a "hey come do my tour" kind of following.  It was straight up "I'm stalking you" following.  I was on my way to visit Durbar Square and got off my path because I was trying to lose him.  He just wouldn't stop!  I will admit I kinda got scared.  So i hid in a sari store and pretended to be really, really interested in buying them for a while until I couldn't see the dude again.  After that I retreated back to my room to regroup.  I sat on the rooftop of my hostel for a few, then went on my second try.  I didn't want to lose my day!  But this time I took a taxi which only costed me less than $2.
      When I got to Dubar Square right away there were temples everywhere.  Buddhism and Hinduism are the 2 main religions here. Some practice a blend of both.  There are temples that combine archetecture of both religions.  This particular square had Hindu temples.  There were a ton of people trying to be your tour guide for the area.  Someone followed me for so long (and no i wasn't being too nice to him) that I pretty much paid him to be my tour guide so that at least I could learn from what he was telling me instead of listening to his annoying selling. He turned out to be a great guide, glad he was persistent.  I got more out of my vist there than I would have walking around alone.  Got a tika, saw a Gurka, saw Hippie temple (where famous western classic rock stoners like Hendrix used to visit), and saw the living goddess in her house. 
I also got away with not paying the entrance fee because apparently I look Nepalese.  I've been told that a lot so far.  I took a rickshaw home for less than a dollar.  When I got back home the power went out.  I'm exhausted so I'm goin to bed a little early (in my sleeping bag because these sheets are kidna
scary).  I'll update ya again soon! 
 
For some reason I can't get the picture upload to work so I will try to work on that next time! 

"All my bags are packed. I'm ready to go...."

hmmmm...or not really.  The perpetual packing continues into T-3 days until I leave for Nepal.  This picture is representative of what almost every square inch of my apartment floor has looked like for about a week.  I can now say I've also officially used an upside down cardboard box to eat dinner on.  I always saw people on tv do that and thought it was contrived in the the setting, come to find it really is practical.  Although I have to admit the meal was just an insane amount of White Castles...yum.