Arrival!!!! Monday 22nd March 2010

So, I've been in Nepal for 4 days now. We are in the inbetween stage, staying at a hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu before we get serious in Sirutar. Therefore we haven't experienced village life....which comes tomorrow! I'm proper nervous!


Initial thoughts on landing in Nepal:

• Excellent temperature
• Disorganised
• Milky thick grey sky
• Beggars galore catting tips
  

Just the walk from the airport to thew bus brought out those in the group who were either extremely English and thus too polite or those inexperienced in travel. IGNORE THE MOFOS!
Speaking of the group, they are alright in general. Unfortunately for me all the 'save the world types' are coming to Sirutar and those with remotely the same sense of dark humour as me are heading for the other village, Lamitar. Trust me, there are people here that I would have never met in my entire life and even if I had met them, I wouldn't spend more than 2 minutes with. Holding my tongue. For now.

During the day we've been going to 'school'. Lectures on the many different parts of Nepalese life. It was really interesting learning about the gender inequality issues and made for some heating debating later on over a few beers. Oh yea I am soooo taking advantage of being able to drink at the hotel because once I get down to the village, its a teetotal flex till my day off.

One mad thing that used to go on in Nepal was when a Nepalese woman was became divorced or a widow, she had to burn herself alive! Random fact of the day. Luckily that's done and dusted now.

The Nepalese so far appear to be people who are very hospitable and like to please. So many different types aswell, they have a mad caste system ranging from the very dark (considered untouchables) to the extremely light who are wealthier etc. What I find funny though, is that even though they have internet providing accents, it doesn't grate as much as the telephone operators back in the UK.

Yesterday we were finally allowed out on our own in big ol' Kathmandu and frankly the group I was in got lost. The streets are mad busy and all the shops on a single street can look the same. Noticed there were no street names either, bar the one i saw stating 'Tahiti' to the north, wtf? No pavements, no traffic lights, i would NOT want to be a motorist out here.
I enjoyed getting lost thought, gave me a chance to check out the culture and general vibe of the place. It does get dark quite quickly out here and because of the 12 hour power cuts (load shedding) and lack of readily available gas and petrol most of the homes and shops remain dark during this period.

Anywho, going Monkey Temple now to get down with the gibbons. Peace + Love peeps.

Oh and smokers, 20 deck of Marlboro Lights=95p! Hollerrrrrr, woi!
xxx