Namaste

Nepal

I've made it! Nepal is great!

My first day was spent in Thamel in Kathmandu. I was by myself at a guest house. It's slightly awkward traveling by yourself. I luckily had people take pity on me and come talk to me a lot. I've made a few different friends I hope to see throughout my stay. There are a lot of other travelers in Nepal, but the majority are here for trekking. I had a guy and his daughter let me join in and we walked around Kathmandu all morning. We went to the monkey palace. Its a Buddhist and Hindu temple that is surrounded by a lot of monkeys. It was quite the trek itself up the stairs to it. We saw some large Buddha statues. Saw the dirty river. Later I walked around the tourist markets for awhile. It's like Nic Nak heaven. I love it. Everything I love about little trinkets and ugly clothing was all in one place, and better than ever. It's great.


I'm now lucky enough to stay at Bishnu's home. He has a great family that has taken me in. They have cooked every meal for me, which have all been awesome. They are great cooks. I've got to play games with them (Mom, I thought you'd be jealous I played take two with them). During the day I've been tagging along with Bishnu, learning about some of the projects Choice is going to be participating in. Hopefully I will start helping to make them happen! It's been nice living with a family so that I really get to experience the culture. It's also been nice having a home base instead of moving from place to place still.


Nepal facts I've learned while here:

* Even in the nicer neighborhoods of Kathmandu families have to take turns getting water pumped to them. Water rotates between neighborhoods every three days. Water is stored for the two days between, when it's your turn you go outside and pump water into your tank for storage.

* Power goes out every night, or a few times a day it seems like. It can last mins-hours. They don't have enough power, so it happens everywhere in the city. They are pre-scheduled, and there isn't a way around them. Most places have generators for at least their main room.

* They can't sale cow meat here. It's against the law to hurt a cow. Other than you can find it at some tourist restaurants if you look hard.

* Children go to school 6 days a week, but have 5-10 holiday's a month they are excused for. They also have many reasons to cancel school the day before as well.

* You always wear shoes outside, never inside. They don't like if I don't wear my shoes when I'm outside.

* I could be wrong on this. But Hindu's and Buddhist's are very similar and share many of their temples. Hindu's have around 3 gods, while Buddhist's have hundreds.


* Prayer flags are everywhere, as well as prayer wheels. You walk by prayer wheels clockwise spinning them with your right hand. Every rotation inside is a prayer, they go on forever. Your arm get's tired before you run out of prayer wheels.