Well it is 7:20 am in Kathmandu and 8:40 pm in Huntsville, my Internal body clock is totally out of wack!!! That is jet lag in a big way... I am trying to adjust as quickly as possible to local life as I will be here for two whole weeks!! Kathmandu is a noisy place, day and night!! When I went to bed, it was the dogs barking, then the birds took over and the night went on with different sounds from different birds.. apparently Nepal is home to a large number of bird species, 8% of the World's species are here! There are some city sounds, which is normal!
My trip to Lukla is delayed until tomorrow so I got one day in Kathmandu! This is actually a welcome change as I needed to rest and acclimatize to the 4500 ft altitude, before I double that in Lukla, 9000 ft! I read that some people get altitude sickness even in Kathmandu, which to me is an appetizer with the main course starting tomorrow!! I am more worried about the polluted air than anything else right now!! I may need to use the mask everyone is wearing around here...
What a day it has been!! I have seen it all, open air cremation, a wedding, temples and then there is chaos everywhere!! I hired two Nepalese for the day; one as chauffeur and one as guide for a whopping $70 !!! They really took good care of me and showed me all the important sites of Kathmandu... that was the best idea of the day and may be of the trip... I did the same in China, Ecuador and Peru, it is the best way to see any place!! We started with the monkey temple, then a Hindu temple then an open air cremation of several dead people along the Bagmati river that becomes the Ganges in India! I had a nice lunch on the roof hop of a building overlooking a Buddhist temple!! I admired the driver with his amazing skills, snaking through this sea of people, cars and bikes... no sign of any red-lights in this place... so when you come to an intersection the bravest wins!! You just have to keep moving... I did not see any accidents which is amazing in itself .. this is some kind of an Order within Chaos, which I studied a while back, but that was theory, this is real!!!!
My day ended with the briefing for our trek to EBC (Everest Base Camp)! A lot of important details! I asked one important question as to what happened if one of the group members gets really sick, altitude or whatever else.. the answer was the assistant guide takes the sick person to lower altitude or calls in a helicopter rescue for evacuation!! The rest of the group treks on to EBC.. that was satisfactory to me so I had no further questions!! The advice we were given for the food was to stay away from meats and cheeses, they are no good because of the lack of refrigeration in the mountains! No Electricity in many places!
It is 11:30 pm Nepal time, and I need to be up at 3:30 am for the flight to Lukla... I need to catch some zzzzz!! Here are some pics from the day ... ( my blogging will be limited from here on out as I start trekking, no idea about wifi if any)
My day ended with the briefing for our trek to EBC (Everest Base Camp)! A lot of important details! I asked one important question as to what happened if one of the group members gets really sick, altitude or whatever else.. the answer was the assistant guide takes the sick person to lower altitude or calls in a helicopter rescue for evacuation!! The rest of the group treks on to EBC.. that was satisfactory to me so I had no further questions!! The advice we were given for the food was to stay away from meats and cheeses, they are no good because of the lack of refrigeration in the mountains! No Electricity in many places!
It is 11:30 pm Nepal time, and I need to be up at 3:30 am for the flight to Lukla... I need to catch some zzzzz!! Here are some pics from the day ... ( my blogging will be limited from here on out as I start trekking, no idea about wifi if any)
A view of Kathmandu
Prayer flags (I will need a lot of these)
Monkeys roam freely at the monkey temple!
Buddhist temple across
Sitting next Hindu religious men
Open air cremation by the Bagmati river
More dead Hindus waiting to be cremated
A narro street in Kathmandu
