Nepal 2011.

April 4, 2011

While my calendar might say it's Monday April 4th, truth be told God only knows what day it is after 22 plus hours of flying and time zones. None the less, if indeed it is the 4th then I've arrived here in Kathmandu Nepal on time! Woohoo. After dropping $40.00 for a visa I cleared customs and headed over to hopefully find my bag that I checked in way back when at DIA. It made it!

After picking it up, or shall I say someone "helping" me I headed out the door to a sea of card holding companies looking for my name and lo and behold there it was. Once across the street however you are fair game for the zillion or so folks looking to keep helping you with your luggage. Long story short, one of 'em wanted to charge me $20.00 bucks to put my one bag from the cart to the trunk!! needless to say he was somewhat pissed when he got nothing. Cart to the trunk was a whooping two feet. Greed get's ya nowhere. The distance from KTM- airport to town is 5k (three miles) give or take. However, this is Kathmandu and with a million or so cars and no traffic lights...this was the true adventure of the trip!

Here, like in most, if not all 3rd world countries that I have been too it seems that honking the horn is the national anthem. And, unlike here in the States it's not done in a way to express that one is pissed off but one of just letting the car next to you know you are coming through. I arrived at my hotel, and after checking in and dropping off my bag I decided to take a stroll around Tamel. Tamel is the tourist section and anything and everything trekking wise and then some can be found here. Ahh, the book stores! could have spent a fortune in them but would have cost just as much to ship home. Next time.

First impression and it didn't take very long is that pedestrians do NOT have the right away! no surprise here. I couldn't help but smile and shake my head on what I saw. It truly was one of the most amazing and craziest places I've been. And it's only day one. I met my, our guide a while later and we went out to have coffee and a small bite to eat. We talked about his efforts to bring awareness to the porters, Sherpas that do all the ferrying of goods up the trail to Base Camp. I would see what he meant in a few day's first hand. Well, here it is 12:15a.m. and the lights just went out. Must be a sign that it's time to go to sleep...