Peaceful and Chaotic Nepal

I apologize ahead of time for giving a brief account of Nepal. It's late here, and I'm really tired. We arrived on Monday afternoon. Some Air India flights had been cancelled due to a strike, but our flight was only delayed one hour. A man from the hotel picked us up at the Kathmandu airport (which is extremely tiny) and drove us into the city. That evening we rested, since we were all tired from traveling and since Faythe was still feeling unwell.

The streets of Thamel, the tourist district,
pretty much all look like this.

On Tuesday, Faythe stayed in all day, but Lara and I explored. The guidebook describes Kathmandu as quirky, and I would have to agree. Hippie clothes being sold in shops, strikes and power outages as daily occurrences, monkeys eating mangoes on the steps of Buddhist temples, and men who laugh when you try to bargain for a lower price at stores. I love it here. The people, in general, are all extremely friendly. Unlike India, where everyone seems to have an agenda (in the words of my sister), Nepal is much more relaxed. We've only been doing a couple of things each day, instead of trying to fit in something every minute like we did in India.

The Himalayas (Mt. Everest isn't pictured here,
but we did get some pics of it)

This morning (Wednesday), we got up bright and early to take a mountain flight at 6:15. Buddha Air, and many other airlines here, offer a round trip flight that goes near the Himalayas. Our plane seated about twenty people, and every seat had a window, offering a perfect view of the majestic mountains, including, of course, Mt. Everest. :) After getting back to the hotel, we took a nap and then headed to Swayabhunath, or the Monkey Temple. We climbed 250 steps to the top, but it felt more like 1,000 haha. Although the temple itself was beautiful, my favorite part was the monkeys swinging from the temple and the surrounding trees.

The Monkey Temple, with the Buddha's
eyes staring out into the Kathmandu Valley

The rest of the day was devoted to shopping. Did I mention how cheap everything is here? The meals run us about $2.50, and our hotel (which is quite nice) is only about $40 a night. So great. By the way, I never thought I'd try yak cheese, but I had it unexpectedly on my scrambled eggs the first morning here. Yak cheese, yak wool, yak milk. I love Nepal. haha. It's so weird and awesome. Like I said, I'm keeping this entry short. If you have any questions about Nepal, just post a comment and I'll reply in a later blog.

Tomorrow, we plan on doing a little more sightseeing, but we have to pack up! Faythe and Lara leave the day after tomorrow for the States, and I'm off to Bangladesh!

PS The "peaceful and chaotic" description in the title refers to Nepal's restfulness (at least in terms of the speed of the trip) and peacefulness when the power goes out (about 3 times a day), but also Nepal's crazy strikes (everything was shut down on Monday and Tuesday until 5pm because of a strike) and the crazy roads full of motorcycles and people walking every which way.