Nepal! I am in the stages of planning this little excursion. On the agenda is Chitwan Park to see elephants and rhinos. Then a flight to see Everest....I ain't gonna climb it and since I am going to be in the neighbourhood, I feel I should at least see it. I am looking forward to Divali in Kathmandu. Then, Tibet. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, my time out in the village has almost come to an end. I’m taking Esther and Sarah to my favorite place (the leprosy hospital) on Sunday, and then Esther and I are heading into Kathmandu on Monday. This leaves me just enough time to do my laundry and have it dry - it sometimes takes days because we’re constantly battling the monsoon. I’ve also only got three days to get my fill of high quality kid shows like ‘Tom and Jerry’ and three different versions of the Power Rangers series. I’ve finally gotten sick of dal bhaat, so luckily I’ve [View Full Entry]

---

---

Adrian has now flown home to the UK. It was very strange to say goodbye to him yesterday at the airport. Especially as they would not let me inside, security. It was pouring with rain and the taxi was waiting for me. Plus there were a lot of Nepalis looking on. Not very romantic, or maybe? I am now in Godawari, where I will be staying for the next 8 weeks. It is about half an hour outside Kathmandu, but hundreds of miles away in atmosphere. I feel like I am in Nepal now. It is a beautiful place, in the [View Full Entry]

---

---

So we have visited some old places and some new. Yesterday Swayambunath, which is the really famous stupa (Buddhist prayer mound) that appears on all the pictures that you have ever seen of Nepal. It is still quite a place and does not really seem to have changed. The walk there was great as well as we passed through really interesting streets, with no tourists and no tourist shops. We also ate the best samosas, well since leaving England actually. Today we went to the 5th Dham, the most important pilgrimage site in Nepal, Pashupartinath, a truly amazing temple on ghats. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Kathmandu [View Full Entry]

---

---

Again abit lengthy but stick with it - Your soon see why. So as Dave left me to go back to Delhi to get flight to England i decided to head to Nepal, only a day bus ride away and by this point, 4 weeks into India, i need a change of country. So jumped on the bus at 7am to be greeted by 2 Koreans, and Japanese dude and a Finn, although i thought he was from Russia. Finnins dude is in his 50's quit his job and spent last few years travelling the world - Initially sounds like a [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hi to all, we are now in Kathmandu. Sorry that there has been a lack of BLOG, but we have not seen an internet cafe on the whole of our pilgrimage route. What I will do is fill in the gap with installments as if we were on the pilgrimage, but not now. First, here in Kathmandu after 20 years, it is a great shock. Its so set up for tourists now, I knew it would have changed, but this is beyond belief. Thamel just goes on for ever, not just Freak street and the German Bakery now! It comes as [View Full Entry]

---

---

Finally some pictures! Aren't you excited? These go through Patan/Durbar Square (July 6-9). I'm not loading that many for each day because it took an hour to load just these 19! So now I'm out of time! At least you get a glimpse. I'll load the rest later. No time to write about our village stay at Lamatar right now so you'll have to wait for that too. Lets just say it was amazing with a bunch of mud and leeches thrown in... [View Full Entry]

---

---

Finally a computer! But it's really slow and hotmail doesn't work... Now back in time to Lamatar... July 12 we went to Lamatar, a village about an hour outside of Kathmandu. It's a farming village, especially for rice so there were tons of fields and everything was green. In Lamatar the women usually work in the fields and the men go into Kathmandu to work. We went on a walk in the afternoon. There are 9 villages separated by farmland and we walked through all of them. We went to a weaving factory and got to see them make fabric and [View Full Entry]

---

---

So yesterday afternoon those of us who were healthy enough went to Chobaar. It was a really pretty with a river and some caves but the caves were all blocked off so we couldn't go in. There were some nice views of Kathmandu though. Then we walked up to the Chobaar Buddhist Monastery. They were doing some sort of a ritual/chanting so we got to hear that. We couldn't go in, we got to see the outside which was intricately painted. And it was a nice walk getting there. It was good to get out of Kathmandu and away from all [View Full Entry]

---

---