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Published: October 12th 2014
Blog Entry 4
Today was our first full day in Kathmandu ... a city in desperate need of some infrastructure improvement.
Very few roads are paved and the unpaved roads resemble the landscape of the moon, pockmarked with large craters formed by the torrential rains of the recently completed monsoon.
And the electric power grid? Well let's just say it has more common with a bird's nest than a modern power distribution system.
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Our trekking company arranged for us to take a tour of three World Heritage Sites in Kathmandu.
The first was Swayambhunath
(a/k/a The Monkey Temple) the site of a Buddhist Stupa (a mound like structure holding Buddhist religious relics) located on a large hill overlooking the city.
The second World Heritage Site was the area located around the royal palace of Nepal.
The final site was Boudhanath ... the largest Stupa in Nepal. It is located in an amazing square in the center of the city.
After all that, we visited a site, along the river, where bodies are cremated after death and dumped into the river. The sons of the deceased wrap themselves in towels, clean the body in the river and then burn it on a specially built platform. The sons are then required to wear those towels for 18 days after the cremation. Very grim ... unless you think about the alternative ... which involves chopping up the body of the deceased and feeding it to the birds.
We had a great pre-trek dinner and now we are all desperately trying to get the combined weight of our backpacks and travel bags down to 15 kilos. As you might imagine, the culling process has been brutal and the result will undoubtedly be a very
foul smelling bunch 15 days from now.
More tomorrow from the Himalayas.
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Cassidy and Grandma
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Happy hearing from you!
We are happy to hear everything is going okay! Sounds like things are a bit different over there huh? Everything at home is good. I've managed to get to school on time everyday so far and have been keeping both grandpa and Jack in line. In sports news, the Badgers won against Illinois and the Packers won against Miami on a last second touchdown (very exciting game). Keep sending updates, we miss you all and love you. Be safe!!!