Namaste Nepal!

Well, we've arrived at our primary destination: Nepal. We had quite a bit of anxiety as to whether Lheka (our as I think of him - that dude from Ample Travels) was really going to show up at the airport, or whether I had paid a $1000 naivity tax when I wired him the first part of our payment a few weeks ago. Fortunately he turned out to not only be real, but also very nice. Daughter #1 had a good time conversing with him in Nepali on the drive to our hotel in Thamel.

Now, let me just first say I owe an apology to the drivers of Thailand. Nepali drivers are even crazier. Sure, there are fewer motorcycles on the road, but there are waaaay more people, not to mention dogs, goats, chickens and the occasional cow. And the roads are barely wider than an alleyway, especially in the middle of Thamel, which is an ancient city, meaning the "roads" sort of grew organically out of their usage.

The hotel itself was not any worse than our last hotel back in the States, so it was relatively comfortable. We freshened up and then went to AMple travel's office to go over therest of our travel arrangements. Then we wandered around Thamel, and did a little shopping. Daughter #1 practiced her Nepali and was able to get a couple of bargains on earrings and a skirt (at least, we think they were bargains. Maybe after she is in country longer, she will have higher standards of what makes a bargain..). We then had dinner at K-too, a relatively well known Thamel restaurant, passing up the local "MacDonnuls" (and yes, that's how it was spelled, too.) Back at the hotel, Daughter again practiced her Nepali with some of the staff of the hotel.

In the morning, Ample dude drove us to the airport to head off to Chitwan National Park, a World Heritage site. The airline, Yeti Air, apparently runs on Nepali time, since we boarded 2 hours later than we should have landed. Ke garne. Fortunately, the ticket guy kept us updated, since the overhead were in Nepali, then garbled English, making me nervous we would miss our flight.

The plane itself was really more of a minivan with wings. There was not so much as a curtain between us and the captain and co-pilot. And you head to duck in the aisle because you could not stand up. Ke garne.

After a noisy buit smooth ride, we arrive at the airport near Chitwan, where another driver from the Hermitage Resort meets us. We have another hair raising drive to the resort itself. I notice that the Nepali drivers have an interesting strategy for taking blind curves. Rather than slowing down, as I would do, they maintain speed and lean on the horn. I guess everyone knows what to do, including the goats and dogs that run in the streets. He tells us that there is the occasional traffic jam caused by a rhino, a problem we rarely have in the US. Also the deer tend to stand in the road as well, rather than move like US deer.

We get to the resort, and have some soda before putting our bags away. Now, back in Kathmandu I reshuffled our things so we could leave one bag behind. And it turns out that the bag of clothes that I put in our bag "to go" had Daughter #1's winter clothes. The "stay behind" bag has her summer clothes. All I know is that when I was packing things up, I was on my own. Ke garne. I'm sure there will be another opinion on the matter when she posts on her blog. But I'm posting first, so there.

Anyway, after a very brief nap, they feed us some lunch, then we go on a short walking tour of the village of the Tharu people. This is a little like taking a walk through your neighborhood, strolling unannounced into the kitchen and bedroom, and taking pictures while your neighbors are just going about their day. It was somewhat surreal. But no one seemed to mind, so, ke garne.

I'm going to skip out on pictures, because (a)they take forever to load; (b) it's nearly dinner time, and (c) the internet connections here are dial-up speed, so it's slow torture waiting for anything to happen on line. Hopefully there will be faster connections along the journey, or else I will post the photos later here or on webshots. Signing off from Chitwan for now.