Melanie and Gavin's Travels

Life in Kathmandu

There are fireworks going off around here. I'm getting so used to hearing the thousands of noises that this city creates. Kids partying, horns hocking, people screaming or talking and dogs barking. There are no roads on the hiking trails, I am looking forward to that. (Well, I think they are fireworks, as I hear another one)

It's taken me about an hour but I have nearly finished downloading some photos to our photo site, so I will email that link out soon. Just a few from Bangkok and Kathmandu. I will add more again in a month, after our hike.

Today we took nearly all day just walked to the Canadian Consulate to register and change money. The Consulate is a pretty low key affair (compared to the Vietnamese one, the only one I can compare it to) but we filled out a sheet with emergency contact (Dad - that's you!) details etc, read a printed copy of the Globe and Mail that was one week old and walked home again. This was past numerous UN vehicles, the UNICEF building behind a big fence and a soccer field. It's nice to get out and see the locals having fun. At the money changer we got about 35000 Nepali Rupees for our hike. For the next month the villages will not change US or traveller's cheques and there are no ATM's. So we have to carry it on us, it's thick!

For anyone who is interested for $1US we get 71 N RS. Our room is about $5US (we split it), dinner at a nice restaurant last night was about $15 between us, internet 50cents an hour. The 10hour bus ride we will book tomorrow will be about $7 too. But they quote you in Rupees, it's just easier for us to translate it. We spend about $20US a day without budgeting too hard or buying any souvenirs yet.

It's past dinner time here, I better go. When you see a photo of the street meat you will understand why I am staying vegetarian for the next little while. But I love veg momos (dumplings) and they are everywhere here. I miss normal and fresh food already, I will be pigging out by the time we get to OZ!

Oh and I wasn't feeling the best today so we are looking at leaving Wed 18th Oct for our hike now.

posted by melaniewilkes @ 12:51 AM