Kathmandu

Day 5:

Hello,
so im in kathmandu and at my hotel. its quite the place. we have regular power outages daily of at least 3 hours but sometimes up 7. my room is simple but it works, kinda clean but in a good location to get around and very close to Global Visions headquarters. I got up at 6 this morning to try and find Tony at a location that he thought would be easy to find. Well, to say the least I didn't find it and spent about 6 hours walking around all over trying to find it and then spent another 2 hours trying to figure out how to get back to my hotel. on the brighter side I got to see a lot of the central area of kathmandu and have now kinda figured my way around.I've already been in contact with tony and we're going to try and figure out a place to meet in thamel which i'm now comfortable with walking around. this is such a crazy place. theres traffic everywhere and motorcycles zipping in and out. down by the river, which one nepali who grew up in london was telling me is called the stinking river, is probably one of the worst examples of poverty in nepal or for that fact in the world. one lady said it's the worst poverty she's seen in all of asia. there is garbage strewn all along the river banks with pigs and cows and dogs everywhere, cloth makeshift tents and houses made out of garbage are hidden amongst the piles of garbage while people try pick whatever useful materials they can find from it. the air is think with smoke and dust so much that you can taste it when you breath. as you move away from the river on either side it slowly gets better an better but there is still garbage everywhere. Thamel (the district i'm in) is really a beautiful place with lots of foreigners and lots of cheap shops for equipment, and drinks. I can get a 2 ltr bottle of water for roughly 15cents Canadian. I met some ladies from australia that had done the everest trek and they gave me a walking pole (that's like $40 back home, maybe $10 here) for FREE and an unopened package of water purification tablets just in case i'm stuck for water anywhere. I think I got a sunburn today, it's very much a tropical environment here which makes the fact that we don't seem to have hot water very often just fine by me. there's some really cool clothing for sale but so far cleaning some of my stuff in the sink has worked fine. I definitely plan on picking some stuff up before I come home though. The food is really good, kind of a mix of Chinese and East Indian so i really like it and i haven't felt sick at all. Tomorrow should be fun, more exploring, and don't worry, it seems very safe here and i've never felt threatened by anyone. Kathmandu really is beautiful, it's just so different from anything i've ever seen before. internet at the hotel only costs about 20cents canadian an hour so i'll be able to update you as long as i'm here. which is only another day or so but i'm sure i'll be able find another place easily as long as im in kathmandu. I hope everyone is doing well, i love you and i'll talk to you soon.

raymond