Nepal

It took some doing, but I've finally made it to Kathmandu, Nepal. Shannon and I arrived midday yesterday, and are not moderately settled in, though we'll be off to the mountains in no time at all. The trip here was moderately eventful, took much longer than I wanted it too, and while obviously worth it, was incredibly exhausting. In the end, we went through:

32 hours
5 airports
5 airplane meals
17 cups of tea
20 minutes in the airplane washroom doing squats and calf raises to get my blood flowing again
3 flights
4 airplanes
1 aborted flight due to pressurization issues
7 hours delayed in Qatar waiting for a new plane

I'm sure there's other fun ways to break it down, but that's all that really stands out for me.

Anyway, now that Shan and I are here in Kathmandu, we've spent the last day or so sleeping (ah-ha - 12 hours sleeping to recover) and going on a tour of the temples around the city. I didn't know much about being Hindu before now (even now I still don't know much), and I keep finding it so funny seeing people walking around with
giant blobs of red wax-stuff placed on their foreheads. I'm not sure if it's for a festival happening at the moment, though it was explained to us, but it's definitely one of those little things that I never expected.

I've thrown up some pictures here that are NOT ones I or Shannon have taken, but they are of views we've seen. Anyay, I'm outta time here, and tomorrow morning we're off at 6 am to catch a plane to Lukla to start our Himalayan hike. It's Shannon, myself, our guide and a porter trekking together for 18 or so days. I'm not sure why we need both a guide and a porter - we stay at lodgings the entire time (no tenting) and most if not all of our food is also done at these lodges. I have a feeling this porter guy could be just coming along for the walk.


All right, time to go. Shannon just got hit with the usual "new-country-new-illness" disease, so it's time for her to hit the hay. I'll be gone for 20 days or so, so no new blogs till about the 1st or 2nd of November.