I am here in Thamel after two days at the orphanage. I really needed a hot shower and a good night's sleep so I came early in the morning to find a good hotel around ten dollars. I did find one and it is ... kind of awful. At first, the room was good but the bathroom was awful. Then, I moved to where the bathroom is okay but the room is terrible. A lot of trekkers stay here in their sleeping bags, which is okay, but I couldn't ft my sleeping bag in so I had to sleep within the sheets and dirty quilt. The Fuji Hotel was excellent but they charge almost twice the price, including a private bathroom. Maybe I don't need a private bathroom after all.
The flight and layovers took a very long time, but was actually shorter than I thought somehow because of the time differences. I expected the London airport to be awesome but it wasn't, it sucked, lots of long hallways for no reason I think. I slept on a bench for a few hours and for the two days I was in transit, I only ate two chicken/turkey sandwiches. I was upgraded to first class from Bahrain to Kathmandu, which was okay. I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't feel sick and could have ate my salad and meal. First class gets serve actual food; whatever they serve to the rest of us is not actual food. Four pieces of lettuce does not a salad make. I stayed in Bahrain for a few hours, people watching and drinking a passion fruit/green tea smoothie. A lot of women were in burqas and they walked with such grace. From the airplane, I saw some of the buildings of Bahrain, very desert-like. I would have liked to explore, except for the burqa-ed women.
I had to wait for about half an hour or so for Padma to get me in the airport because I thought the visa would take a long time. There was basically no line so I got it done in minutes, no hassle. Well, there was hassle from the workers in the airport trying to get me a cab but I had to explain over and over again that my friend was coming to get me. I did make a few friends. I was so happy that they didn't lose my baggage during the transits.
The area of Thamel in Kathmandu is like rural China so I wasn't too culture shocked. The tiny, wide-opened stores with piled up goods was exactly alike the ones I saw in my hometown of Minan. They don't have modern buildings at all. The cars and motorcycles are a bit crazy at times but I wandered around today for like three hours and I did not lose a limb. Generally they pay attention to all the people around them. The streets are very crowded at some points. I wandered into the square with all the temples where the One With The World Festival was going on in celebration of the United Nation High Commisioner For Refudgees, UNHCR. I was wondering why they had a long row of photographs and captions about different refudgee problems in the past and how they were helped. I thought hmm, Nepal, center of humanitarian aid, hmm.
