Namaste from Nepal

Namaste!

After a ridiculously long journey (see Appendix A) we made it to Kathmandu on Thursday just before midnight and pretty much passed out as soon as we got to our rooms. In the morning we got to see the chaos and intensity that is the capital of Nepal: pungent smells, random cows, people yelling 'rickshaw?' or 'taxi?' at you or trying to sell you everything from bananas to trekking guides every where you turn......outrageously overwhelming but in a good way, its a city swelling with colours, sounds, odors and life...and death as we arrived at the beginning of a festival Dashain where animals (goats and water buffalo) are sacrificed to the gods. But the festival is really about family gatherings and community and we have been told many times that because of this we are visiting Nepal at the very best time.

After dropping off the donated children's clothing and running some other errands, we found ourselves (accidentally) on a tour of Kathmandu, namely of the temples in Durbar square. It contains a mixture of stunning Hindu and Bhudist temples, all over 600 years old.

The next day we hopped on an extremely hot bus for a 7 hour journey to Pokhara. We arrived Saturday afternoon and celebrated surviving the first few days with yak cheese pizza and giant beer. Turns our the Service women cant handle Nepali beer (Gorhka)... we were done after one. We blame the altitude. Today (Sunday) we got our trekking permits in order and hiked to the World Peace Pagoda.... super hot and sweaty hike through the jungle but it was breathtaking when we got there. Plus we saw water buffalo (pre saccrificed) and WILD monkeys!!!.

Tomorrow we are heading to Besishahar to begin our 25 day trek of the Annapurna Circuit and base camp.

Miss you all and we'll tell you all about it when we return to Pokhara!!

Nouri, Christina and Vanessa

Appendix A

Question: what does one do with a 12 hour layover in Hong Kong?

Answer: go to Hong Kong Disney Land, naturally. Yep, that actually happend. Complete with Lion King and Micky mouse music and dance performances in Cantonese. All it took was one poster after getting off a 13 hour plane ride to convince us.