Monday & Tuesday

Yesterday (Monday) we met up with Paul and Jay and Raj for breakfast.  Raj is who we are arranging our climb through and Jay had met him through a friend of his that is a professional climber and a photographer for the Sherpa clothing company.  Raj is a climber as well as his wife who was a professional Sherpani climber and died 3 years ago on Cho Oyu.  He isn’t like the “typical” Nepalese; he has traveled all over the world to climb, is very successful with his climbing business, and also plays some part in the Sherpa clothing company.  The company sells outdoor clothing and the owners, who are based in the Seattle area are from Nepal.  We met them last night when we had dinner above their flagship Sherpa store here in Kathmandu that just opened and has a guest house above (Jay and Paul are staying there).  It was by far the best food that we have eaten so far, chicken momos (Tibetan dumplings), pear and cucumber salad, rice….and I can’t remember what else.  Plus, it was just nice to feel like we were having a nice home cooked meal.  

We were asking about the cost of land here in Kathmandu and he compared it to New York City prices.  I as assuming he meant the relative price since the average Nepalese family earns about $3,000 -5,000 / year but he said that they just purchased a small plot of land next to the Sherpa store for $4 million dollars….and that isn’t even in the heart of the touristy area.   That is unbelievable to me that land here could possible cost so much.  There is such a huge disparity between the rich and not so rich here.

 Earlier in the day we had wandered down to Durbar Square to see some temples, etc, and check out an area outside of Thamel.  Pretty much more of the same but eventually we were in an area that only had local people which is nice to see their markets and building fronts.  Durbar Square wasn’t anything all that exciting to me.  The temples and shrines aren’t maintained in any way and there is so much chaos that it isn’t practical to try to take out a tour book and learn anything about anything so you snap pictures here and there and move on.  It is interesting here though, loud, busy, smoggy or smokey from burning garbage in the streets…and my throat is beginning to crave some fresh air.  

Today Jay and I went to Swayambhunath (or Monkey Temple). It is a Buddhist temple.  Many of the temples and things around are difficult to tell whether they are Buddhist ones or Hindi ones since so much of the beliefs are shared.  Neither Paul nor Erin wanted to go because they don’t like monkeys.  I guess the story goes that the monkeys were placed to protect the grounds or something.  It was pretty impressive….just one of those things that you have to do.  Tons of prayer flags and wheels and stupas and monkeys!  You also got great views of Kathmandu valley….and the smog. 

Now we are back wandering around town after another meal….we are eating a lot…ahh, in preparation for our trekking?...that is the excuse we use at least!  We are playing it safe though and basically eating American food so that we don’t get sick here before our trek.  The water here is very, very bad as well as a lot of other things you have to stay away from.  No brushing your teeth with the water, etc.  I guess a study done showed 10x more fecal mater in the water here than there is supposed to be….nasty.  So far, so good though.

We decided to change our flight to Lukla from Thursday the 22^nd to Wednesday the 21^st so we will
be getting up at about 5 tomorrow morning to take off.  Luckily we got on the morning flight which has a better chance of going since the weather is clearer in the morning.  Then we will stay the night in Lukla for an extra day of acclimating at just over 9,000 feet.  I’m pretty excited to see the Lukla runway, it is short and there is a steep drop off of one end so if the plane doesn’t stop in time…it had better fly again.  Sir Edmond Hilary had paid to have it built to bring supplies in back in the day for schools he was helping build.  

I am going to head to a meditation class here shortly and then to dinner.  Sorry for all of the rambling on but I figured I’d better write now while I can.