Vaishali Hotel Kathmandu

... nature again.
Apologise again for the lack of photos. Took my card in to be burnt onto a disc but they couldn't do it so have bought another in the hope that I might be able to do so in the future.
I shall sign off for now and hope to be in a nicer environment on my next report.
Well such a lot has happened since I last wrote and it has been quite an adventure and now loving it. . We were staying in homes with families for two nights and had language ...

... bathing, washing clothes, worshipping in the river and cremating family members at the buring ghats - at the end though we felt a little odd about the whole thing, like we may have pryed a little too much into other people's lives. We feel lucky to have seen these things though.

Our time in India was nearing an end as we made our way to Varanasi airport (in a white ambassador). We looked forward to the ease of flying an hour to ...

... Maoists. Eight years ago, when he was running his other non-profit NGO school for poor kids, the Maoists started sending him letters telling him that he had to close down his school.

When he didn't reply or comply, they kidnapped him and held him for three days.
They told him that if he did not close it, they would burn it down and then they would kill him. He decided at that point, "Ok, I will close the school." Finally they let him ...

Namaste is the Nepali word for Hello. To make it more formal, you put your hands together as if praying when entering a house or school, or when meeting people.

This morning I worked at the old age "home" but it was my last day. Rashmi was very sad that I was leaving so soon. She asked rhetorically, "Oh why do the good ones always leave so soon?" She was very nice and we got to talk a lot when we worked. I will miss her!

The ...

... lightly, briefly, but no monsoon came. The next day we rafted for a couple of more hours and ate lunch before driving back to Kathmandu. It was actually a great weekend- met a lot of great volunteers and had some good conversations. Started back at NOH on Monday. Everything has been going smoothly, and my doctor is (a) patient. I saw clubbed feet for the first time - on an infant. The doctors had to put casts on both of her legs to try to gradually straighten ...

... day of cycling. But this time we armed ourselves with masks made from scarves that we bought for 40p each in the market.



First stop was the famed 'Monkey temple' which had a seemingly endless flight of steps up to a beautiful area on top of a hill overlooking Kathmandu with a stupa, gompa and other statues and temples. On the way up we were entertained by the monkeys sliding down the ...

... had to withdraw more cash....

There was a dance floor and it was time to make Lloyd dance, as he'd refused in Muktinah. Andrea also had to dance. After a few beers Lloyd finally got out there, and the whole group danced with all the porters one last time, Vickrim doing wonderful Nepali spin moves with his eyes closed and hamming it up. When the porters left, Vickrim started crying...it was sad to see them go.

After dinner, some of us headed to Club ...

... Michelle vehemently defended. For entertainment we had brought our miniature backgammon set which proved very useful in moments of boredom later on.

As we walked the path became steeper. It was constructed of rough rock steps of a composition that seemed to be loaded with silver and consequentially gleamed in the overhead sun. Butterflies in their hundreds alighted on this path to leech minerals from it and fluttered up before our boots as we approached heavy ...