for the last two days we have been thoughly exploring this crazy and confusing city, visiting such places as the Pashupatinath Ghats, Boudhanath Stupa, and the Swayambhunath Monkey Temple. Today we had our first site-visit with the TRRC- the Tibetan Refugee Reception Center and spent the morning and afternoon talking with Kalsang, the center's director about the conditions that tibetan refugees face and the reasons for why they are leaving Tibet (about 2500-3000 a year). We learned a lot of valuable info for our research.
Then we had a slight encounter with monkeys at swayambhunath. Kevin and I gladly parted with our pepsis to avoid any possible confontation and it took some convioncing to get clayton to walk any further up the mountain to the temple with all the monkeys watching. we all remember his bad experience last year in Burma...
Tomorrow morning we are headed to the rural countryside to live in Nepali homestays in extremely rural villages in Nepal's Nuwakot District. We will be in the area for the next 4 days before coming back to kathmandu.
all is great here and we will continue to enjoy the curry and rice!
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