We arrived safely in Kathmandu yesterday. It was extremely beautiful flying in over the hills that surround the valley that makes up Kathmandu.

Arriving at the airport it was immediately apparent that we were in a different country -- from a walk down stairs to get off the plane to a very long wait to get through a manual visa process. We were met outside by people holding a sign up with my name on it and they took us to our hotel.

On the way we picked up Dhan who is going to be our guide while we trek on the Annapurna circuit. We decided to spend a little more time here since our Visa is good for 60 days and our plane ticket is good for 45 days. So we are going to do a 27 day trek. That includes the Annapurna Circuit as well as a trek up to the Annapurna Base Camp. Both are going to be specatcular experiences.

We wandered around Thamal last evening with Dhan as our tour guide -- and stopped for some scrumptious pizza before heading back and crashing to sleep. Tomorrow morning at 7am we catch the bus to Pokhura (sp?) and then from there we start our trek.

It was quite an experience trying to get the money together for paying the trekking company. It just took a lot of work -- ATMs kept crashing and we had a fun experience trying to place a charge on my card (not knowing what my limit was). Hardly any of the trekking companies have credit card machines so everything is handled through cash. It felt strange walking around with 60,000 in cash. Especially when the largest bill is a 1000 and they don't have a lot of those (so you are walking around with TONS of 100's). But that all got taken care of (even after Tree crashed 2 ATM machines).

Then a lunch "on the house" (the trekking company paid for our lunch today) with a great traditional Nepali dish that I totally can't remember the name of. Today is "Worldwide Tourist Day" or something like that -- so all the streets in Thamal are closed to regular traffic with lots of guards walking about with bamboo poles to keep traffic away. It's making it a lot less hectic walking around as Nepal has even fewer driving laws then Thailand did (apparently). The law of the road here apparently is who has the louder horn and can get people to move out of the way. It was hilarious as Tree avoided walking into a motorcycle only to stop bare centimeters from the car that had suddenly stopped in front of her. I don't know who would've had more damage as she woulda just kicked the bumper in or some crazyness like that!

Anywase, thats about it from Kathmandu! We might be able to get online tomorrow when we arrive at Pokhura but if not, don't expect to hear from me for 27 days!!

Catch all ya'all on the flipside!
BuhBye

We visited monkeys today!! How awesome is that?
The hotel we stayed in was a pretty run down place but it was cool -- it was just a nights sleep. Then it was on to visit some temples. Dedicated to Monkeys!! But they weren't the scary type that throw feces at you. They were really awesome. Just chill -- minding their own business -- copulating, eating, grooming, nursing...

A long train ride back to Bangkok and we picked up our tickets for Nepal. Then it was back to Asha Guest House where we are just chillin' like villins right now.

Anywase, here are pictures:
Central Thailand