namaste nepal!!

view from the plain...its mountains on the horizon, not clouds!!

 

 

 

i left istanbul, and in the plain met ben from beligum who has been in nepal a few times before!  in shariJAH, next to dubai we spent the night at the airport, flo came there as well (he was in dubai for 2 days). when we startet to play backgammon suddenly many nepalese people came, set next to us, wanted to learn the game or just watch us play! it was for us a funny experience, because people back at home would not do that - maybe too shy! and this situation, so many people so close, so interested, mad me shy!!
in the plain i set next to ben, and he said that we will fly in the same hight as the mountains in nepal and we will see them - if there are no clouds. i woke up from the sound  "fasten your seatbelt" because we would start to go down. as i looked out of the window i was disappointed because all i could see were a few clouds - untill ben told me its the snow covered mountains on the horizon...it was really incredible!!!
when we arrived we had to apply for the visa. flo and i chose the 90 day visa - just in case! the other one would have been only 30 days! we had to pay 100 dollars, on the bill it was written 100 US dollar and then in words "one hundred us dollar only". quite sweet that "100 dollar" written means "100 dollar only"...!
when we arrived we wanted to get our bags, but mine as well as bens didnt arrive. we went to the place to tell them our bags didnt arrive. all people who came from istanbul with the plane to sharijah and then kathmandu were there as well plus at least 25 nepalis!! unbelivible, so many didnt get their luggage! but today we got it, so its fine! also funny how easy we could enter the airport...and we left it without our bags were checked. it was the same in sharijah, all nepalis and other nations had to cue (kein plan ob man das so schreibt, anstellen!) for ages, but we and a hand full of "westeners" could enter through the staff controll... so we got special treatment, also a bit strange!

dal bath, typical dish with rice and vedgetables and our first nepalese food

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

street in kathmandu

kathmandu is full of small cars, motorbikes, rikshas, bikes and people. its verry noisy since they use the horn all the time to warn the person in front. but we are already more ore less used to that. the streets are sometimes good, sometimes in quite a bad state, so we decidet even for walking its better with shoes than flip flops because some dangerous wholes are everywhere. and its really dusty, but monsun season will finish only in 1 week...i really wander how it is when its not raining for months...
by the way a typical conversation on a market in these days is like " where are you from?" "Austria" "ah...austlalia, melbourne?" "yes" (so many people dont know our country and i forgot to buy the "no cangeroos in austria" t-shirt at home!, so sometimes im australian now if they dont understand)... "you want to buy this" "no thank you" "but its beautiful, its cheap" " thanks, i dont need" "but i make a good price my friend" "but i dont need it" "but its really cheap, good quality..."

wholly man baba

today we did some sightseeing, durbar square and so on. its many temples and shrines, buddhistic and hinduistic ones. its really beautiful. many people, especially women, are dressed very colourfull in the city, and at durbar square we also saw some sadhu monks like our friend on the picture, the wholly man baba. we started to talk, interesting things like "where are you from" and so on, then he asked if we wanted to take a picture. we asked how much it would be (already knowing you have to pay because they dont own anything but still need to eat, even though wholly!). he said we can give as much as we want (true, he didnt say as little...!). so we gave him 100 rupees each (100 rupees = 1 euro) but he said he wanted more. we told him that he said "as we like" and were not willing to pay more...we could not really understand what he said afterwards, hope you guys are all fine at home?! nobody verflucht?? funny detail: i was wearing a cap, for this picture i took it off and laid it behind me... when we went away it had some things on it - so i just thought "wholly shit...!!"