Thai Airways is maybe the only way to fly. Free booze makes a 17 hour flight feel like a scant 8 hours, and their Singha beer is pretty damn good. The chairs were equipped with interactive monitors, allowing the modern traveler to alternate between playing Pokemon and learning enough Thai to tell the stewardesses that he loves them.
The orange monkeys were the first thing I noticed upon arriving in Kathmandu. Three of them were just chilling on the tarmac, oblivious of the massive Airbus that had just landed nearby. The smell in the air was reminiscent of tea leaves and car exhaust, but all I noticed were the foothills surrounding the city, vast and untouched.
Shanti, my diminutive 20-year-old hostess, found me circling the airport with half a dozen panhandlers in tow. Our taxi was the sorriest excuse for an automobile I've ever seen, but it was equipped with a working horn. They drive on the left lane here, but "lane" is perhaps too strong a word. If there was a gap in oncoming traffic, the cars and scooters would line up quadruple file, defying death to pass each other. We drove by the Helping Hands Hospital where I'll be working. It had the architecture of a film store.
The hostel is very spacious, has wi-fi and hot water, and looks nothing like the other ramshackle huts around it. There is a tiny dog here named Jimi who climbs trees and will stop at nothing to hump my leg. I've heard about other volunteers but haven't seen any yet. I took a trip to the supermarket (read Wal-Mart) next door where I got a new wristwatch, some Armani jeans, and the one bag of garlic not filled with roaches - all for 10 bucks!
Tomorrow is the appointed sightseeing day. I'm hoping for more monkeys.
Lesson learned: Designer knockoffs are much cheaper than the real thing.
The orange monkeys were the first thing I noticed upon arriving in Kathmandu. Three of them were just chilling on the tarmac, oblivious of the massive Airbus that had just landed nearby. The smell in the air was reminiscent of tea leaves and car exhaust, but all I noticed were the foothills surrounding the city, vast and untouched.
Shanti, my diminutive 20-year-old hostess, found me circling the airport with half a dozen panhandlers in tow. Our taxi was the sorriest excuse for an automobile I've ever seen, but it was equipped with a working horn. They drive on the left lane here, but "lane" is perhaps too strong a word. If there was a gap in oncoming traffic, the cars and scooters would line up quadruple file, defying death to pass each other. We drove by the Helping Hands Hospital where I'll be working. It had the architecture of a film store.
The hostel is very spacious, has wi-fi and hot water, and looks nothing like the other ramshackle huts around it. There is a tiny dog here named Jimi who climbs trees and will stop at nothing to hump my leg. I've heard about other volunteers but haven't seen any yet. I took a trip to the supermarket (read Wal-Mart) next door where I got a new wristwatch, some Armani jeans, and the one bag of garlic not filled with roaches - all for 10 bucks!
Tomorrow is the appointed sightseeing day. I'm hoping for more monkeys.
Lesson learned: Designer knockoffs are much cheaper than the real thing.
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