Nepal

I've been in Nepal for a week now, and I think it's safe to say the Nepali are some of the nicest people I have met. My first encounter was meeting Ali at the airport and getting a cab to our hostel. I was dead tired and the guy asked me if I had been to Nepal before. Through his accent, all I heard was "are you very poor?" to which I paused, a little confused, and then responded emphatically "yes I'm poor, I don't have a job!" He just burst out laughing hysterically with his friends and they were like, man that's gonna be a great story for your friends;) Kind of a funny response given I'm in one of the poorest countries in the world;) anyhoo, the people here are awesome. There are no lewd comments, not too much ripping off, and usually just a general sense of interest. The plane from Bahrain to Kathmandu was interesting...I was definitely the tallest of all the girls and probably the same height as the tallest men. It was a flight packed with Nepali workers returning home....out of 300 passengers I was the only white one. They boarded the women first and when an airport worker saw that I had an American passport, he (embarassingly) let me ahead of everyone else and I was given a business class seat. It felt like a party on the plane although I didn't understand a word. Kathmandu is a very dusty city...not much like a capital you'd picture. There are monkeys, dogs, cows, chickens and more roaming around the dirt streets. buildings are only a few stories tall, but it is a pretty large city. I quickly learned that they drive on the "other" side of the street, which I hadn't known. Things are cheap here. We've hit my record (and probably forever) alltime low of a whopping $1.33 for one night at a hostel. I was pretty impressed. The main food Nepali eat is Dhal-Baat. It's basically rice with a lentil stew, and they serve it to you with some chapati, veggie cury and some pickled dishes. Pretty yummy. They eat it twice a day, for lunch and dinner, and usually only have a cup of milk tea for breakfast.

Ali and I just finished a 5-day trek through the Annapurna circuit....It had amazing views of the himilayas. We hiked about 4-6 hours per day and got extremely tired by the end as it was mostly straight up and then straight down. We still have pain when we walk and get up;) Met an amazing girl from Vancouver though who we spent the first 3 days with, which made for some amuzing conversations as we walked. Our guide, Chhining, whom Ali found through her volunteering at the orphanage, was the kindest boy. He always laughed at my attempts to speak Nepali:) I once said "Nepal dherai mitocha" which I meant to be "Nepal is beautiful" but which really was "Nepal is delicious!" He was very amused. Everytime I said something he couldn't understand, he just smiled an enormous smile and laughed. All in all things are going well here. We've eaten some amazing cheap food...moma (dumplings), noodle soups, and chapati being some of my favorites. They have yak cheese too which is sort of a miz of mozarella and parmesian, and is yummy. We also had fresh milk this morning up in a small village in the mountains which was quite delicious. More to come later...we still have a few more days left in Nepal before heading on to Delhi...hope you all are doing well!