Nepal

Sorry about not blogging lately! Since we've been back from Nepal not much has happened. The classrooms are getting set up and us teachers are getting our lesson plans together. Yes, you read right, I'll be teaching this year; I am now the official English, Math, and Geography teacher for class 4. Since writing about Nepal would be longer than would be fun to read, here is a picture blog of our trip!

Day 1 [December 28]:

When we got to Dhaka on the 27th, we found out our flight was postponed from the original 1pm to 7:45pm. We didn't know what to do for the day and so we walked the streets near where we were staying. While we walked we bought some fruit. This fruit is called a pomelo, it is similar to a grapefruit. However, I don't like grapefruit, but pomelo is pretty good!
 
This is us when we first got to Nepal. It is about about 11:30pm in this picture. Our flight had got delayed again and so we didn't end up taking off from Bangladesh until about 9:30pm.






Day 2 [December 29]:
 
This is the house we stayed in the first night, well we stayed in the bottom part. We stayed with some friends of Bangla Hope's treasurer. They were very nice. They don't have much money and rent two rooms on the bottom floor. the window you see on the right is the window of their bedroom, where Grace (the friend) and the baby slept on the bed and the three of us girls crashed on the floor. When you walk in through the door you see and keep going straight you get to a kitchen which they also rent, this is where Santu (her husband) slept.
This family was so hospitable, they fed us and allowed us to crash their house for that first night! We are very appreciative of them!

This is the path heading away from Santu and Grace's house. Getting to the main road from here required a climb up a hill. It was really nice to walk up a hill again!

 

This is my first cup of hot chocolate in at least three months if not longer! With how cold it had been in Bangladesh I was really craving this. However, I was disappointed with this specific cup. It is very nicely decorated on top and the whipped cream was delicious, the hot chocolate itself was a little watery though, but what can I expect for 115 Rupees?! (The exchange rate is about 83 rsp. to $1 usd)

This is the first 'American' food we have had in three months. I had a cheese sandwich, it was delicious! Lauren had the pizza and Chantel got curry, both were also pretty tasty! The dumpling things you see in the middle of our table are called Momos. They are a Tibetan food and are absolutely

scrumptious. They have a sauce with them that is called pickle. It is a spicy sauce and not what you would expect when you hear pickle.

This is the hotel we stayed at this night. It was not a bad hotel. It had nice employees, hot water, and an internet cafe in the loby. However, it had COCKROACHES, small rooms, and the sheets didn't look that clean. This hotel though improved our thoughts of them a couple days later. We were packing up to go on our Safari excursion and I could not find my mp3 player. The last time I remember seeing it was on my bed in this hotel. So Lauren and I went back to this hotel just to find out if they might have found it. We asked at the front desk about a mp3 player. The clerk was like 'a black one with green headphones?' I was so excited and relieved! I honestly did not expect to ever see it again. Before we had gone I had prayed that I would find it and I know that definitely helped!

Day 3 [December 30]:

 

The beginning of Friday morning was one of the most relaxing I've really ever had. The three of us decided we needed massages and while we wandered the streets Thursday we found that spas had relatively inexpensive services. The one we chose to use, had a great morning package. It included 45 min in both the dry and wet sauna and an hour full body massage. I had never experienced anything like this. I had never been to a sauna before and the closest thing I've had to a full body massage was when I took a basic therapy class in college; it was an interesting experience and afterwards all three of us were very relaxed.

This is a picture from the roof of our new hotel, Hotel Nana! It is a great place; spacious rooms, nice roof, warm extra blankets, clean sheets, you did have to watch the time for warm showers though! In the background is the tourist section, called Thamal. It was a great shopping area and most everyone spoke English, which was nice! Bartering was so much fun. That is definitely something I'm going to miss about Bangladesh and Nepal!

We ended up renting bicycles for the afternoon. I was fun, I only messed up once with the side of the road thing and after that, only had a little difficulty weaving between vehicles and pedestrians.

We ended up biking to Swayambhunath. It is on the west side of Kathmandu and is commonly known as the Monkey Temple. It is at the top of a hill and has many steps leading up to it.

 

This picture does not do justice to how steep the steps were, but it kind of gives an idea.

 This is what the Monkey Temple looks like. It is a Buddhist temple, I think. I'm not sure exactly what is supposed to be and all that, but it was an interesting place to be.

Here are the lovely little animals that this temple is named after. They run all over the place and are both ugly and cute at the same time. I did see one perform the sliding down the handrails which is something they have perfected during the time the handrails have been built.

This is a view of Kathmandu from the Monkey Temple

This is just a cool picture of the view from Monkey Temple with a monkey in it.








This is as much of the snow covered peaks as we saw. It's sad, but we were not able to make it to the place we wanted to where we were told you could see Everest on a clear day.


Day 4 (December 31):

Saturday morning was a relaxful time. We slept in and then spent time up on the roof, writing, reading, and enjoying the sunshine.

 For the afternoon we went on a walking tour of Kathmandu. We saw a lot of these. They are called stupas and are basically small temple shrines I think.

We had a fun day wandering the streets.

 Here is more fun we had! Chasing pigeons, I have always wanted to and now I have!

In Bangladesh, all the dogs are sick and skinny and look just plain awful. In Nepal, They actually look like they are being taken care of and that the live on more than garbage. These are some kids we saw that were playing with some puppies.

This is the sign of our lovely Hotel Nana, where we stayed most of our trip. It is taken from the balcony from our room.

Here is our New Year's celebration drink. Lauren convinced us to stay up until midnight, but we went to sleep almost right after. We had to get up early Sunday morning to catch our ride to our safari.