Vacation started almost a week ago.  The last week of work is always pleasant.  A few meetings, a few administrative tasks, entering grades, tidying up the office and such.  I worked late the last day on some M.A. stuff and took the last bus back to my room at hotel.

I hung out with a friend at the Oryx lounge at the airport as we awaited our respective flights.  When my time came I got a pleasant surprise.  Upgrade.  Business Class!  Big comfy seats and a long nap, not to mention airline food that tastes good.  I got up just before we started descent.  Nepal from the air is absolutely stunning.

I arrived two days early, I figured it would be nice to look around Kathmandu and check out some sites before heading out to the country.  Another member of the Habitat team also had the same idea.  So we went out exploring together.    We hired a guide and checked out a Tibetan Buddhist Stupa and a hindu temple.  Both places were stunning.

Our guide was quite nice, and told us about Nepal’s history and the sites as we looked around.  Kathmandu is an amazing  place.  The streets are filled with cars, bikes, and pedestrians.  All weaving around each other and what I only describe as ordered chaos.  There are no neat and tidy lanes, traffic seems more like a pair of opposing rivers in with people flowing around one another like water and rocks caught up in a current.  People use their horns more than their brakes.

The next day we visited the monkey temple and Durbar Square.  The monkey temple sits atop a large hill.  And true to the name there are plenty of cute little monkeys and they’re all ready for photo ops.  We only passed through Durbar square, walking along the connected markets and eventually arriving back at our hotel.  The entire group is now in Kathmandu.  The next stop is Ithari.