Kathmandu, Nepal

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Intro to Buddhism 10day course. Beautiful intro to Buddhism and meditation instruction.Excellent teachers.Observe monks in daily practice.Gorgeous setting. Good accomodation and plentiful veg meals included.Half day silence.Men and women must sleep separate accom.

I had no idea about this before the trip was planned, so you'd better well aware.

Nepal, due to scarcity of resources for power production, has scheduled blackout in many cities, e.g. Kathmandu, Nagarkot, Phokara. It will happen several times a week (3-4 times) and it lasts about 3 hours.

Being under dark is quite frustrating, cause sometimes, the powercut comes in the afternoon or evening, where the power usage would be peaking. It's even worse if it happens on a live soccer match, just like it happened when I was there!

So get flashlight or candle handy, it will definitely be of use. oh...one more thing, ice is darn hard to find cause it keeps melting as power cut happens.

Judging from the airport physical environment, you wouldn't expect a speedy baggage delivery at the airport. So my mind wandered during the waiting. Almost an hour passed after immigration and I still kept my cool. The panic button was pushed when the airport staff came and said the passing baggage was the last delivery!!! And my thought process started to kick in on where/how to buy new clothes, how fashionable would the gear in Kathmandu be, will they sell my camera power charger in this wonderland?

Well....a few minutes of methodological thinking process, suddenly my baggage pop up out of nowhere. Can u imagine it was left behind a pole, and off the baggage claim belt!!!? Worse, it was already opened and stuff was in a mess!

Gosh, some traveller must hv wrongly taken my baggage out of the belt, searched it and after he knew it was not his, then he left it on the floor without putting back to the belt, and left me waiting for hour for a baggage that would never come!!!

A memorable welcome.

Well. I don't quite understand the real motive. But i was told this ritual is to give best wishes among the acquaintances.

Be reminded if you put the red dot on your forehead, you are refrained from eating meats and should be vet at the time.

As you can guess, i knew it after i swallowed bunch of chicken meat with the red dot clearly shown on my forehead.

If you use Bangkok as your trip base, be sure your seat assignment is on the left of the plane. The captain will wake you up from your good sleep to make sure you notice the himalaya and its everest when the plane travels past.

If you require a travel agent to book some sightseeing, tickets, tour, trekking guide or whatever, I can highly recommend Himalayan Trail Finder in Thamel area. Was trying to book a tour to Bhutan, and the people who were recommended to me really let me down by not giving me the itinarary that I asked for. After getting frustrated by them, and also by a lack of action on their part, I happened into the Himalayan Trail Finder. Told them what I wanted, and for how long, and within a few minutes they had all kinds of information for me and also the prices for the tour which I requested. I used them also for a local tour, for a private car 2 times, a mountain flight to Everest, for a hotel booking, and they also reconfirmed my return tickets for back home at no additional charge. Seems that all the people who work there are all part of an extended family, and all of them were very friendly and helpful. If you go there, ask for Janita. She's a short very cute gal who seems to be the head travel agent. Tell her Michael from Canada with the gray beard sent you and I'm sure you will be treated like gold.

If for some reason you get bored while in Kathmandu, go for a walk to Durbar Marg and back. While on the way there, make a game of how many times you will say no thank you to all the people trying to sell you something. This includes taxis, rickshaws, tiger balm, drugs, pashmina, t-shirts, carpets, violins, incense, trekking guides, more taxis and rickshaws, mango juice sellers, something that resembles food that comes in a bucket, prayer flags, thangkas, buddha statues, passport holders, postcards, more tiger balm, and just about whatever else you can think of. My record is 58 times saying no thanks!

There are many Bed and Breakfast's in Kathmandu, you will find the people very warm and it is a faily inexpensive city to go to.
You can balloon, bungy jump, canyon, ice-climb, rock climb, climb trekking peaks, fly over mountains or fly an ultralight, in Nepal.
Do keep in mind. Men should wear a shirt at all times. Men's knee-length hiking shorts are acceptable for trekking but not when visiting temples, monasteries or homes.

Nudity is particularly offensive. Whether bathing in a stream or at a village tap, men should wear shorts or underwear, women can wrap in sarong and douse themselves as the village women do. Only sport a swimsuit if well secluded from village eyes. Public affection is likewise frowned upon by the locals.