Kathmandu

This place can really suck the days away; good bakeries and restaurants, good bookstores, good gearshops, the supermarkets are fully stocked. Oh, and did I mention it is cheap, cheap here? You could easily get by on $8 - $10 a day (accomodation and food) if it weren't for all the stuff that you can buy and so many different ways to spend money. Where have the past few days gone? I'm still a little sick, my feet are still blistered, and I fear to put my contacts in for fear of my eyes turning red and aching. But I'm hopeful that I can leave on Thursday (26 October) morning to start the Annapurna Circuit trek. The trek should take about 3 weeks and I may or may not be able to email during that time. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be able to carry a super light pack and not have to worry about a tent or cooking or carrying my own food!

Its strange to see so many maps and books about Tibet and the Dalai Lama after not being able to find even one single map in Tibet. They really do have every thing here, to varing degrees. I guess that is what 50 years of western climbing and trekking visitors does to a country.

I haven't done much sight seeing the past few days. Mainly I've just been wondering around Thamel, the tourist district. I had to buy some new hiking socks yesterday and after bargaining the tailor down to $0.60 to patch my pants, I went and dropped $35 on a couple of pairs of socks!! I really needed a couple more pairs of good socks, but it was still really hard to drop 4 days worth of daily living expenses that quickly. 8 days hiking in the same pair of socks was pretty rough though. Then I got my pictures burned to a DVD. Yep to a DVD, told you Kathmandu has everything. Hopefully I'll be able to post a few pictures soon.

Not really much to report though on the sight seeing front. Today (Tuesday, 24 October) I went for a walk outside of the tourist area. Not really sure how to describe Kathmandu yet. I need to do a couple more errands tomorrow in preparation for a Thursday departure.