The Joys of Traveling: Nepal Edition

So, our plane was suppose to leave at 9:55 am. We get up early, get to the airport about 1 1/2 hours before take-off (no need to get there super early, even for an international flight....security/customs=super easy to get through. although other customers at the check-in counter kept trying to get us to take their medical books and other stuff in our bags or on our tickets....we said no... ).  We sit by our gate and wait to board.  We read and wait.  And wait. And wait.  Our plane was delayed for 5 hours.  Shortly before our plane was scheduled to take off, AND several times after an announcement came over the intercom: flight MU 757 to Kathmandu cannot leave on schedule. Please do not leave the waiting area."  We didn't realize it would be 5 hours before we took off, but they did feed us twice so we couldn't complain too much.

Eventually we made it to Nepal. When we got off the plane, there were soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders scattered along the way to baggage claim.  Before we could get to baggage claim we had to apply for a 15 day visa, which just required us to fill out a form and pay some money.  The whole time we were getting our visas, baggage,and money exchanged we were wondering how we would get to our hostel.  I had emailed them asking for an airport pick up, but they never replied and we had an address in English, but we weren't sure if it would be easy for taxi drivers to find.  On our way out of the airport, we were hounded by many taxi drivers offering us rides.  We had no idea how much was acceptable to take us and Beth and I really needed to use the bathroom so we said we'd be right back we need to use the bathroom. One of the taxi drivers offered to show us the way to the bathroom, which is outside.  We walk outside and a soldier is hurrying us along and Jonathan says, "Nicole, I think there's a sign with your name on it."  Eh? For real? We all stop and look across the lane and sure enough, there is a guy waving at us holding a piece of paper with NICOLE LEHMAN written on it. Oh glorious day!! We said, forget the bathroom, let's go!  The guy had been waiting there for 5 hours because he didn't know how long our plane would be delayed.  What a guy!

Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal.  Driving though the city, you never would have guessed. Nepal is such a poor country, that their capital looks nothing like you would expect a capital to look like.  Granted, we didn't see the whole city, but the parts we did see were so poor. The streets were crowded with people and carts and bikes.  The buildings were small and cramped together.  The place we stayed at was the touristy part of town, so it was a little nicer and full of shops to buy clothes, souvenirs , bags, and hiking gear (many people use Kathmandu as a starting point for hiking Mt. Everest).
Our first and only full day (we really only used Nepal as a cheaper way to get into India) we went to do some sight seeing within walking distance of our hostel. Before we went, we wanted to buy bus tickets from Nepal to Delhi, India. We asked the people at our hostel, and they said we should ask them again that night, and we'd have no problems getting the tickets for the next day. More on that later.....
(side note: not all these pictures are mine....some are Beth's or Jonathan's)

A Town Square

The center of the square

 Our first stop was to a town square. We wanted to just walk around it, not go into any of the buildings, but they were going to make us pay 750 rupees each. The exchange rate is 1 USD = 80 NPR ; 1 RMB= 12.1 NPR, so really it wasn't that much, but it didn't seem worth it, so we just decided to head to the monkey temple.  We walked through the back streets to get there and saw quite a few interesting things.

apartment complex

small snack shop. most shops were this size

Beth is not the tallest person......

the women, especially the older women, were almost always fully covered

some cows just waiting for the school bus to go

 

Just keeping watch over the shop.

the monkey temple "mountain"

When we got to the base of the monkey mountain, we witnessed a monkey steal a bag of bananas from a man just walking down the street.  The little bugger was fast! We saw many more monkeys on the way up. We took a couple of breaks on the way up because Beth wasn't feeling very good. When she saw all the stairs we would have to climb up to get to the actual temple, she decided to just sit and wait for us.  There weren't many people along the way up, besides beggars, but when we got to the top there were so many people! There were people worshiping, people sight-seeing, people selling stuff, people playing ping pong.  It was nuts! Jonathan and I walked around for a bit, and then decided we left Beth all alone long enough and we went back to join her.

halfway up the "mountain"

taking a break

look closely to figure out what they're doing

 We walked back to the hostel, and since Beth was sick, we decided to take over the map.  Bad move.  We got very lost and somehow ended up waaay past our hostel and Beth had to take over anyways.  When we finally made it back to the hostel, Beth went to the room to rest and Jonathan and I went to find lunch. After lunch, we all relaxed for a couple hours before going back out for shopping! Beth and I had our eye on some Ali Babba pants Jonathan had his eye on some new cargo pants. We had gone out the night before to look and get prices so we knew the general area and price range for what we wanted.  We all found what we wanted. I bought two pairs of pants.  One pair was pretty self explanatory how to wear. The other pair I thought I knew how to wear them, but when i tried them on, it turns out I had no idea how to tie them without exposing my entire leg.  I really liked them though, and after closer examination of another pair, the three of us decided we could figure out to make them work. Later that night I put on a pair of shorts, and the three of us successfully got my pants to work :)  Seems ridiculous, but it's hard to explain without showing.  Someday I'll show you what I mean.

the uncomplicated pants...this was actually taken in India

 After our successful shopping spree, we went back to our hostel in hopes that we would have our bus tickets to India for the next day.  We go ask the guy about the tickets, he calls the lady, hangs up and tells us, all the tickets are sold out, but we can leave the following day if we want, no problem.  Pardon?? I thought you said we could get the tickets for tomorrow no problem!! We were quite disappointed. We had already decided that we were done in Nepal and were looking forward to getting away from crowded streets, beggars, and shady guys asking Jonathan if he wants to buy some hash.   This dejected feeling only lasted for a few minutes before we bucked up and decided to look into plane tickets and see just how expensive those were. Turns out they really weren't too expensive and they'd get us to India 2 days earlier since we'd have to leave a day later for the bus and the bus ride was 24 hours long. We booked the tickets, went back to tell the hostel guy that we'd like to arrange for a ride to the airport, then headed out to find supper. Jonathan and I were in the mood for burgers (Beth still wasn't feeling well) and we had seen a burger place the day before so we decided to try and find it. However, the streets have no rhyme or reason and we couldn't remember exactly where it was, so we ended up walking quite a bit to find it.  We were about to give up because we had circled the same place about 3 times but then Beth saw a road we hadn't ventured down yet. We were a bit skeptical, but we tried anyways and lo and behold there it was! Jonathan and I got our burgers and Beth got some chicken nuggets.  After filling our bellies, we headed back to the hostel. 
The next day was airport day, so after we got up and packed, we headed out for one more Nepalise breakfast. We got to the airport super early because we didn't know how traffic would be. 
At the airport, we had to go through 3 different security checks, and the men and women had to go into separate lines (a cultural thing). We made it through no problem and not soon enough, we were headed to India. 1st stop: New Delhi, the capital city. Stay tuned for more fun and exciting adventures.
Until next time....His will be done.

our hostel is the red sign on the left

 

The Joys of Traveling: China Edition

Sorry for the long lull in posts....traveling was.....well an adventure. There are lots of stories, so we'll take them a city/country at a time.  From January 13- February 6, I traveled with Jonathan and Beth to a couple different cities in China, then Katmandu, Nepal, Delhi, Agra, and Mumbai, India, and then finishing off in Hong Kong for the FoC retreat.   O
ur first stop was to Xiaogan, a city about an hour from Wuhan.  Jonathan's good friend Lior lives there and he invited us all to his home for a few days before we had to fly Kunming, China.  Lior's cousin has a car so he came to pick us up around 7:00 Friday night (Jan 13). When we got to his home, we "talked" with his parents for a little bit (neither of them speak English) and then his mom told us we should go play majiang on their new automatic majiang table. She didn't have to tell us twice. We all LOVE playing majiang and having an automatic table makes playing even more enjoyable because we just push a button in the middle of the table, push the tiles in, it mixes them and brings up new tiles already shuffled and stacked. It is quite awesome! Over the next 2 1/2 days we probably played 7-8 hours of majiang.

the table of awesomeness

The next day, Lior's parents took us out for brunch then took us to hot springs.  Hot springs consist of multiple hot tubs/pools of various temperatures and smells for various different health purposes.  We spent a few hours running from pool to pool testing out the different temperatures.  We had to run because it was freezing outside! One of the pools we went to was a little fish pool that you sit in and the fish come and nibble your feet/legs.  Quite ticklish. Lior's parents took us out to dinner on the way back from the hot springs. Back at Lior's home, he decided to wash his dog so while he did that Beth and I helped make dumplings with his dad and did our best to voice our own translations for a Chinese soap opera. We don't like to brag, but we're pretty awesome at it.  We finished the night off playing majiang. Lior's dog. Willie joined Beth and I for a girl's slumber party.
The next morning, Beth, Willie, and I got up before the boys so we just hung out in the room. I was playing with Willie and got her a little too excited and she got in trouble by Lior.  Apparently she never barks for him.....oops :)   Once we were all ready for the day, we went out for noodles for brunch then went to the mall to watch the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  We were quite excited about it, until it started playing and was all dubbed over in Chinese with no English subtitles! Oh no!  Luckily, Beth and I had just practiced our translating the night before with the soap opera, so we recovered from our sadness pretty quickly and sat back and enjoyed the movie.  We got the general gist of the movie, but we're looking forward to finding it on DVD so we can watch it again in English. When we got back home, we played more majiang while Lior's mom made us supper, including the dumplings Beth and I helped make.  After supper, Lior's cousin took us to the Wuhan airport so we could fly to Kunming.
      We spent two nights and one day in Kunming.  We didn't really have anything planned for our one day in Kunming, so we took our time getting up and ready in the morning and headed out for lunch.  Beth had been to Kunming before and she remembered she had gone to a nice lake somewhere near the hostel.  We decided to spend the afternoon sitting by the lake reading our books.  Brian, Peter, Darin, and Andy also happened to be in Kunming at the same time and were staying at the same hostel so we met up with them for supper and then hung out for the rest of the evening.  The next day we all parted ways. Our flight to Nepal was supposed to leave at 9:55 the next day, so we had to get up relatively early to head to the airport.

So, that was the China portion of the trip. Stay tuned for the next portion of the trip.....trust me, it gets even more exciting....plus, there are more pictures :)

Until next time.....His will be done.

the bathroom sign at our hostel. no worries, they were in separate rooms

such a nice airline