Kathmandu

This is an introduction about Kathmandu for you.  Kathmandu is a very ancient city of narrow winding streets with no side walks, old Hindu and Buddhist temples, large palaces, teaming markets, and ugly big apartment buildings. Some of the things you notice when you get to Kathmandu is that there are lots of stray dogs on the street as well as cows, which just wander the streets, with cars and motor bikes whizzing past them.  There are also lots of monkeys on the streets, in the trees, and on the fences.  There are lots and lots of motorcycles, a few cars, but mostly lots of pedestrians.  Everyone shares the busy streets, cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, dogs, and cows.  Nepali's favorite animal is the cow, and in Nepal it is illegal to hit one with your car or motorbike, because it is a sacred animal.

I am sorry to say this, but Kathmandu is very polluted.  So in Kathamndu, unfortunately, if your walking outside you breathe in dirty fumes.  There are also lots of smells in Kathmandu, some like incense are very good, and others like rotting garbage are very bad. 

A narrow street in Kathmandu, notice how everyone shares the street

Stupa's and Prayer flags in Kathamndu

More prayer flags and shrines

Putting up prayer flags with Amala

My dad and I by a Buddha statue

Looking at an ancient idol

Burning pots at a temple

Spinning Prayer wheels at Swayambhu

Me with Kathmandu in the background

Swayambhu Stupa

My dad and I with a Hindu idol

Me on a Nepali swing

A lotus flower, these are sacred flowers in Nepal

My mom, dad, amala, and me

jet lag

Nepal is on the other side of the world. So when it is day in Colorado it is night in Nepal. Jet lag is when your body thinks it is day but it is really night.  Yesterday I fell asleep around three in the afternoon,  three in the morning Denver time, because my body thought it was night.  I woke up at two in the morning  to have a midnight snack because it was way past lunchtime in Colorado. So like everyone I hate jet lag! Actually I don't know if you hate jet lag, do you?

First Stop – Denver Airport

My dad, mom and I drove to my grandparent’s house in Denver so they could give us a ride to the airport.

At the airport we had to get a porter and a BIG trolley to help us with our 6 huge duffle bags.  Each bag weighed 50 pounds!  We have so much to bring because lots of people sent us stuff to take to their families in Nepal, because the mail isn’t very good in Nepal and you can’t just send people stuff.  We also are taking lots and lots of donated children’s clothes because there are lots of orphans and poor people in Nepal.  Only 2 of the duffel bags have our stuff in them, and we have so much because we are trekking for a week and need things like sleeping bags and hiking boots for our trek.

I felt so happy to be at the airport because traveling is one of my favorite things.  My favorite part of airports are the stores!  At the Denver airport I like going to the toy store.

After arriving at the airport, we had to wait two hours for our flight, but finally we got on the first of our three airplanes, now I was really excited, because this is the real traveling part.

The first plane was small with no movies, but that is OK because the flight to Los Angeles is pretty short (2 hours) and I fell asleep on the plane.

Second Stop – Los Angeles

At LA we arrive on one side of the airport and have a long walk to the other side for our second flight.  This walk feels good after sitting on the plane.  We didn’t board the second airplane until around mid-night, but I wasn’t tired because I was so excited!  Plus I slept on the first plane.

Our second plane is awesome!  It is really big and you can watch lots of movies on your own movie screen, starting and stopping the movies whenever you want.  It also has video games you can play.  I was so awake when we boarded that I watched a whole movie before falling asleep (at after 2 AM Denver time).

Because we were flying the same direction the earth rotates it was dark for the entire 17 hour flight, only getting sunrise as we came in to land in Bangkok.  I was awakened for breakfast after sleeping 8 hours on the plane, but I don’t like the food on the airplanes very much.

LA to Bangkok

First Half of LA to Bangkok

Second half of LA to Bangkok

Third Stop Bangkok

We arrived in Bangkok at about 7:00AM, just in time for breakfast, or should we eat dinner…Although it is 7:00AM here it is dinner time in Denver because we are now on the other side of the world!  Although we left on Saturday night we arrived in Bangkok Monday morning!  That is because we crossed the international date line.  That is a line in the pacific where the day changes, so on one side of the line it is Sunday morning but the other side of the line it is Monday morning.

In Bangkok airport there is a very large three headed dragon snake with people pulling on it.  We took a picture of me by it.

My dad and I did some shopping and bought elephant T-shirts, I think elephants are people’s favorite animals in Thailand because there are lots of elephant things in the stores like t-shirts and carvings.  There are lots of shops here with lots of beautiful perfume smells and beautiful jasmine flower smells.  We also bought an orchid for my grandma (who I call Amala) who we will see in Nepal. 

Now we are waiting in a coffee shop eating croissants waiting for our final flight to Kathmandu. 

 

Bangkok to Kathmandu

Kathmandu

This is going to be my 10th trip to Kathmandu.  I am looking forward to seeing my grandmother, whom I call Amala, and some of my other friends who live in Kathmandu.  I am also looking forward to the plane ride, they are usually very fun, and I make lots of friends on them.  I am excited about doing my first trek and celebrating some Nepali holidays, such as Dasain and Tihar.  I will be spending Halloween there, but they don't really celebrate that holiday in Nepal, some of the people may have never even have heard of Halloween, but I hope to still get to dress up and get some candy from my parents.

Training

For the past few months I have been training for my trip to Nepal because while there we are going to do a trek in the Himalaya mountains.  Nearly every weekend my family has done a 4 - 5 hour hike in preparation for this trek.  We go into the mountains for these training hikes.  They are often very hard!  We have climbed a few mountains, hiked a few passes, and gone to a couple of lakes during this training. My favorite is going to the lakes, especially when we have our dogs with us, because they love swimming in the mountain lakes.  It is so much fun watching the dogs swim, swim, swim.  But it is not fun when they shake on us and get us wet.