Monkeys and Musings.

I woke up to the sounds of dogs barking, something I think is going to become a common theme. After a fantastic nights sleep I was able to have a hot(ish) shower and felt remotely human again, ready to face the first day in Kathmandu.

Some girls from the VSO office came to meet us and we had lunch and a catch up with the project co-ordinator before heading off into the city. As this is our first day, SJ and I were able to do what we wanted, and there was really only ever one thing on our minds...monkey temple.

Navigating to the temple (via the city for a SIM card and money cash) was easy enough. We simply found one cab, haggled the price, he refused, so we went to the next guy. This guy happened to be asleep but that's just not good enough when 2 eager UK volunteers want to see monkeys so we woke him up. We agreed a much better price and then...he went back to the first guy, told him what we were paying and we got in the first cab anyway. Sleepy driver gets a nap, we get to the monkeys. Everyone's a winner.

We were not disappointed. As soon as we arrived we were overwhelmed with monkey excited. Far less exciting was the walk up a very high, steep set of stairs to the temple. Luckily there were plenty of monkeys to distract us on the way up and I needed the exercise anyway after sitting on planes/in airports for almost an entire day. It seems that in Nepal they follow the rule of one price for locals and another price (four times as much) for foreigners. No matter though. Monkeys. The temple was really very beautiful and were got some absolutely amazing views of the city.

After our monkey adventures we headed to a very tourist-y bit of Kathmandu, Themal, for some dinner and maybe a gin based cocktail. I think at this point it would be good to explain that in Kathmandu there really is no concept of road safety and pavements are non existant, so everyone is in the road, expecting you to move out of their way. Luckily the cars move very slowly (probably because they are tiny Suzukis not really designed for rough terrain, but maybe that's just me), so no real damage could ever happen. Plus, providing the horn is working then that's all that really matters. Not a second goes by when you can't hear someone beeping their horn to make another car/person/animal move out of the way.

I'm home now in the very nice guest house and listening to the dogs, of course. There isn't a huge amount to do at night time, but all the time I have wi-fi I'll be able to inform you of my monkey and non-monkey based adventures.

Tomorrow my training starts so I'm really looking forward to that and meeting some of the Nepali volunteers. But for now, this will be all.

Lizzie x