Nepalgunj, at last

I must say the way Nepalgunj is welcoming me is rather good: it's raining and the temperature is only around 24/ 25 degrees C! I can even sit here at my desk in the office without the fan on. It actually stopped working as soon as I turned it on, which is not too promising, but still......

I flew down to Nepalgunj this morning. It was a cloudy morning in Kathmandu as well and the mountains were no where visible. We were flying through clouds the whole way! I have a feeling I was lucky to have got on the early morning flight because if anything it is raining even more now!

Today I'm just spending my time here at the computer. Tomorrow, when Yagya, the Nepali Education Advisor, gets here, we will sit down and talk about my job and the coming months. Arjun, the Cluster Leader, came down to Nepalgunj on the same flight as I did and he is very busy today, having been away for two weeks (Learning Review and Dashain holidays) Hopefully he will also be able to sit with us tomorrow.

I guess a fair bit of my time the coming few weeks will be taken up by "house work". The flat I'm staying in is fairly empty. There is a bed, but no matress, a gascylinder, but no stove and a small desk in the "wrong place"! Luckily enough I have been able to borrow a matress from the guesthouse for the night at least and as soon as the rain stops I'll have to go and look for my own. I need a table and some chairs as well, a cupboard and a chest of drawers probably and, of course, a fridge. Then I'll need something for the sitting room, but I guess that can wait for awhile.

Tonight I will eat daalbhat and I have got an electric kettle coming in my luggage (I hope it will arrive safely in the rain!) which means I can make my own tea. I'll have to borrow a cup from the guesthouse of course, but I can at least have a cup of Earl Grey! I brought a whole loaf of bread and half a kilo of butter and some cheese so I'll be OK until I'm sorted.

PS There won't be any pictures this time as I haven't taken any and the internet connection is probably too slow anyway.

Dashain in Pokhara

I'm back in Kathmandu and life is beginning to get back to normal but the whole country has had five - six days of holidays and I spent my days in Pokhara.

I was not the only one, that's for sure; In almost every resturant I went to I met some UMNers, ex-UMNers or other people that I know! The buses were full both ways and it was more "Nepalis" than tourists even if the tourist season is also coming on now.

Most of my time in Pokhara I spent together with the Ardeby family. We went shopping in Chipledhunga, we had lots of nice meals down at the lake, we went to Hotel Barahi to swim and one morning we went up to Sarangkot to see the mountains.

We were a bit late getting there but we managed to take the photos we wanted and then, after having had a nice breakfast up there we headed down towards the lake. It was rather hot to walk in the sun but we managed to get down, though it took us 2.5 hours and lots of stops and lots of water.

I enjoyed my days in Pokhara and now I'm getting ready to move to Nepalganj. The luggage will go on Månday and I will be travelling on Tuesday I hope, I haven't got my ticket yet. I'm flying this time, I had enough of bumpy busrides for awhile - I had the very last seat on the bus coming back to Kathmandu and it was not very pleasant! Besides the distance to Nepalganj is more than double that to Pokhara.

I will spend my last few days in Kathmandu shopping for exciting things like an electric kettle and an iron. I'm looking forward to get started with my work in Nepalganj, but I guess it will take some time to get the flat organized before that.