Kathmandu

The alarm went off at 7am Kathmandu time. Surely its not time to get up already. I could sleep for a week! May press the snooze button once...or twice.

7.18 I must get up I need to wash and sort some laundry out before breakfast and Im being collected at 9. I should have told the driver to call for me at 10. Look out of the bedroom window - something catches my eye. Some movement. A wild Monkey! It jumped up onto a perimeter wall about 10 metres from my window. Quick - wheres my camera. Got it! Got Him .. just about! Not a good picture but captured nonetheless.

Time for a bath. An interesting bathroom. Authentic probably best describes it.

A little grumble to myself about the hot water being luke warm until I remember that this is likely to be the hottest bath I will enjoy for the next 3 weeks and I am grateful for it.

I rummage through my bag. Oh no! some powder from my medical kit has escaped and covered alot of things. Oh well. A quick dust off and everything is fine again.

Breakfast. I think I'm hungry. Im not sure. I'm desperate for a cup of tea though and am pleased to be offered the first of what will prove to be many "milk tea" on the garden terrace. I wonder if there is a hint here that "milk tea" is for the westerners and usually its black .. or green. Maybe I should have opted for the black tea. Nah!

Time is rushing. I have only just got up, now I am scrambling for my essentials for this mornings tour of Kathmandu. Water, sun scream, notebook, camera, medicines, wet wipes and clinique moisturising spray!! What more could a man want!

Just about on time, I meet up with Rajesh. His large sunglasses and broad grin are a welcome and comforting sight. I quickly cash a travellers cheque at the hotel and am escorted to a black mercedes that has been brought around to the hotel entrance. I get into the back and we are away.

I cant help remembering the book that Terry Waite wrote, detailling his ordeal in Beirut. He was travelling like this! The streets we cruise down, run down by western standards seem fact of life in these types of City. There isnt squalor that I have seen yet though. No piles of rotting rubbish. No malnutritioned children pitifully begging. But it is a financially poor place. Of that there is no doubt. The roads, the pavements, the buildings all seem almost medieval. Yet they obviously function and I doubt the maintenance bill is high.

I'm fed a constant stream of information en-route to our first stop. I try to show an interest and nod appropriately. I have my regulation dark glasses on and would rather look at whats happening outside the car than absorb the local legends and the tale of how one chap cut off his father's head by mistake.

I am assured that the streets are quiet, but they look busy to me. Cars, vans, bicycles, pedestrians, cows, dogs, mopeds, minibuses. Everyone in the road. The system looks dangerous to me. Overcrowded little busses with even more people packed onto the roof, clinging to the roofrack. Vaery small children litterally holding on for dear life with one hand on the back door. Entire families complete with bags of shopping riding a moped. Kids on the handlebars, mum on the pillion and dad driving. Dad is the only one wearing a crash helmet. This is normal here.

Suddenly we pull over. Almost hidden down a side street is the entrance to Kathmandu's largest "Stupar", a buddest monument white, domed and with painted on eyes peering down. I see the first colourful prayer flags which cloak the site there are so many of them. This place was granted World Heritage Site status in 1979 ... apparently.