A bit of a hangover

Having just posted Sheila's letter written on Tuesday, a quick posting to bring the news up-to-date (Saturday).

Having the excuse of a couple of Irish volunteers, a group of us celebrated St Patrick's Day last night at Paddy Foley's Bar in Thamel (the tourist area). They had an excellent band on and despite me having my most expensive can of Guinness ever (Rs425 equal to a day's VSO living allowance. It only occurred to me too late that there must have been a reason why so few people were drinking it) a good time was had by all

Irish girls just like to have fun

and we stumbled back to the Pacific Guest House at about 2:30am. In order of damage, Sheila was bright and cheery this morning, I was hungover at 6am but better by 9am, Karen was still taking things pretty slowly at 11 and Ciara surfaced about 12 looking and feeling badly hungover. You have probably guessed from the name that Ciara is one of the Irish vols so she was entitled to make it a big night and deserved her hangover.

Hopefully we have sorted out everything on our new flat. We met the landlord and his wife last night and, with the aid of translation from David & Jeanna who currently rent it, we agreed to take it from 1 April when we get back from the village stay. I could make out a few words of the conversation but it came as a great relief to learn that the landlord's children speak excellent English so in the absence of David & Jeanna we won't have to rely on our Nepali.

We leave for our 12 day village stay on Monday. It is only 5 km SW of Kathmandu so not exactly deepest rural Nepal but we will have the challenge of sharing a local family's lifestyle in particular the diet of only dhal bhaat (dhal and rice) twice a day, very basic toilet facilities and attempting to communicate in Nepali. Although there are 2 internet booths in the village we have been warned that they are incredibly slow so this may be our last posting until we get back.

On the weather front after the rain I mentioned last week it is now back to being sunny and warm. The rain did temporarily clear the blanket of pollution that normally lies over the Kathmandu valley and we got a glimpse of the Himalayas the other morning. Not sure whether this picture will be clear enough to show how impressive they looked. If I've got my bearings right, the peaks we saw are to the west of Everest and relatively small - only about 7,000m compared to Everest at almost 9,000m.

Snow covered peaks behind the hill

Come back in a couple of weeks time to hear how we got on in the village!

Roshan

P.S. best wishes to all the Kylidh crew and Felpham Sailing Club members at the start of a new sailing season.