From: Rob Saxe 
To: "Saxe, Rob (R.) [EXCHANGE:SKY:1V64]" 
Subject: Live from Kathmandu
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 04:13:37 PDT

Namaste all,

Here I am in Kathmandu.  It took 51 hours before I was able
to get more than two hours of sleep.  I arrived in Bangkok
Saturday night at midnight.  I don't know if any of you have
ever experienced a thunderstorm from above at night.  It was
the most awesome sight.  Lighting streaked across the sky on
average of 3 to 4 strikes per second.

Flew out the next morning to Kathmandu.  About a half hour
before landing, you can see far into the clouds across the
horizon.  However... popping out of a cloud, roughly the
same height as our cruising altitude, there was a peak, far
off in the distance.  That, my friends, was my first glimpse of Everest.  
The pilot warned us that our descent into the valley
would be extremely steep as to avoid the foothills (mom, you
would have loved it)!

At Tribhuvan airport, there was a madhouse outside as boys
and taxi drivers begged for you to let them drive you into town.
Many were asking for tips just for saying "Hello" to you.  On
the way to the Kathmandu Guest House, there were cows in the
road, with not a care in the world.  Cars apparently drive on the
left hand side of the road here, but that's all relative, because
they don't mind switching to the right side if they so choose.
Driving here is mad.  Car horns are honked by a driver every few
meters or so to let the other cars know that he wants to get through.

I met up with the group at the Guest House and went out for lunch
with them to discuss the trek.  Apparently, it is customary to
discuss the state of your GI system here.  Back in Canada, we just
talk about the weather all the time.

Kathmandu is a really cool city.  The only problem is the cars using
low grade fuel causes the air to smell pretty bad.  The area that
I'm staying in is Thamel.  It's really interesting.  The streets
are extremely narrow, shops and signs line them, while hundreds
of Nepalese are constantly trying to sell you things and are very
persistent.  Nepalese people in general are very friendly.  There's
very little crime here and violent crimes are rare.  I first thought
that Nepalese people are just extremely open as you see many men
walking down the streets holding hands or putting their arms around
each other.  Apparently, that's just their custom.  Best friends
will walk hand in hand and show alot of affection.  In fact, it's
frowned upon for men and women to act the same way together.
Interesting difference.

Last night we went out for a nice dinner and then to the New Orleans
pub for drinks.  Today we went on a day tour of Kathmandu which
included a bunch of Stupas including the famous monkey temple (I
only saw a couple of monkeys), the funeral areas, Durga Sqare,
Patan, etc.  The city is very polluted, but it still has alot of
beauty to it.

The group that I'm part of is Canadian Himalayan Expeditions.  There's
10 guys from Toronto, Winnipeg, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and me
(Ottawa).  It's really cool to be part of a group that has the
same goals and interests.  We all know alot about Everest and trekking
and can talk for hours about them.  We can rattle off facts and
names of famous climbers and these people know who we're talking
about.

Wednesday morning we fly out to Lukla and start our 15 day trek.
I'll most likely email again when I return to Kathmandu on the
17th or 18th.  Hope everyone is doing well back home and I'm trying
to reply to most of the emails that people send me, but Nepal isn't
exactly hooked up with a T1 link.

Until next time,

Rob