Today is a good tourist day.

Kathmandu is really small, and almost everything is within walking distance. That being said, our walking distance has now extended to anything within 5km. It’s just nicer to take a walk through local neighbourhoods and see what they look gives us a better pulse on the city.

Walking from our hotel to Swayambunath, aka Monkey Temple, we got a feel for the city and we aren’t too keen of what we see. Going westward from the tourist district the city does not get any more inspiring, with the continuation of the 70s looking stores (sewing machines, old car parts, craggy paint but no North Fake gear). Crossing over a bridge and over a river, we see an unpleasant stream of water full of garbage, and pigs floundering at the shores. Eagles (or falcons?) soar around the river, occasionally dipping down for a drink or catching flies, we aren’t sure. Continue reading →

We’re not very good tourists.

Waking up, we had breakfast in the cozy hotel courtyard and then began our day searching for a suitable trekking company to provide us with a porter for our 2-week hike through the Annapurna circuit. The number of travel agencies in Thamel was told to us to hover around 400. That pretty much means when you walk through Thamel, for every 5 stores there are 2 fake North Face stores, 2 travel agencies and one random store…. it’s ridiculously overwhelming.

Hiring a porter isn’t as easy as it sounds, because you don’t want to be stuck hiking for 17days with some guy you don’t like. Prices also varied from a quoted $12/day to $50/day!!! W T F? After meeting all kinds of different people, the uncle of a fake North Face shop owner, a pro-salesman who wouldn’t let us meet the porter, a crazy outdoor junkie who sits on the Nepal rescue team board and was busy with the aftermath of a guide who died on a peak, and finally we settled with this guy whom we ignored twice on the street until the third time… Continue reading →

Due to the strange time zone we’re in, the sun rises extremely early at 5ish, but also sets around 4pm. This sort of explains why people wake early and also sleep rather early. Waking up, Jiajia felt better after a 15hr nap, so we attempted to grab some food at a local cafe. After Jiajia ate a half piece of toast, we started walking around the area of Thamel where most tourists are located. Running some random errands, we got a pay as you go prepaid SIM card for a staggering 50Rs, which was about $0.60USD!!! The more we travel, the more we realize how ridiculously priced North American mobile fees are! Another cool part, is that there is a lot of good stuff on television. They have movie channels showing decent movies around the clock (good for burning time in the hotel), and at night Discovery and Animal Planet shows make a perfect companion to falling asleep…

Jiajia was still unable to eat, so we wanted to get some fruits. In Thamel, the fruit-stand to North Face shop ratio is about 1:22, so after a 20min walk I managed to hunt down a fruit stand… WTF people don’t eat fruits? The bananas helped the upset stomach, so later in the afternoon, we finally headed out to see what Kathmandu was all about. Continue reading →

As I was desperately trying to update my backdated the blog late into the night, I barely got a couple hours sleep when waking up at 6am. Problem was, Jiajia got 0 hours of sleep as she was suffering from a bout of food poisoning, which I was just recovering from but hers seemed to deteriorate….more on this later.

Catching a flight in the new Kunming International Airport which opened June of this year, it was a pretty cool sight as you drove up towards the simple lines of the massive building (which, I just discovered, is designed by a rather famous firm whose also doing 1 WTC…$). Again, as with most 2^nd/3^rd tier Chinese cities, there’s some ridiculously optimistic infrastructure investment that looks nice and modern, but when you’re inside the building looks severely underused with barely anybody…. Continue reading →