Well, we’re here in Kathmandu. I’ve been in a catatonic state most of my few waking hours here so I haven’t seen much. Here’s what I remember:

The airport
Even though we’d been warned not to give our bags to anyone at the airport, we were easily duped by a guy that we though was with World Expeditions. He wanted $10 to push my bag cart about 30 yards to the car. Chalk that one up to sleep deprivation : ) We each gave them $2 and they seemed satisfied. On the plus side, my bags made it safely from Columbus to Kathmandu through 5 airport transfers! No kidding! Yea for United, Asiana Air, and Jet Airways.

The transfer from the airport to the hotel
Kathmandu gives new meaning to the term tailgaiting. Our taxi nearly rear-ended a motorbike (seriously, slamming breaks, 2-3 inches to spare) and we saw several other near-misses with other vehicles. I was surprised not to see downed cyclists on the side of the road. But, due to my catatonic state, it didn’t really faze me.

The hotel
Radisson Kathmandu. Nice. Really. For $60 it’s far better than the Super 8 we stayed at between WV and NC a few weeks ago. That was billed as a non-smoking room and smelled of cigarette smoke. This one has two ashtrays with matches but doesn’t smell at all (and you all know I have a really sensitive sense of smell). However, even though we’d been warned to look at the seals on water bottles, we were duped by water in resealed bottles. The complimentary bottles of water in our room looked like new, seals and all, but after a few hours of sleep and upon reexamination, they turned out to have been refilled bottles. Who knows if the water was contaminated or not. We only had a few sips and treated the rest with iodine tabs.

The food
Good. Really good. The dahl (sp??) is excellent, and thoroughly cooked! And for breakfast, Holly got two eggs over easy (sort of), bacon, and coffee. For those of you that know her, that made her happy. Also, the black tea here is so good, it doesn’t need sugar.

Today’s plan
We’re going to wander around Kathmandu and look for a few last-minute trekking items. We’ll also look for un-tampered with bottled water. We meet with the World Expeditions tour group tonight and then tomorrow we’ll get a guided tour of Kathmandu. Yea!

So far so good. Will write more again before we start the trek.