Neato Nepal

Alright, well I guess it is time to start the ol’ blog up again (Notice the change in Title).  For anyone who doesn’t know, which is probably no one, this time I am in Nepal for my new Peace Corps experience.  This is going to be a quick post with a few stories, and some first impressions.

We flew out of DC, early on Friday and spent about 25 hours traveling to Bangkok with a few layovers on the way.  We spent the night in Bangkok last night which was a pretty good time.  We showed up late, and pretty much all of went out for some street food.  So far, no diarrhea from that.  After eating another guy and I went wandering down the street and everyone else went back to the hotel which was a very nice Best Western.  Thank you again taxpayers!!  We eventually found this streetside bar sort of thing with a pickup parked out front pumping some fine jams for the bar.  We sat down and some guys there immediately gave us some what I think was Anise Moonshine.  It had no label but actually tasted pretty good.  Then some hookers sat down next to us, and were sort of touchy which was funny for us.  They asked us if we had wives, we said no.  One of them had a fairly husky voice, and said that she was my friend that she was his wife for the night.  Then after informing us her name was Pat said, “Me boy-girl.”  Then the guy I was hanging out with pointed at me and said, “This guy loves boy-girls!”  Pat was sitting with him, and this explanation brought another hooker over to sit with me who informed me that she was also a boy-girl, though she did not have the voice to match it.  The cops came to the bar a few times; the second time was to move everyone who was outside, inside because I guess that was the rule at 2AM in that district.  Anyways, we just sort of joked around about transvestites among ourselves, and had a few beers and left, but it was a good time.  Stereotypical Bangkok I suppose.

Today we flew to Kathmandu without any hitches, and had some introductory crap sessions.  The city attitude of the city itself is much like Bamako and many other developing cities.  The traffic is crazy, it is dirty, it smells, and there are a lot of random/stray animals.  There are a lot more cows than Bamako, and no one herds them.  They just wander free and people go through great lengths to give them a wide berth.  I definitely did not have the same surreal feelings this time, and a very different sort of excitement.  It was fun to watch the other volunteers’ faces and hear their exclamations as we drove through.  I am looking forward to doing this, but I have a lot insight into this so I am ready to do things a bit different.  I wasn’t quite as excited for the whole experience until I landed in Kathmandu at which point I got really, really excited.  But again, it is a different excitement.

I can’t see the big mountains from Kathmandu, but there are some pretty big, green hills.  The country looks beautiful and I can’t wait to get out and see it.