Ok folks, the one y’all been waiting for. Mary Ann and I were touring the Hanuman-dhoka Durbar Square. That is a mouthful, but everything in Nepal is. Our guide walked us up to a shrine. I noticed a nice lady making an offering. Photo 1 in the slide show. Then I looked at the shrine. Photo 2. He explained this [...]

Everyone should see Nepal. My bonafides for saying that are simple. I have done my share of traveling (not enough yet mind you) and a lot of that has been in back water bizarre places. I have been all over the Altiplanos of Peru and Bolivia. I have been on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. I’ve been [...]

I am typing away in the airport restaurant. This is the only place in Nepal where the prices were at all western. Even the cigs in the “duty free” were twice as much as they are in the streets of Kathmandu. They have slot machines here, but my last Rupees are going into the Red Cross Nepal donation box. We [...]

Remember when you were a kid (if you are my age) and your parents would drag you along to visit a neighbor who invited them over to see the slides of his trip to Akron, Ohio? His narrative would go like this. “This is the Best Western motel where I stayed, see how big the parking lot is?” All you [...]

I have officially become a temple free zone. As I said in a previous post, our guide claims there are 1.3 billion gods in Hinduism. I think I have seen a temple for every one of them. They are all different, in a way, but after about a billion of them you really have to look hard to see the [...]

First, sorry for the lapse in time since my last post. Internet in Nepal is slow, plus I did not bring the mouse for my lap top. Combining the two meant too much trouble and time to keep up the blog. We are back in Sharjah now, so expect a bunch of posts in a short while. OK Nagarkot. It [...]

Welcome back faithful readers. I was amazed when our guide took us to the sacred river where they deposit the cremains of Hindus who die. What I did not expect to see was the entire process of the cremation, from the blessing of the body to the actual funeral fire. Grieving family members stood by. Women cried while men took [...]

Welcome back folks. Nepal is getting more amazing as time goes by. My two immediate goals, buying a rug and seeing Everest up close have been accomplished. We now have something like twelve days to see what we can see. Like I already told you we have a guide. He is very thorough, thoughtful and attentive. He planned out the [...]

Everest. One word, wow. It was a beautiful clear day. Our Budha Air flight was on a 17 seat Beechcraft. This aircraft is a small tubular unit with one seat on each side of the aisle. A six foot tall person cannot stand erect in the aisle. Mary Ann dislikes small planes and she was uncomfortable at first. Once we got [...]

We started the day with breakfast in the garden of the hotel. The only sounds other than our conversation were all the birds. It was quite peaceful. Ravi showed up right on time and discussed our plans for the day. I had written him before we left and told him I wanted to visit the jail and give a care [...]