I think we're going to die

5 June 2010        10:33pm        Kathmandu

Despite the arduous and often unpaved road we encountered along the way, we finally made it to Kathmandu!  We kicked our day off early with breakfast at the Sherpa Restaurant next to our hotel.  As par for the course in China and Tibet, our order got screwed up and we ended up with two extra plates of eggs.  Luckily Keesler and Dee hadn’t ordered, so everyone got food all around!

After breakfast we loaded up our van one last time and set out for the border.  We made pretty good time- we actually got there before the border opened.  There were a lot of Romanians in line, waiting to cross as well.  Dawa had us skip in front of the Romanians, as there were easily 40 of them with tons of crap each.  This, of course, prompted an argument between Dawa and some of the other guides.  As this was all going on, we met a really nice couple who also lived in NYC.  Small, small world.  One of the guys gave us their cards, with promises to exchange blogs and meet up in Kathmandu for dinner some night.

We cleared Chinese customs eventually and said goodbye to Dawa, who turned us over to his Nepali counterparts.  After departing from Dawa, we had to walk across the bridge that was the border between China and Nepal.  This also meant that we went back over 2 hours in time due to the weird, messed up time zones.  Same time everywhere in China!  We hit Nepali customs, got ourselves all set there, and then loaded up into the van that would take us from Kodari (the border town we entered in) to Kathmandu.

The road was ridiculously bumpy and at points scary.  Especially the point where people were working on the road, and throwing rocks from above.  Along the way we stopped for lunch.  This may not have been a good thing as I became quite uneasy with all the bumping along.

Eventually, the adventure ended and we reached our hotel in Kathmandu.  It was perfect timing- Ashok had just pulled up to see if anyone else had arrived.  We soon met up with Aya, Martin, and Eugenia, whom we hadn’t seen since finals in New York.

We had quite a bit of resting time, which many of us used to take advantage of the fact that we had wi-fi and full access to the internet again.  It felt fantastic to log into most websites again!  After internet/resting, we met up with the whole group at Himalayan Java, a coffee shop down the street, to organize ourselves for dinner.  They took us to this great restaurant where I finally got to have some real Nepali food!  (We stopped for lunch on the way to KTM, but it was kind of gross- it sort of tasted like ashtray.)

After a quite long dinner, we eventually left and made our way back to the hotel.  I have at least learned one thing.  I do not want to be out after the sun sets- no street lights!

Tomorrow we start our orientation, which means the end of vacation and the start of work.  Oh well- that’s why we’re here.