Kalanki

It's Monday today and already it feels like I've been here for almost a week! Yesterday was an interesting day. Betina and I went to a place called Bhaktapur, which was a very scary 45 minute roller coaster ride of a taxi journey from our hostel in Kalanki. When we got there we were harassed by lots of locals telling us that they were 'student guides' who could show us the sights (Hindu temples and other significant buildings). We decided against using their help but soon realised after taking lots of photos that we didn't have a clue about what we were taking pictures of. Then we met 'Ram'. Ram told us that we could pay him what we wanted rather than him quoting us a price. We were so impressed with his tour that we decided to give him 600 rupees between us (other guides were asking for 200). I ended up buying a Mandala painting, from a school in which the Dalai Lama apparently teaches the students to learn the art of painting. Who knows whether this was true but I was impressed all the same!

After our day out in Bhaktapur we came back to the hostel and met some of the other volunteers who had arrived. There is 'Mao' from Singapore, 'Barbara' from Germany, and 'Faith' from Iowa in USA. Faith is at the end of her stay here in Nepal and she has done EXACTLY the same order of placements that I am about to do (working at ORPHANAGE for 5 weeks then TREKKING for 2 weeks then TEACHING for 6 weeks!). She gave me such good information about what to expect from the volunteer placements. Apparently the orphanage where she worked had 10 children and she was expected to pay for all their entrance fees to the local zoo (and travel costs!), which I guess is fine if the prices into these places is really cheap, but guess how many children will be at the orphanage where I'm going??????........42!!! Lets wait and see ay. I start there next week!

We went out for drinks in Thamel yesterday, which is a very touristy area of Kathmandu. For ages me and Betina were wondering where all the restaurants and bars were and thanks to Faith's knowledge we found them! We went into one bar called 'Buddha' and saw the Chelsea vs Liverpool score from the TV in there and I was so happy! 2-0! YESSSSSSS! There was this drunk Irish man in there who was a Liverpool fan - hahaha. He was very stange though and kept telling us that he had HIV and telling us stupid jokes we didn't find funny. We soon moved away from him but then he followed us. The bars close here about 11pm but we stayed in there til 1am and I don't think the Nepalese staff were very happy. I was really embarrassed to stay in there but these 'tourists' just don't care! 'TOURIST!'

This morning at the hostel I met another volunteer who arrived this morning and guess where she is from......MAIDSTONE in KENT! She's been living in France though for the last 5 years though but STILL! She's really nice and I will be with her at the orphanage with the 42 children as well. None of the volunteers other than Faith - who left this afternoon- is staying for 3 months in Nepal so looks like I'll be meeting new volunteers and saying goodbye to others all the time that I'm here.

I haven't had ANY MEAT here since I arrived because I was not liking what I saw when walking in Kalanki (near the hostel). The meat we saw being sold just sat on a sidetop of a shop with flies all around in THE HEAT next to the ROAD which is packed with polluting cars and buses. The hostel food is ok - so far we have had rice and vegetables, chips and vegetables, pasta. Where is the Nepalese food?! We asked them about it today and they said they would let us have it about 2 times a week only? They seem to think they are doing us a favour as we will be eating Nepalese food with our host family and we may be bored of it? NOT ME! The food that the hostel staff eat looks amazing, while we are eating CHIPS AND RICE! I wonder whether OUR money pays for their FOOD!

By the way, for some reason I can only send SMS text messages to UK mobile numbers beginning with 07779 or 07773 - don't ask. So if you are one of those lucky people with these lottery mobile numbers, let me know!

Byeeeeeeeeee for now!