Shortages are nothing new in Nepal. There have been constant petrol shortages, creating long lines of hundreds of vehicles waiting for petrol. There have also been food shortages. In parts of the country there were food shortages caused by a very dry monsoon season. Then the monsoon season came late and [...]
I visited the Narayanhiti Palace on Monday. The palace has not been opened long, so there are still long lines every day waiting to get in. I got there an hour before it opened to make sure I didn’t have to wait longer.
It was a strange sensation, to be honest. [...]
It was quiet in Kathmandu today. The roads were empty from trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles, and even bikes. The stores all had their shutters closed. People were out, not sure where they were going, but they were only out on foot. All other transportation, except for police and emergency vehicles, were [...]
I thought I would share an interesting facet of Nepal with you all today: Gurkha soldiers. They are Nepali soldiers who are recruited into the British army. They are not well known in the States, but in this part of the world they are well known, especially for their fighting prowess and loyalty. [...]
You reach a point when you’ve been somewhere long enough when what once was new and different becomes normal. When I first came here I was posting a new blog entry almost every day. Now its every couple of days. Things just become normal. I was encouraged by a friend when [...]
I met a new American family in Kathmandu Sunday. They are originally from Cleveland, but we will forgive them for that. The man, PJ, is interested in taking language classes at the same school as I. I invited him to come along with me today to check out the class. But [...]
I was abruptly awoken yesterday morning at 6:30 am by the sound of gunshots from automatic weapons. I was amazed at how loud it was. I heard it from the west and it echoed back off the mountains from the east. The shots were in celebration of Democracy Day (just one of the 53 government [...]
Its seems that Kathmandu was slowly being buried in trash. A group was blocking the roads to the trash dumps in protest saying that the government did not meet their promises to the people living around the trash dumps. So the trucks had nowhere to go. And when the trucks have nowhere to [...]
Today I only get 8 hours of electricity. Four of those hours are from midnight to 4 am. They won’t do me much good. Sixteen hours of load-shedding are what the government has ordered, for now. I’m sure in a couple weeks (if that long) it will go up to 18 hours [...]
The year 2009 is only two hours away here in Nepal, as I am ten hours and 45 minutes ahead of Cincinnati here in Kathmandu. Forty-five minutes? I know, strange.
But not as strange as the fact that officially it is the year 2065 in Nepal. Nepal uses the Bikram Sambat lunar callendar. [...]
