Kathmandu

Kathmandu airport looks like something out of the 70s but it's a good solid looking structure. They don't give you a proper rubber arrival stamp, but who needs one. Instead the officer just signs the visa. I felt guilty because some guys got me a trolley and asked for a 'tip' and I gave them one. Maybe I would have stood up for myself it I weren't so disoriented.

The city is quite low rise. Virtually all of the buildings are 3- 4 storeys. They are even like this in the countryside. It's not overly crowded. The cars are old. There are quite a few motorbikes too, and at least people are wearing proper helmets rather than ice- cream containers.

There are scheduled power shortages. They generally go for a few hours everyday but I think the situation is improving and the outages are shorter which some days not have outages at all. Some businesses have generators to deal with the outages. The place where I stayed relied on a water pump to distribute water. So when there was an extended power outage there was no water. Some mornings there was no water to wash my face with- not very fresh at all!

There are petrol shortages also. Apparently some of the traffic is caused by vehicles lining to get into the petrol station when fuel comes back. It seems like hard and uncertain times for Nepal. The Maoists recently won the election although whether they won fairly or not is another question. Some young people I have spoken to believe that there is better opportunity if they moved out of Nepal.