Monday, January 25, 2010

Moving On


So this will be my second time writing this entry, and the first one had pictures and a movie! Unfortunately the internet and the power have been slightly unreliable, and despite the setbacks I'll get some pics and movies up someday...just not today it seems. So anyway on to the post.


No word on our bags yet, but I'm not going to dwell on it too much, you do what you can and the rest is out of your hands. With our small compensation amount given to us ($50/each) we set out yesterday to buy some clothes, since we had the same thing on for like 4 days. Buying clothes made for Asian people when you are of European descent is not always easy, and the selection was not things I would normally buy, but oh well. Much harder for woman I think, so I won't complain. The upside was that we got to drive around a bit of Kathmandu and see some of the larger shopping areas. Going through one of the grocery areas I was surprised and delighted to see many items I had thought I would have to give up; Tabasco (!!!!), Cheddar Cheese, feta cheese, Salsa, Olives, olive oil, Balsamic Vinegar, and plenty of other things that had been staples in my kitchen. Yay! We also spotted the rumored KFC and Pizza Hut, but I'm not in a hurry to go to either. I've read a place called Fire and Ice serves up really good New York style pizza if I get a hankering for it.


Between these stops and going to the Air India office we got to drive around quite a bit and get a feel for the driving. No way will I ever drive here. Traffic consists of motor bikes, bicycles, cars, pedestrians, dogs, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, vans and the odd cow chicken or goat. Traffic supposedly keeps to the left side of the road (Brit style) but really it just moves anywhere it can fit. Everything seems to come from all sides at all times and aside from constant signalling via horns and headlights I can't distinguish any real rules to the road, and also note that the roads are constrained, no wider than many people's drive ways in the US. Despite the apparent unorchestrated chaos they call traffic, it all does seem to flow (all be it at a slower pace) without any incidents. You would think after watching it for just an hour or so you would witness a fatality, but I haven't, nor have I seen an accident.


As mentioned I had video of the traffic, and a pic of KFC, but they are on my laptop, which is across town atm. Maybe I can get them loaded in an update. Another positive note is that I got my GPS device to finally lock on some satellites and figure out I was in a different hemisphere, it kept trying to acquire believing I was still in Westbrook. With this I plan on geo-referencing a lot of our pictures and mapping where we are staying and visiting. Those of you who don't have google earth, get it HERE!

UPDATE: Picture added, video is too big to upload on this connection,

1 comment:

  1. That is too bad about the luggage. I decided that I could never drive in Asia. China was chaos and Thailand and Cambodia not much better.

    My computer died. I got a virus warning then a continuos reboot cycle. I reinstalled windows and am starting again. So far I cannot get the system to recognize my vodeo cards or my Wi-FI card. I also used some files from the windows.old file for better or worse.

    ReplyDelete

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