Visitors!

We've been back in KTM for over a week now, and have kept ourselves massively busy. So busy that I have managed to neglect my computer almost entirely, and have been a completely lame blog-updater.

In short:

The volunteer house moved up the street in Dhapasi (Kathmandu's equivalent to Lake Oswego)! Papa's House brought a large group of girls to Kathmandu from Narti last week, and they are now living in the house formerly occupied by volunteers and the boys. We're now enjoying luxurious three story home located half-way between the old girls' house and the property with the new girls' and boys' houses.

We've spent most of our compy-time writing up a report on our project in Dumrikharka, and refining our proposal for future phases. I'll post all this when it's finished in late March.

I finally managed to go kayaking a few days ago! In November I found a friend in Bishnu Gurung, who recently opened a whitewater adventure company in Thamel (www.adventureaves.com). For my 'free' day on the 4th he hooked me up with another paddler, Bijan, to check out a fun class IV run on the Bhote Kosi. This run flows along the Peace Highway that China helped build between Kathmandu and Tibet, and provided us a few hours of splashy fun. Never mind the adventure getting to and from the river took just about 36 hours.

Austin and Beth arrived a few days ago! It's been super-fun to have visitors from home (let alone THESE visitors), and we've been busy figuring out logistics for our trek while doing a little bit of sightseeing around Kathmandu. We've been planning on a summit attempt of Naya Kanga, a 5846 m peak near the village of Langtang. Ashley and I spent a bunch of time in early February doing pre-trip logistics work for this climb, and thought we were all set. However, in the last few days we learned we'd been mis-informed about the climbing rules and regulations about this peak (and nearly all peaks in Nepal). To do the climb legally we'd need a sherpa-guide, which would change the whole dynamic of the trip, necessitate a different climbing style (we were planning on short-roping the technical sections of the climb -- with a guide we'd wind up following fixed lines), and therefore also necessitate a full team of porters to carry the additional gear we'd need. After thinking about this option for about half-a-second, we decided to ditch the summit attempt. We're still heading up the Langtang Valley with a tent, limited snow gear, and plans to climb a couple of the smaller peaks around Kyangyin, but there will be no steep-and-snowy summits for us--this time.

Rabbit sent a bag of Stumptown Coffee over with Austin and Beth. We are forever in her debt :)

There is a lot of exciting and semi-scary strife in southern Nepal right now, and it's threatening to spread northward. We don't anticipate we'll be affected too much for the rest of our time here, but are keeping a keen eye on the news.

We're heading out eaaarly tomorrow morning, and putting off packing until the power runs out. Austin and Ashley are singing Flight of the Conchords songs to Beth and American volunteer Alex, while British volunteer Emma is writing in her journal, British volunteer Alex is laughing and I am desperately finish this blabber-blog before the power disappears.

We'll be back in KTM from Langtang between March 21st and 23rd. Soon after our return we'll be moving our stuff to our new April digs: a fifth-story apartment in Thamel in a building owned and managed by Sanu Kaji's (of FoST) family. More volunteering, exploring and kayaking will fill our time through the end of April.