Melbourne

The drought in Australia is definitely over. On both visits I've made to Australia in the past month (Canberra and now Melbourne) it has poured with rain. Water was washing down the streets yesterday.

Melbourne does live up to its reputation for clothes shopping,with stores ranging from high end designer through to cheap Chinese imports. Quite a few of the shops are common to both sides of the Tasman and prices are high. The malls were a welcome respite from the rain.

I took the free tourist tram tour, which goes in a circuit around the CBD, taking a bit less than an hour to complete the trip. That was a good way to keep out of the rain and range a bit more widely. I also visited the Art Gallery complex, which was mildly interesting.

The CBD itself is pleasant, with spacious main streets, a reasonable number of cafes (although these seem to be concentrated into some small alleyways) and lots of trams. The latter might be picturesque but are rather noisy. Overall the CBD seems small and compact for a city of four million. The Yara River is quite cut off from the city, with road and rail in between. The tourist sights about town are moderately interesting rather than spectacular, and most could be ticked off in a few days.

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Kathmandu Report

So yesterday ended up being a more interesting day than I anticipated. Took a bus (driven by a maniac) to three different sites with temples etc, including a really pretty lake which is said to be a remnant of the cosmic sea which once filled Kathmandu valley. The highlight of the day was a spontaneous caving expedition. That was so much fun! I am glad that I'm not bothered by small spaces as we were crawling most of the way. Six out of seventeen in the group backed out when they saw how small the tunnel was at the start and decided not to go. A wise decision since in places we even had to go on our stomachs and push ourselves through with our feet, or on our backs. I was right at the beginning of the group so I got the guide telling me where to put my feet in the tricky places, which was lucky

Today I am planning on getting lots of the drawing work done. I am using stipple technique which is extremely time consuming. It is taking me about five or six hours per drawing at the moment. I am hoping I will get faster since I have only finished two out of the required twelve!

Everyone in the group is sick at the moment. My cold is better now though, I just have a runny nose which will hopefully go away soon. Other than that I am well and enjoying myself. It is a really nice group and I have met lots of lovely people.

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Lisa - Wednesday

Just starting Wednesday. We are all meeting at quarter past eight in the lobby to go to the site in big vans. Today we are walking to another site after that. The first site is Kopan monastery. It is near the ancient city of Boudhanath which we went to last week. We are giving donations to Tibetan refugees.
I finished my first drawing yesterday. One down eleven to go! I also did a lot of shopping... hoping I can fit everything in my suitcase to get it back home.

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Kathmandu

That's right, we do get the weekends off. Today most of the group has gone off to do the Everest flight. I decided against it as I think it would've been too stressful for me. Hopefully they will return safely later today. In the meantime I am just chilling out at the hotel. I think I'll take some time out to catch up on emailing and my journal, and do some drawings and figure out my concept in more detail.

Yesterday we went to see a big Buddhist stupa. I think it was called Buddnapath or something. I'm having a lot of trouble remembering names here as they are all very long! We waited til late afternoon when lots of people walk around the temple in a clockwise circle - anticlockwise means going backwards in life which is bad karma. It was a really cool atmosphere.

I've come down with a sudden cold so it's good to have a less active day today. I'm feeling a bit blargh. Fortunately no food poisoning thus far. The guy who was pointedly eating meat got sick a couple days in. I think I'll stick to vegetarian. The food here is actually delicious - they have Indian style curry and naan, and also usually a mix of other Asian foods like chow mein and tempura. The shopping is also awesome, though it's a bit hit and miss whether you end up with a tourist price or one that's actually decent.

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Arriving in Kathmandu

Now have made it to kathmandu, though landing was a bit exciting for me... driving back from the airport was a shock. It is definitely a third world country. Thamel is really nice though - that's the tourist part where we are staying. I tried to text you when I first got in but it isn't delivering texts in spite of having full reception... not too sure what's going on there!

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Lisa in Bangkok

(Lisa's on her way to Nepal, via Bangkok). Good afternoon! Or good evening to you guys - just letting you know that the new phone went flat and my adapters dont work in the Thai plugs so that's why i havent texted you! I've only just managed to get the wifi working.

The flight in was uneventful thankfully. I watched 3 movies and 4 tv episodes, didn't manage to sleep tho. 12 hours later we were in thailand! It's amazing here. We went out and looked at the markets and had a drink, its crazy busy. We're in the old part of bangkok with all the temples and the grand palace. Today we walked for ages and had a good look at the national history museum, the markets, Wat Pho - a temple with a lot of gold buddhas including one reeeeally huge one - and looked at the flower market which was really pretty. We also travelled in a tuktuk which was so so fun!

 One more day to look around Bangkok, then we are off to Nepal. There is way too much here to see in a couple days but we're doing our best! The floods have been mostly avoidable for us luckily. The area we're in wasn't badly affected.

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