birthday crashers

'Royal Wedding Fever' has reached Pokhara, Nepal and we have front row tickets.We'll raise a glass to the happy couple along with two HUGE happy birthday high fives for Andy N and Hannah H whose Mums showed exceptional foresight in giving birth to them on a (now) bank holiday.

who needs Westminster Abbey?

a shave and a brunette wig and we'll have them fooled!

visitors from home-

You know you’ve made it in a city when you start to get your very own visitors. Okay, so Matt and Tania booked their flights to Nepal before we did, but that’s not the point. We spent a lovely day visiting Swayumbunath, the Bhuddist monkey temple where the boys tried to out photograph each other with their fancy cameras before sampling some of Kathmandu’s heartiest pancakes in a café at the top (it’s all about the food, still). Talking of which we had an early easter treat when M&T kindly smuggled some contraband cadbury’s crème eggs through customs for us along with the pre-requested contact lens solution and a new issue of Vogue (thanks guys). We were in HEAVEN!

quick! the girls are escaping

ever get the feeling you are being watched?



sorry Matt, there was a reason why we said we'd take another one...



on location

Ever tried filming a documentary in a rural Nepali village? You’d think it was a live outside broadcast on the Big Breakfast rather than a hard hitting film about child trafficking. Everyone and his dog (see the very cute fur ball ‘Mono’) turned out to see the luminous British couple with their film equipment.

the Nepali pilsbury dough boy

If you’re a really good boy Elliot, your godparents will bring you back one of these suits. How about that eh?
NB. This is what whippersnappers wear to thier rice feeding cermony, which is like our version of a christening.

flower power

Halfway up a very long hill on our Dhulikel hike we encountered these shrewd operators selling beautifuly rustic bunches of flowers. They managed to relieve us of 10 rupees and most of our stash of biscuits, but not before they had endured our pigeon Nepali for about 10 minutes, poor little urchins. It seemed a fair exchange.

"no really, you'd LOVE brixton...just sign here"

does this buttonhole make my head look small?

box of chicks

Okay, so they're not strictly chicks (they're ducklings) but we did hunt far and wide in a predominantly Hindu country to bring you this delightful Easter image. Hope you are all having a wonderful cadbury's creme egg-filled day. We're not in the slightest bit jealous. No really.

a breath of fresh air

Finally we managed to cross the Kathmandu city limits and visit the nearby mountain village of Dhulikel where the air was clean and the nepali tea tasted decidedly goaty. On Sunday we took a six hour hike to the nearby Namobuddha statue taking in an array of lush, terraced farmland and wild-west style rural villages where two white dudes in backpacks stood out like sore thumbs. We also happened across the best egg curry this side of Delhi while sheltering from (another) torrential downpour in a tiny cafe halfway up a very steep hill. Our fellow diners included a man in business attire with a laptop in one hand and a live chicken in a plastic bag in the other...



 ladies dancing at a local temple

 

sunshine after the rain

 



our schizophrenic hotel

landscape gardening

birthday boys

As well as today being the Nepali New Year of 2068, it's also the birthday of two of our top men so this one goes out to them, Happy Birthday Will and Karl! Right, must go, we're off to the children's refuge where we've been promised chang (the local millet brew) and a buffalo slaughter. What fun...

a camp tool box for a camp tool box (Andy's words not mine Will)

and for Karl, his very own menswear store....whoah!

cabaret academy

many,many,many, many fine new recruits

mother lovin’

Kathmandu's finest floral arrangement

In honour of all the Mothers, old and new, we’d like to dedicate today’s post to you. So…wishing Barbara, Lesley and Evelyn, plus new recruits Alem, Ashling, Hannah, Ruth & Emma a very Happy Mother’s Day.

love from Ronaldo the dog too....

it's not always glamourous being a Mum you know

holi sh1t

Our first weekend in Kathmandu coincided with holi, one of the most colourful Hindu festivals where people paint their faces then cover themselves, and anyone in their path with eye-poppingly bright coloured powders and pelt each other with water bombs. If you’re  ‘playing’ holi you are pretty much guaranteed to be covered from head to toe. And if you’re not ‘playing’, you’re also pretty much guaranteed to get a good pasting!

So, as seems to be the pattern so far on our trip when something big is supposed to be happening, Bella ends up falling ill. This time a mystery migraine and sickness bug meant that Andy was sent on a mercy mission to find a pharmacy – bearing in mind this is like trying to find a chemist open on Christmas day – all the while dodging renegade dye bombers perched like snipers on the surrounding rooftops. Luckily for Bella (who was by this time making her own rather colourful creations in the bathroom) Andy’s mission was successful and after swallowing two big yellow pills and one huge brown horse tranquiliser, the sickness appeared to be under control.

erm, ma bujhdina (meaning 'I don’t understand' in Nepali)

On our first day as volunteers in the office we were hurriedly rushed into the lounge for our first Nepali lesson. Our teacher, Mandakini, is very patient. Thank god. Having not studied a foreign language since secondary school there are many pregnant pauses and much  forehead rubbing. However we are determined to persevere, if only so we can have a proper conversation with Sunita and Babu (the highly-entertaining gatekeeper & caretaker).



the revised edition, only 12 years out of date...



the anti-Atkins diet

One great thing we’ve discovered about Kathmandu is that they love a good bakery. Andy was over the moon to sample his first sausage roll in months, even though it wasn’t exactly up to Greggs standard…

Our staple diet has become the Nepali national dish, daal bhaat, cooked by our ‘didi’ (meaning big sister) Sunita, which we eat twice a day here at lunch and dinner time. It consists of rice, curried vegetables and dhal and if we’re lucky some raw carrots and cucumber. The problem  is, it contains very little protein so even after a huge domed plateful, very soon you start to feel hungry again. And that’s where the bakeries come in handy...



Andy and his pastry harmonica



caution, sausage overhang!