Expedition - Nepal Update 1

The UBC Research team arrived in Nepal at 11:00 pm on Saturday (local time). We are staying at the American Alpine Clubhouse in Kathmandu. The house is nice and clean and they make us breakfast and dinner.

China Southern Airlines: Vancouver - Guangzhou - Kathmandu: 20hr 55min.

The team includes myself, Martin MacInnis, a fellow UBC PhD student, Nadia Widmer, a physician from Vancouver, and Mike Freeman, a physician from Scotland.

Martin and Nadia at a cafe in Kathmandu.

We spent Sunday morning exploring the tourist district of Kathmandu called Thamel. We have a lot of things to sort out for our research like getting a hold of a large amount of Nepali cash and sorting out travel arrangements to the lake.

Eric at the monkey temple.

We took a break in the afternoon to sight see at the Monkey Temple just out of the tourist area. The monkeys seemed to be struggling against a large number of stray dogs that were taking over but we still saw plenty of monkeys.

Spot the monkey.

We have two more days in Kathmandu before we leave for our trek to the lake and the science really begins. It is exciting to be in such a different place I can't wait to do more exploring but for now we have a lot of work to do.  I am still recovering from my pre-travel cold but I hope to get out for a run tomorrow morning. Early AM is the best time as it usually isn't raining and the temperatures are reasonable.

Kind of a depressing weather forecast...