Day 2: Kathmandu Airport

We arrived in Nepal around 3 yesterday. The flight was delayed in the air because of the bad weather in Kathmandu. We arrived and went through customs, which was crazy. You filled out a slip of paper to hand in. Some people even got their visas right there. We got our bags and headed out to our first views of Nepal, The mountain we could see was gorgeous but mostly there was just clouds and rain. We got on a small van and all squeezed in to head to the hotel.
The trip was only meant to take 20 minutes but the traffic was insane. Also the Nepalese way of driving involves beeping every 20 seconds or so for no particular reason and getting as close as possible to the other cars, mopeds, bikes and people. This gave us all an opportunity to see some of Kathmandu. There is trash absolutely everywhere in huge heaps and just tumbling into the river (the Ganges) from a makeshift dump, which people seem to live on. The smell is something that I have never experienced before. Unbelievable. Human waste, rotting food, trash and animal carcasses are piled by the side of the road and sometimes set alight to dispose of them.
We were running late when we got to the Hotel Tibet. We quickly got our room numbers (rooming with Naomi) and went off to the tourist district to exchange money and rent/hire equipment. It took ages to get there mainly to the horrendous pavement which at times was just mud and huge holes. When we first started walking George spotted the groups of huge bats flying overhead which were soon only feet from our heads as they dove across the main road and into trees. The sound and smell of the bats led to much ducking on our part. Sadly on the way to dinner Rachel fell in a hole more than 5 ft deep on the sidewalk because there are no lights on the street to speak of. She wasn't hurt but sadly the hole was filled with something and thus she had to go back to the hotel shower and change, our first introduction to always wearing shoes and watching where you step on Kathmandu's sidewalks.
To give you some idea of the money in Nepal, for every pound we exchanged we got 112.5 Nepalese rupees. Fun fact: It is illegal to be in possession of Nepalese currency outside of Nepal. We arrived at the restaurant near 10 to meet the other group and some leaders from Childreach. Headed back to the hotel to take our last real shower for awhile and headed to bed way past midnight, off to Lukla tomorrow!!!