Nameste! when we arrived in Gorahkpur we were swarmed by the notourious tourist touts,screaming at us "sonauli!sonauli!!" we swerved the mob and moved over to the calmest bus driver in india, and booked a seat on his coach. we met some guy from israel, at one of the Chai Tea stands on the street and discovered he was comeing with us. He was older than us, and wiser with a greater knowledge of travelling, these attributes combined with that fact he was a bit arrogant encouraged us to think he was a worthy companion.

So finally the 10am bus departed, nearer to 11:30 and around 3hours later we arrived at the Nepali Border crossing. There is probably more security at the Odeon cinema screen 6 than this place, we literally walked passed the visa stamping office twice, because it looked so much like a chapatti stall. our israeli chum Den basically did all the negotiating for the bus tickets, and so with an hour to wait, we grabbed some food. the first nepali geeza we spoke to was in the restaurant, and ill never forget the first thing he said "welcome to Nepal, atleast here we wont try and rob you"..

..hell he was right. here we are in Kathmandu we travelled over night, which was a bit trippy, the bus was pitch black and so was outside, so you could see nowt, and i was so protective of the mozzies, i was wrapped up face, neck, head the lot in my new pashmeena scarf and tried desperatly to goto sleep. after stopping for some food, the remaining five hours i was gone, didnt really wake apart from the altitude sickness causing me severe headrushes and lightheadedness, and combined with the sleep i was basically hallucinating, bit strange. when we arrived at 5am at the bus station, stiff as a stick and it felt like id left my behind, behind,and they were suppost to be luxury coaches!. it was sunrise when we got there, and we jumped into a pre-paid taxi to the hotel.

The air here is so thin, its beautiful and the people are so much more peaceful,they seem to be a little nervouse when they speak, like when there haggling in india its likehe says 500 and you say 100 and you finally meet at around 250or whatever, but here its more like he says 500 you say 100 and he says ok.

i thought id want to goto sleep when i got here, but soon i changed me mind, we had showers and all our particulars and heading off to exchange our book of india for a lonely planet of nepal, and after that we grabbed a beer and had a read-up. As soon as we sat down, this little girl, no older than a toddler immediatly seemed infatuated with us. she was a sweetie and before long she bumped off her mum and came to coch' with us.her name was avianka (apparently inspired by the name of a columbian airline?) her mum was from queens new york, and she had a brother who lived here in kathmandu. we got chatting and he bought us a beer, he was working for the american embassy investigating visa applications or something.

he offered toshow us around his town, in his brand new nissan micra hah,(one of the only three in nepal..he da man!) he was a nice guy, and after stopping for more beers and helping me look for a cable for me mp3, the bossman,his sister little avianka, shayd and me bolted off to pasubaranat (or along those lines) we gad a nad day and great fun, and after complaining about the lack of food, he offered to take us to his house and show us 'how he do'. he lived in a mansion! and that wasnt even the main house where his parents lived. we had a right laugh there,and lucky enough to have the pleasure of getting pissed up with the Major of the Guerhka army of Nepal. after stuffing our faces and drinking copious amounts and chatting rubbish, off we bolted again, just the KathmanDon and us, to our hotel, we got lost plenty of times, wether he dint know where it was or wether he was just far to smashed, we arrived at the hotel. here we dumped the car and went to grab a cycle-rickshaw and have our own personal tour of Thamel hah,it was mayhem, we bought some beers and managed to score some hashish, and after getting the dealer to take our picture we went back to our hotel to continue the party. he was like the nepalese al-puccino, very cool guy.

finally catching up on our sleep, we set off to explore. not long after, we were apporached by some young chappie who persisted to blag us up for some milk!his aprty trick was we say a country and he was the capital.put it this way he knew more capitals than i knew countries.so we went off to get milk, which to our horror was near enough R.700!which is like 6quid!

its hard to find a real local restaurent, all the places are catered for tourists with outrageous prices, the most expensive thing on the menu hitting the 2.50GBP. finally we found some place down an alley-way which was real nepali food, dam spicy and dam cheap. we ate until we burst there and headed to a shisha bar. was good fun there and met some young ladies, one from LA and one a local nepali girl, lol what a night they took us to the Funky BUddah! what a crazy club, we were the only guys in there who brought girls with them lol and they actualli brought us. anyway all the the guys loved us westerners, everytime i sat down some guy would try to drag me up, and when shay sparked up, they would to, it was like a school disco, and just as fun! after around 3am, we chilled by a noddle stand with our new friends (after dumping the ladies) who treated us to more than 4 dishes, which i can assure you dint stay in me for long..whilst partyin on the street, we met some brazilian guy who was wandering around, and shared a bit of his beer.phew, got a bit carried away there, were looking into getting into tibet, which is proving very difficult, but our next stop is pohkara which the bus leaves tomorrow, and then by sunday were gonna start our trekking for 6days! aye, cannae wai'!. will write up then