Nepal

Nepal has been amazing. It's a lush, mountainous, and scenic country with incredibly friendly people.

On our first day, we visited the royal city of Bhaktapur and the Bodhnath Stupa. We also attended a cooking demonstration where we learned how to make Nepalese momos (dumplings).

The next day, we drove across the mountains to beautiful Pokhara, enjoying the stunning views of the Annapurna Range. The mountains are lush and picturesque, with terraced fields everywhere.

A couple of weeks ago, there was terrible flooding with over 100 landslides. The roads in many places are in rough shape, so the ride is scenic but slow and very bumpy. We crossed the area where 39 people died in one of the slides. I even took a photo of a car pulled from the wreckage that is nothing but a heap of metal.

Due to my injury, this has also become a hospital tour. While others went shopping, our guide took us to a hospital for my first bandage change. I saw one doctor, then a second, and they then called in a surgeon to look at my finger. It is not a pretty sight. The doctors were worried my black finger was all dead tissue that would need to be removed. If not, gangrene would set in. The surgeon felt there may still be enough signs of life, so was comfortable leaving it for now, but I have to have a doctor look at it when we get back to Kathmandu. My fingers are crossed; on my right hand, of course.

We visited the second largest Stupa in the world and enjoyed the amazing views of the mountains and city below.

We spent a couple of nights at a Chitwan Community Guesthouse, so we could safari in the national park. We didn't find any tigers, but we saw rhinos, including a couple of moms with a baby. Norm went on a bike ride around town, and I went on a second safari and added a snake, monkeys, and crocodile to the list of sightings. I was happy to be able to hold my camera again. It's heavy and awkward, but manageable.

We had a very long bus ride back to Kathmandu. The road was very busy due to festival traffic. Dashain is the biggest and longest annual festival in Nepal. It lasts 15 days to celebrate the victory of the goddess Durgar over evil. A large number of animals are sacrificed, and people go back home for family reunion on the last couple of days, which is this weekend. The traffic was crazy, and many places in Kathmandu are now shut down for business as everyone has left for family visits.

The heap of metal behind the red car used to be a car.

A little street gambling