May 4, 2004 - We Arrive in Kathmandu

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It’s May 4th and the Berg Adventures Everest Base Camp Trek for this pre-monsoon spring climbing season is underway. Maggie flew in via London a couple of days ago to Katmandu. Fiona arrived, having left Toronto and stopped to visit the Taj Mahal in India before she arrived yesterday morning, and last night Lee, Bob and Amy all arrived.

This morning we were met as usual by Professor Krishna Dhakal for our city tour and Shital came along as well today and the group is off. The first stop will be the Swayambhunath or the ‘Monkey Temple’. Today is a Buddhist festival or holiday, Buddha Jainti and it is a really special day for Buddhists worldwide, certainly in Nepal. It is going to be a very festive day, especially at Swyambhu where the group will go first, later at Boudhanath and of course they’ll probably stop by Pashupati, the famous Hindu temple in the valley today as well.

We are off to Lukla tomorrow, we’ve got some packing to do this afternoon but the group is not going to miss an opportunity to get exposed to this valley and learn from Krishna. Maggie and Shital are already doing Nepalese language lessons as they ride around in the bus between the sites of the valley, so it’s going to be a great day.

We are happy to be together and underway, great adventures ahead and this day in Katmandu should be a good start.

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