What I Like abt this Place so far…
The Weather: Lucky to Esc Chennai this part of the year
The food: Only the local Newari food and nothing else!!!
The Foreign Exchange: Indian rupee is valued more and when I buy coke for 8 Nepali rupees; I feel I saved some money
The Apples: So delicious, I finish one apple in like 5 seconds!!! Yumm!!!
Star Movies and Star sports and ESPN and HBO and….WOW
Wine: Some nice wine… originals, from France and Australia… I’ve almost become an amateur wine taster… I know the difference between, Pinot, Sauvignon, Blanc, cheviot…
What I don’t like…
Power shedding: We don’t have power here 6 hrs a day
Food: nothing tastes good here except for the local Newari food
Escalators: No Escalators, whatsoever…. We need to use stairs
Internet: 10mbps… needless to say more
Police and armed men… all around
Newspapers, just 4 sides…4 sides’ man, that’s all.
Mobile Phones: I am still to get one… plus we pay for incoming calls if I get on.
Thats pretty much for now I guess, looks pretty balanced so I am fine…
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
The Nepali Experience 2 – Newari Food!
So it's been 4 days here in Nepal, so far it's a been good, lets see. The people I work with here are like millionaires, the company I work here is like reliance in India, needless to say, they have a lot of money and I get what I want( plus they are negotiating a $ 3000 deal/month if a I sign a year contract with them)
Forget work, Lets talk abt something else…
In Nepal you have a sect of people called Newari's, they are the traditional people here, my colleagues here took us to one Newari restaurant to taste the traditional food. It was a very small joint and we had a very traditional welcome.
They served us some starters, called Buff… and it's a tradition is to eat it with fried rice kind of a thing before they serve you a drink cslled "Piyala". They serve Piyala it in small clay pot. We finished eating the Buff Stuff and it was time for Piyala…
Piyala is nothing but a 100% stronger thing than Tequila!!! Shoot, it was just 5 ml but it was burning the whole time in the throat and in the stomach… It's such strong alcohol in 5 ml, and they say even kids drink it, its tradition to do it before eating Newari food.
Finally we started eating… they served too many things including a rice pizza… it was all fine… too many meat, I asked them if it was beef or dog… they promised me it was not beef or dog, as it's a crime to eat beef in Kathmandu.
So I ate a lot of this Buff thing… I asked one guy, this thing taste a lot like beef… he said, no its not beef… Its buffalo….
My god… We ate Buffalo… plus the fried meat was a wild boar!!! Pinky was so helpless… Lucky she didn't eat the Wild Boar at least.
However the food was really good and I don't know if I would taste this kind of food anywhere in the world. We also met a couple of guys who do Documentary films for WHO and Nat geo.
If everything goes well, we might even go to Tibet for a day or 2 with the guys here, Plus Bungee jumping is on the cards too… soon.
(* internet is quite expensive here and the bandwidth is also very low as I use a Wireless connection, so cannot post pictures… Sigh!)
Forget work, Lets talk abt something else…
In Nepal you have a sect of people called Newari's, they are the traditional people here, my colleagues here took us to one Newari restaurant to taste the traditional food. It was a very small joint and we had a very traditional welcome.
They served us some starters, called Buff… and it's a tradition is to eat it with fried rice kind of a thing before they serve you a drink cslled "Piyala". They serve Piyala it in small clay pot. We finished eating the Buff Stuff and it was time for Piyala…
Piyala is nothing but a 100% stronger thing than Tequila!!! Shoot, it was just 5 ml but it was burning the whole time in the throat and in the stomach… It's such strong alcohol in 5 ml, and they say even kids drink it, its tradition to do it before eating Newari food.
Finally we started eating… they served too many things including a rice pizza… it was all fine… too many meat, I asked them if it was beef or dog… they promised me it was not beef or dog, as it's a crime to eat beef in Kathmandu.
So I ate a lot of this Buff thing… I asked one guy, this thing taste a lot like beef… he said, no its not beef… Its buffalo….
My god… We ate Buffalo… plus the fried meat was a wild boar!!! Pinky was so helpless… Lucky she didn't eat the Wild Boar at least.
However the food was really good and I don't know if I would taste this kind of food anywhere in the world. We also met a couple of guys who do Documentary films for WHO and Nat geo.
If everything goes well, we might even go to Tibet for a day or 2 with the guys here, Plus Bungee jumping is on the cards too… soon.
(* internet is quite expensive here and the bandwidth is also very low as I use a Wireless connection, so cannot post pictures… Sigh!)
Sunday, March 19, 2006
The Nepal Experience 1 – Royal Nepal Airlines
Well my Nepal experience started even before I came to Nepal!!! I was scheduled to fly by Royal Nepal airlines, the local carrier to get the feel of Nepal, and my fight was scheduled at 1915. I was there in the airport from morning and was killing time o\in one of the restaurants in the airport before I went inside the airport 3 hours before.
The whole time I was in the airport the display boards and TV’s said the flight was on time. When I went in it said RA flight passengers to check in at row 4. I went to Row 4 and they were painting the area and there a sigh which read under maintenance, sorry for the inconvenience. I thought they would finish it, but it was going on an on and on… I asked the people at the airport and no body had clue about the departure of the flight!!!
Finally one sardar (never knew Sardar’s knew so much) said that the flight might have been cancelled and asked me to check with the RA office. I was so pissed as it was just 2 hours before the departure…
When we went to the RA office the guys there asked “do you have a ticket?” I was feeling so dumb as we were the only 2 passengers to fly that day… I showed him the ticket and then I was like, Sir, couldn’t you at least display that the flight is cancelled, he was like “we forget” Then he started calling the local airport authorities and started saying “obur Plight canchel” (its not typo, it’s the accent)
The he made arrangements to fly another local carries, Cosmic Air… Lousy flight, they might have used it in the second world war, We were in the runway, no jokes, for about 1 hour 15 mins to take off… the Nepali pilot would have said 15 time “ thish ish Captain Sharavanu and the plight ish taking op”
Atlast I reached Kathmandu, a deserted airport…
Keeping watching for more experiences…
The whole time I was in the airport the display boards and TV’s said the flight was on time. When I went in it said RA flight passengers to check in at row 4. I went to Row 4 and they were painting the area and there a sigh which read under maintenance, sorry for the inconvenience. I thought they would finish it, but it was going on an on and on… I asked the people at the airport and no body had clue about the departure of the flight!!!
Finally one sardar (never knew Sardar’s knew so much) said that the flight might have been cancelled and asked me to check with the RA office. I was so pissed as it was just 2 hours before the departure…
When we went to the RA office the guys there asked “do you have a ticket?” I was feeling so dumb as we were the only 2 passengers to fly that day… I showed him the ticket and then I was like, Sir, couldn’t you at least display that the flight is cancelled, he was like “we forget” Then he started calling the local airport authorities and started saying “obur Plight canchel” (its not typo, it’s the accent)
The he made arrangements to fly another local carries, Cosmic Air… Lousy flight, they might have used it in the second world war, We were in the runway, no jokes, for about 1 hour 15 mins to take off… the Nepali pilot would have said 15 time “ thish ish Captain Sharavanu and the plight ish taking op”
Atlast I reached Kathmandu, a deserted airport…
Keeping watching for more experiences…
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Boy O Boy... Time Just Flew...
Long Time I blogged!!! Not that I was considering to quit blogging, but I seriously had no time… and let me declare that I got married…and had a big honeymoon, a month long. I went to Goa, Mumbai and Kanyakumari…. Travelled real hard…All Trains ands no flying, helped me spend a lot of time with her!!!
Came back to chennai only last week and am sitting in Delhi International airport, en route Kathmandu, for a training assignment. Loads of Pics to be posted… and loads to write…to cut short a long story… Am happy, had a lots of fun…and back to work…which means regular blogging,
Would have something new to write everyday, as it’s a new place (Nepal) plus a new assignment I am looking forward to.
And to add, I have a Sony Cyber Shot 12 X Camera for pictures…my friends gifted me for the wedding…. Thanks guys!!!
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