From the tiny window of the Royal Nepalese Airlines flight I see a floating cloud in the distance. I squint to make out the details and come to realize that it is not a cloud at all. Instead it is the white snow capped peaks of the Himalayas. I shift in my seat with excitement and quickly reach for my camera while simultaneously trying to get Christine’s attention. “Those are just clouds” she tells me. Right. Did someone forget to put their contacts in?

Kathmandu appeared beneath a layer of white clouds. The landscape is surprisingly green. The city itself seems more spread out than what I had imagined for the capital of a country. Rather than building up like most big cities Kathmandu has only low buildings.

Upon landing, we come to find that there is no ATM. The visa for Nepal is 35 US dollars for some reason they don’t take their own currency. Even if you were to have Nepalese Rupees you had to convert it over to US dollars or Euros. Since neither Christine nor I have any cash on us, they let us outside the airport to use the lone ATM located just outside the main gate, which we come to discover doesn’t work.

While outside we get approached by a horde of taxi drivers asking us where we want to go. One of them offers to pay for our visa and gives us several thousand Nepalese Rupees to change to dollars. We get back through several checkpoints back to the immigration counter and purchase our Nepalese Visa.

It is already starting to get dark by the time we get into town and we decide to stay at the first guesthouse that we are taken to. The room is nice and has an excellent view into the courtyard. We are both exhausted from not getting much sleep the last few days. After a quick cold shower I crash hard and get some of the best sleep in my life.

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