Namaste brothers & sisters!

It's very difficult to get connected to the internet here in Nepal. Kathmandu is a city that is often without power and generators are limited to very high end places. In fact, this place is often without many things we take for granted. Electricity, clean water, decent sanitation, maintained roads... And that's just some of the more basic needs. It's an incredibly dusty smoggy place, which can best be viewed from a surrounding hill or even better, the rather beautiful Swayambhu temple. It looks like mist except it's more orangey brown. People cough and splutter just like the traffic. Twelve times the WHO recommendation on maximum levels of carcinogenic hydrocarbons and smog forming nitrous oxides! Apparently the petrol is cut with cheaper kerosene, with the Gov's Nepal Oil Corporation taking more than it's fair share of the deal, and in turn reaching the pockets of political pay offs. It's definitely starting to take it's toll on my lung capacity and together with the dust, irritates the eyes making the wearing of contact lenses a very painful experience. We now all wear masks (apart from Lee). Not this prevents being covered in a film of orange dust even on the shortest of excursions. Long term health outcomes are not favourable in this city. In the 1870s,a British surgeon in residence referred to Kathmandu's public health as “built on a dunghill in the middle of latrines”. Harsh yes, but multiply that population by more than a century of population growth and you can understand why sometimes it's very difficult to breathe in here.

So, back to the issue of corruption, since this is at the heart of so many problems that this country faces. Nepal has the honour of being the biggest foreign aid recipient per capita in the world, and yet very little of this money makes it to the intended end point. Despite huge foreign investments to develop irrigation and hydro electric power (the country has the capacity to produce enough energy from hydro electric power to support the British Isles) there has been limited success and Kathmandu has no power for huge portions of the day and night. As for the big aid agencies, name any of them.... UNICEF, UNIDOC, Save the Children, they all have an equally poor reputation here – might be something to do with living in huge secure mansions and driving about in their SUVs that seem to be essential to the aid workers (and diplomats) lifestyle here. Although the roads are shocking and it's probably one of the few places in the world where an SUV is really necessary if you want to go anywhere off the main highway.

Ask anyone here why that is and they will all give the same answer. There are many arteries bleeding money away from the people. Corruption is rife. In business and politics and foreign aid. Government and non-government organisations. Money is siphoned off here there and everywhere. This is a country that has moved from self sufficiency to cash crops that mean there is no longer enough food produced here to feed people and reliance on imports means the poor get poorer. The government made a deal with India and they take a big share of the water. Charitable work here is challenging and often corrupted too. We have been hanging out with our new local friends in Kathmandu and there are stories abound that would break your heart several times over. It is a hard life for many here, and the dignity and peaceful nature of people that shines through makes you question the very fabric of your own life and what we think is important.

It's certainly a big change from our rather luxurious holidaying in Sri Lanka and Maldives. But a good one and in all honesty, we did not feel so comfortable and as at home as we do here. This is mostly down to our wonderful new friends Parina (from the Tarai originally and now runs a drug treatment and rehab centre for women), Bijay (our mohawked friend from Pokhara, works as a tattoo artist and helps Parina at the centre) and Brooke (volunteer worker, originally from Oz and enroute to London to work as a teacher). We feel so lucky to have met Parina, Brooke and Beej. They have opened their hearts and home to us and made us feel so welcome and cared for. The children are really happy here and Tevo said he feels completely at home. Thanks to making local friends, we have rented a great apartment and have been escorted around this bonkers city, learning snippets of Nepali, dodging traffic, munching on momos and visiting amazing shrines and temples.

A small world moment. I'm wandering around the hugely impressive 130ft stupa at Boudhanath and I bump into friends from the Manchester Buddhist Centre! A totally unexpected but lovely surprise to be hugging a friend from Manchester next to one of the biggest stupas in the world. Unfortunately we didn't manage to meet up again but we will meet up again at home and I'm looking forward to hearing about their Buddhist pilgrimage across India and Nepal.

The temples of Kathmandu are very impressive. We climbed 304 steps up to Swayumbhunath, watched the world go by from atop. The cultural embrace of buddhist and hindu beliefs and worship is fascinating. For hindu, buddha is an incarnation of vishnu (one of the hindu holy trinity – kind of). However most hill tribes are actually buddhist, as many are mongol or tibetan descent. Before the enforced borders, most hill tribes were nomads wandering back and forth from the Tibetan plateau, down the mountains with their yak herds. Apparently it was the humble potato that led to their settlement. The sad fact is that now people cannot make their pilgrimages any longer, thus ending a thousand or more years of their freedom to roam.