Nepal part 1

Kathmandu, Nepal, provided us with challenges from the get-go - they only accept tourist visa fees in, er, anything but Nepali Rupees, and don't take cards - and my debit cards wouldn't work in the ATM. Luckily Kara's worked, though we got double whammied - bank charges for using her debit card, plus commission for exchanging Rupees for Dollars. Welcome to Nepal!

Kathmandu is much smaller than Dhaka - it seems all the streets are windy, and nobody gives way. Often a motorbike will wedge it's way in front of two cars trying to squeeze past each other, causing more delays for all parties, including the stupid motorcyclist. The city didn't impress - as part of our programme here, we got two afternoons of sightseeing around the city, but it just didn't wow us. Lots of people in the streets asking us if we wanted hashish, treks, taxis or rickshaws, lots of touristy rubbish. Some pretty run down looking temples.

After three nights in Kathmandu we eventually headed out for Besisahar, about 180Km West and a little North of Kathmandu, in a packed minibus. Luckily we had the two front passenger seats, so I had at least a little legroom. A few guys travelled on the roof, with our large backpacks. The mountain roads are just crazy - going the 180Km took us almost 6 hours.

Finally we arrived at Besisahar, where we were met by Wandi lama. He is one of four twelve year old monks we are trying to teach some English to. He led us up the steeply climbing path to his monastary, or gumba.

Ah me. When I said "yes!" to Kara's idea of teaching monks English I was envisaging some sacred place, an ancient stone monastary with quiet, dedicated earnest students just trying to get a more rounded grip of English, both British and American; people with pride, welcoming and serene.

What we got... is quite something else. The Guru of the place is still in Kathmandu with 6 of his students. So here we have the four twelve year olds, one fifteen year old, two eighteen year olds (who don't come to lessons), a couple of other guys I haven't figured out yet (who sometimes come to lessons for a bit). There is also the Guru's father and mother, I think, plus couple of women of whom one is the Guru's wife. Only the monks speak any English, and not enough to form complete sentences ("Sir, come!" and "Sir, want more rice?")

The whole place is a mess. The toilet block has no plumbing - to shower, you take one hosepipe and shove it into another one, and ask someone else to turn the tap on and off when you need the water to run. There is litter everywhere, from the town up the hill to the gumba, and further on where we have walked. Litter and discarded footwear.

The monks get up at 5am every day and play some Buddhist chants from really old cassette tapes out to the town below. Our bedroom is maybe 5 feet from these speakers. I don't think they are loud enough to reach the town, but they certainly wake us up. Actually that bit is fine, the chants are nice, and we're used to being awake at 5am and sleeping at 9-10pm.

What isn't working so well is the whole teaching thing. We have one lesson per day, from 12 to 2pm. Unfortunately some previous teachers seem to have paid for treats, bought them gifts and so on, so they are almost demanding the same of us. They have very short attention spans, and are of very different abilities. But they like the Hokey Cokey, which is fortunate!

Worst is the fact that, when we arrived, the boys had two pens between the six of them, no textbooks, and nobody to tell us what they had covered before, what they understood, etc - so we are doing this blind. Neither of us has formal teaching experience, though Kara is doing a great job with them - she is very much the carrot and I'm the stick. The older boys whack the younger ones on the back of the head to discipline them, something I'm just not prepared to do - though I did have to bodily remove one of the boys from the lesson on the second day - which wasn't good.

Some lessons go well, and they enjoy the games, getting things right, and they do seem to be picking up a few things, but being so completely unsupported it's hard to know if we are doing good things or not. We were expecting to be helping with vocabulary and pronunciation, not babysitting... Only a few more days here, though, then we go for a two day trek, see some eco-stuff near Kathmandu, and finally on to blessed sanity, sanitation, and sandwiches in Australia.