07 December 2008
During brekkie Scott helped out some of the other guests with camera issues. The problem with the new Olympus is that the cards and batteries just aren’t up to scratch.
We finalised our packs and left the hotel to move to the Kathmandu Guest House to join the rest of our trekking group.
The hotel has nice gardens but the rooms are very dark and not as nice as where we were.
At 1pm we met the rest of our group and our tour guide and got some very unexpected news – we don’t have to carry our whole packs, only a day pack and we have a porter carrying our main packs and I paid too much for the local payment and got a refund of USD200. Not a bad meeting after all.
So after the talk we raced out and bought a bag to fill up with stuff to leave behind and caught up with the rest of the group at 3pm to visit KEEP which is an organisation that is attempting to reduce the negative impacts of tourism and try to introduce sustainable initiatives – an uphill battle I think seeing what kind of mess the country is in.
We headed back to the hotel to re-pack the rest of our bags and then caught up with everyone for dinner at a steakhouse. It was strange that the meet was imported from India and the potatoes imported from Bhutan – why can’t people just use local products.
After dinner I started to feel a tad queasy – not sure if it is the food or the thought of the trek and Scott has a cracker of a cold.