Katmandu living

Here in Nepal we are slowly coming out of the rainy season and we can now again see the mountains on most days. From my office that is on the fourth floor and further up the hill than our house you can see quite a few of the Himalayas so every afternoon is quite a spectacle.The photo below is however from our house and is taken 20 minutes ago when the sun went down.

Posted via email from Kathmandu living

This weekend was Tihar, one of Nepal's biggest holidays. As we had two extra days off Lieke had arranged for us to go to Pokhora to stay two days at the Shangri La Hotel and go on a two day hike to see the Himalayas closer-up. To go to Pokhora, that is a couple of hundred kilometer away from Kathmandu, we took a plane early Saturday. Most of the domestic flights here in Nepal are flown by small propeller planes, and the plane we took was smaller than most with two rows of single seats (it was one of Buddha Air's Beech planes). To go to Pokhora we followed the Himalayas giving us a first row view.
The kids loved the small plane as we could follow the action in the cockpit - It was a female first-pilot and a male second-pilot - the second-pilot read the paper most of the trip.

When we arrived at the hotel on Saturday morning the sky was still clear and we had an absolutely amazing view at the Himalayas from our room

The kids of course had to get in the pool right away. The water was really cold but they enjoyed it. Liva can now swim from one side of the pool to the other!

Later in the day our friends from Kathmandu, Martin and Karma, arrived in car from Kathmandu. We were planning to go on a trek with them for two days but first we went for a trip on the Pokharna lake in the early night.

The climb up to the Austrailian camp was really tough and Joop's small legs got really tired. Luckily we had quite a few people helping us so there was also a porter to carry the tired kids in a specially made basket - However the main discussions then became whos turn it was to go in the basket.
Joop was really happy when the basket was finally was to be tested.
Liva of cours had to try to see how it was to carry the basket (minus Joopie)
At the end of the day we arrived at the hotel/tea house where we had two good rooms. We arrived just in time as the rain started to pour down only an hour later.

We got up at 5.45 to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. Even when the mountains are covered by clouds during the day you can see the mountains on most days early in the morning. When the first light arrived the mountains came out of the darkness
Most of the mountains in this part of the Annapurna mountain range are by Nepali standard not that high, ranging from 5000 to 7000 meters. However, no-one has ever reached the top of the fishtail mountain due to the extremly difficult climb.

After watching the sun rise over the Himalayas we started the decent to the valley where the vans that would take us back to the hotel was waiting for us. It had been very hard to climb up but was equally difficult to to go down as the trail was very steep.

As on the way up, Joop really preferred to be in the basket being carried. She was therefore also not very eager to get her photo taken.
The views down into the valleys were absolutely stunning.
Even though the clouds came in fast we just managed to take a photo of the whole group in front of the Fish-tail Mountain - one of the mountains of the Himalayas that has still not been conquered.

Today it was UN day at the Lincoln School - As a multi cultural UN-family we were of course proud to celebrate the UN Day - The kids had a bit of a split personality with Dutch clothes and a Danish flags on the cheeks and had to have their photos taken with both national flags. We could of course also have participated in the US and the Mexican photo session.

Today at the School it was fabulous Friday and Liva's class made a show over the Nepali Tihar holiday. Liva and the other girls made a small dance and sang four Nepali children songs

We have had an extensive break on our blog – We have been home in Europe on Holiday and have returned with many good memories to Nepal again. The monsoon has come and almost gone again (according to the Nepali calendar the monsoon ends on Wednesday. And I have started to work, so the small family is busy – however, we will make a bit more of an effort to keep the blog up to date.

The biggest Nepali festival season is starting next week and as an early start, the kids and I went to Unicef today to have our new (or rather by now older new) car blessed. To make sure that you can get through Kathmandu traffic without injuries to body or car it is quite common to get a hindu priest to make a sacrifice for the car. Unicef used to sacrifice a goat but these days the have limited the sacrifice to coconuts. Anyway both out driver, Bickey, and out car went through the process and should now be blessed.

It has now been quite a long time since I last published a post here on the blog, but things have been quite busy here in Nepal leaving us no time. First of all we have had almost a month where we constantly had visitors - first Lieke’s parents came and after that we had our old friends from New York, now living in Hong Kong, Simone and Dominic with their kids Max and Jack. In-between I managed to get a bad infection in my knee and had to get admitted to the hospital for 4 days – However we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here so lets step back a bit.


At the end of March Lieke’s parents came to Nepal as a part of their Asian roundtrip to visit all their expat children and grand children. When they where checking out tickets in the Netherlands they found out the best connection to Nepal would be over Hong Kong, which made it possible for them to visit Lieke’s brother and his family at the same time. So they arrived here in Nepal after having spent 4 or 5 days in Hong Kong first, which turned out well for us as they had already recovered from the worst part of the Jetlag when they came here. Much time was used on enjoying the grandkids but we also managed to see some of the sights in Kathmandu.


While Opa and Oma was here I managed to develop some kind of infection in my knee and though trying to ignore it I ended up going to a doctor on the second day – After looking at the knee he admitted me to the hospital right away for bed rest and antibiotic IV – It was very strange – I have never been admitted to a hospital before in my life (I was even born at home so this was the first time I had to spend the night) and this was quite a cultural experience. No food was provided so I had to get Lieke or one of the Didis to come to the hospital 3 times a day with food. I didn’t get any visitors from all the “western” we have gotten here, but pretty much every Nepali that I have ever met came to the hospital (this includes our night guard which I hardly ever see as he is on from 22.00 every night). I had gotten a deluxe suite in the hospital, so though it was at times hard and I was in pain, I could unlike at home enjoy electricity and television 24/7 – So I came home fully updated on all my sit-coms.


With a short overlap with Oma and Opa (we have now tested the house for capacity and we managed to easily fit 6 grown-ups and 4 children here) Simone and Dominic and their kids Max and Jack came to Nepal in the beginning of April. With them we made an overnight trip to Nagakot and also managed to visit Bakhtapur, besides some sightseeing in Kathmandu. It was nice to catch up with them – last time we were together was in Mexico where we met up at clubmed. We still hope that we will be able to visit them in Hong Kong later this year.

After the Ciafardinis had returned to Hong Kong we took off for Bangkok. Due to the state of the health service here in Nepal (which I have now had a first hand impression of) it is fairly easy to get medical evacuation from the UN for procedures that is not done in Nepal. Last summer while we were in the Netherlands we had Liva tested for growth hormone deficiency. As you need at least two test to fully prove or disprove deficiency, and they do not do this test in Nepal, we got a trip paid to Bangkok (that is, Liva and me got it paid – we had to pay for Joop and Lieke combined it with a trip she was on the Kuala Lumpur). We of course almost had to cancel the trip because of the riots on Bangkok, but luckily the “red shirts” decided to stop their protest 5 days before we left. Much of the time in Bangkok was of course used in the hospital where the whole family got checked up for all our ailments (The kids for GHD and me for my knee). Luckily the hospital was very nice and had everything you could ask for, including a McDonalds which was a hit with the kids. We also managed to see some of Bangkok – We went up the river to see where I used to live, saw the old grand palace, went to a IMAX movie, saw the children museum and the Aquarium and even managed to go the Build a Bear workshop. Besides that we did lots of shopping – the deals were absolutely amazing. So all in all we had a very nice trip – However, the best part of the trip was that both kids were found to have sufficient Growth Hormone. So the doctor has now told them that they have to eat better, which of course gives Lieke and I much more ammunition when they don’t want to empty their plates.