Day 1 - Kathmandu, Nepal

Three of us from the Lauder Hindi track decided to go to Kathmandu for the July 4th weekend.  We arrived with minimal planning and two of us found out that we had to purchase visas on landing.  No worries.  We had ample money in Indian rupees, which I knew is widely accepted in Nepal.  Here's the catch though - the visas can only be purchased in foreign currency (i.e. US Dollars, Pounds, Euros, etc...).  And there was one more catch - denominations of Indian Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 are not accepted.  Oh crap!!

At this point it was like we had no money.  We had to withdraw Nepalese Rupees from the ATM and exchange that for US Dollars to buy our visas.  Quite ironic that in order to enter a country half way across the world, we had to convert back to US dollars!

After arriving at our hostel, we decided to go on a "Lonely Planet" walking tour around Thamel (the touristy part of Kathmandu).  We saw temple after temple - it seems like there's a temple at every intersection and two or three in between too!  Tired of seeing temples we decided to wander over to an intriguing ceremony - a Hindu festival celebrating children.  The kids were dressed in their best clothes and looked quite adorable.  We got to the epicenter of the festival and my jaw literally dropped.  We walked straight up to a live goat sacrifice!!!  The head was still being chopped off and the body was wriggling about - blood was gushing everywhere!  It was the most gruesome thing I've ever seen.  It was all a very odd scene - there was a huge line of children sitting on one side and blood being splattered on Hindi gods on the other side.

Even though we had lost our appetite, we decided to stop for lunch at a traditional Newari (Nepali) restaurant.  Our meal consisted of chicken, deer and goat.  Yes, we had goat right after watching a goat sacrifice!  For what it's worth, we absolutely hated the food and couldn't stomach much more than a few spoonfuls.  Exhausted from our travels, we returned back to our hostel for a long nap, only waking up in the evening for a proper meal - this time for Thai food at the Yin Yang restaurant.