Update from Kathmandu

What is going on – i can tell you! Went to the Indian embassy a few days ago. Need a new visa as the old one was only double entry. Have to go back at the 22nd – hope i get it than. If they do not give me one i shall get a flight to Thailand – or?? the Philippines?? Lets see!
Rita from Budapest is coming today – last time we had a beer together was in Bagan, Myanmar in December 2009 and than again in Chiang Mai, Thailand in January 2010. Small world after all.
The birthday of Knut – the ice bear from the Berlin zoo in Germany made it to the front page of the newspapers here. Strange but true! Today Assanges release is the top story from abroad today. Next to the plane crash of course. There is an interesting detail to it. The woman that sold the tickets was arrested yesterday. 18 ppl on the plane where from Mustang but they bought the tickets as Nepali nationals. Back home that would not be a big deal when you fly from Hamburg to Munich but here the flight would be 6900 NRp as they are foreigners instead of 2300 NRp for Nepalis. Yes they have the stupid system here that you have to pay more for a lot of stuff when you are not Nepali. Stupid shit but what can you do? Anyhow – some travel agents even sell you a ticket for foreigners and than let you fly as Nepali to pocket the difference – said the newspaper.
And there was another interesting article. How deep the corruption runs here. According to the newspaper the government spends something like 1.600.000.000 NRp for school books every year. Turns out that more than 600 Million NRp are missing. Teachers do report more children or destroyed books to pocket the extra money said the paper. Wow – so they had more or less no real schooling for 10 years when the Maoists had the insurgency going on and now they are short of books and that is thanks to the ppl that should teach them in the 1st place!

Apart from being very cold in the night the power cuts are really really annoying over here. There is a schedule for every day of the week and the power is cut 2 times a day. For now it is 8 hours. But next year it should go up to 14 hours a day! And this is the capital!!

Well apart from that – things are good and i have still friends here to pass the time :-)