The night before we leave

We're all packed and ready to leave at seven am. We've had a great two days exploring Khatmandu which is unlike anywhere we've ever been.

We have to keep our bags down to 15kg for the porters to carry. Each one carries 2 bags plus his own and does the trek in flip flops not boots!!!

We re all a bit nervous of what's ahead. Each days a short distance but we re so high. By the time we get to the highest point most planes would be pressurised there's so little oxygen. But we enjoy each others company and so far not seen any grumpy Yetis so we re all happy.

After nearly two years of planning we re about to start. Thanks for all yourmessagesand support.

Just Arrived !

So we arrived in Kathmandu about 5 hours ago and already experienced quite a lot! Managed to find our hotel bus amongst all the taxi drivers trying to get us to chose them, however we had no clue what they were saying! We then travelled to our hotel which is in the region called Lalitpur and all the drivers are crazy...most drive in the middle of the road just seem to force their way through the traffic which is one way of doing it! Our hotel is lovely, really pretty and in such a good location...there's even a swimming pool :D and our room is very nice too, we even have a TV (but not too sure about nepalese programmes!) There has also just been an earthquake which shook the whole building and as we are on the top floor we decided to stay under a door frame until it passed...still quite scary! Hope they don't happen too often. Tomorrow we are visiting the schools where we will be teaching and just generally looking round Kathmandu so we get familiar with the place...it's complete chaos! We know where some of the good restaurants are so we will get some dinner and then head off to bed as we only got 2 hours sleep last night.

We are keeping a diary of our trip on the following link: Joanna and Kate's Blog

Daniel Richardson's sponsored cycle

A big thank you to Daniel Richardson who cycled around Kileder Lake on 4th September to raise £76 for our Trek. Daniel (with his Dad accompanying him) covered 26 miles in a tiring day.

Well done Daniel (and Dad!)

More fund-raising

On Friday 2^nd September Johanna Sheehan of Sound Touch hosted a wonderful evening of sound meditation with gongs and Tibetan bowls in her yurt. The effect was to still the mind, energise the body and nurture the spirit. She kindly donated all proceedings to Nepal Schools Aid. Everyone who came had a wonderful evening and all felt the benefit.

Thank you Johanna for your kind support.  http://www.soundtouchforlife.com/

Marion says thank you to....

Saathi Indian restaurant

28 Priestpopple

Hexham

01434 603509

 for supporting Nepal Schools Aid. The curry night was a great success and everyone had a fun evening. The food and company were great. Their support is greatly appreciated.

What do the Cotswolds and the Himalayas have in common?

The answer is probably not much but we spent a great weekend hiking on the Cotswold escarpments, joined by John's friend Andy. We're getting there.......

Back from Kathmandu

At last, a little breathing space after a hectic April in Kathmandu running a teacher training conference and working around our seven schools. This was a “watershed” month for us with 40 teachers attending for 8 days with implementation plans being created in a number of crucial areas such as lesson planning and values based education. We have now started to tightly manage our schools with the concept of “climb the ladder of implementation to qualify for computers” being the basis of supervision, monitoring and communication. In fact the schools will be inspected in October to objectively assess who gets the computers! So, your donations are well focused and protected. We are currently getting final costings for the whole project and I will write this up as news when I have the figures.

From a trek viewpoint I had several meetings with the new owner of Sherpa Expeditions, the son of the previous owner, in which we thrashed out internal flight bookings, fixed costs, and which guide(s) I would have for the trek. The owner himself is leading it so I guess we got a good deal in the end. 

One small disappointment was the sheer volume of festivals being held during our days in Kathmandu which will prevent Gary and John from doing any work either in the schools or with teachers in groups. Never mind, they'll just have to come back next April for our annual training programme!

Brian

NSA Chairman