Stuff White People Like: Nepal

Hello!
It's our last full day in Nepal and we are just on the brink of getting sick. We haven't been wearing our Michael Jackson facemasks so perhaps that explains the hacking coughs. Nepal has been great, Kathmandu is kind of a madhouse so we spent most of our time in Pokhara, about 8 hours away.
A few highlights: The first day we got here we got up at sunrise to walk up to the Monkey Temple. We thought that maybe it was named that to honor the animal or for some religious purpose. Oh no, it's named after the hundreds of monkeys that control the temple. If you've ever been afraid of swarms of birds as I am, you've never been swarmed by monkeys at dawn, pre-coffee. They howled and raged around us and all the Nepalese woman laughed at us as we tried to outrun them. The top was amazing - Buddhist monks chanting and monkeys crawling everywhere. We didn't realize it is the morning excercise for many people in Kathmandu, but it's like 1982 calisthenics: jumping jacks, touching toes, and twists. All of these are done with facemasks. We also toured other temples in Kathmandu and dined on delicious momos. This is high season in Nepal, so the city was somewhat swarmed with other western tourists off to the mountains and here to score cheap "North Face" gear in the souvenier shops. After two days we wanted to get a little closer to the mountains and to a smaller town named Pokhara.

In Pokhara we watched the sunrise (that's two sunrises, two more than I've ever done in my life) over the Himalayas and hiked through mountain villages. Little kids swarmed us and asked for candy and to take their picture. Then they wanted to see the camera to critiqe the pictures. Amazing. We hiked up to the Peace Pagoda and were warned about "evil jungle robbers with knives" - that was a little unnerving. Instead we opted for the straight route where 3 year olds were lapping us in bare feet.
Anthony went paragliding one day while I sat in terror watching the chutes all over each other on the mountain. It's not normal and I can't belive he did it, but the pictures are very cool. (Note to Anthony's mother: Michelle is kiding - there is NO WAY that Anthony would ever do anything like that. Disregard the pictures.)
We both got massages at the Seeing Hands Blind Institute. Some day when I can talk about Russia, Anthony can tell you about his massage. It's not funny, but it sort of is.

Next we fly to Bangkok and make our way through Cambodia and then to Vietnam in time to see my sister, Claire. We're very excited!

We miss everyone.
love, Michelle and Anthony