In Nepal

Kathmandu! At last, one of the Big Five.

The "Big Five" are what I humbly consider to be the most exotic-sounding places on earth: Kathmandu, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Timbuktu, and, of course, Rangoon. (Though I have to give honorable mentions to Tangier, Istanbul and Patagonia.)

Anyways we've arrived in Kathmandu, it's incredible here, and our hotel has internet. Our hotel also put us in touch with a small tour company that goes into Tibet. We weren't sure whether we could make it happen, but it looks like we'll be going after all. Our Tibet visas came through more easily than we expected, and on a sunday no less; it turns out the tour company has good connections at the Chinese embassy;-)

Again, we're not entirely sure what our internet situation will be (we may be out of touch for a while), but here's a basic rundown of what the next month will look like for us--

Overland into Tibet Dec 3; we'll be back in Kathmandu on Dec 9 or 10. From Kathmandu, we'll be heading into India and embarking, more-or-less, on the fabled Golden Triangle (though we like to call it the Septic Circuit). We'll be traveling via land cruiser and (*gulp*) sleeper train with a few other people on a sort of shoestring travel-group-tour-suicide-pact thing.... going through Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, Pushkar... I think we'll be spending Christmas in either Jaisalmer or Jodhpur... we finish up where we started, in old Bombay (now Mumbai).

If I'm able to, I'll try to post some Hong Kong/Seoul blogs; they may be a little out of order...