Life in Kathmandu

Here are a few pictures I took the other day while Ryan and I were out driving. Right now there is a TERRIBLE fuel shortage in the city (it is not unusual for there to be a shortage but this is the WORST shortage Kathmandu has ever had). People wait in line for up to two days to get even just a gallon or two of gas. Taxi prices have skyrocketed and fuel is like liquid gold these days...everyone wants some. The lines make it difficult to drive around KTM (if you have fuel) because every gas station has mile long lines and the roads are not very wide which makes for a lot of traffic. Hopefully (but who knows...) the situation will be resolved shortly. Thankfully, we have a little bit of fuel to get us to places we need to go. There is also a photo of a big silver pot with steam coming out. That is a local restaurant that is steaming "momo's" (steamed dumplings usually filled with buffalo meat) on the street. Momo's are a very popular dish in Nepal and Tibet and you can buy a plate for about 15 cents. We don't usually eat at these places but if we are with a national friend we sometimes do. You can see little restaurants like this all over Kathmandu. Another shop has chickens outside in a cage ready to be sold for dinner. Thankfully there are grocery stores here that have frozen chicken but most nationals buy their chickens live and whole like this daily. Also, you can see a man on a bike riding along with the normal traffic carrying two gas tanks on his bike. The tanks are so heavy and we use them to run our gas stoves, gas heaters and water heaters so we can have hot water. They cost about $18 each to fill up and last about 4 months each. You can get a man like this to deliver them to your house for about 75 cents.