The Service Expeditions: Mount Everest Nepal and on to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

Well, we have been in Asia for ten days and this is the first post from our NEW COMPUTER, the old one died on us on day one.

Kathmandu is still a very undeveloped part of the world. The roads are awful and the electricity is out for about eight hours out of twenty four. It was very hot but fortunately we had a great hotel called Hotel Friends Home. This is a must stay hotel if you are ever in Kathmandu.

We took the flight on Buddha Airlines to Mount Everest and the scenery was awesome. I will post some pics soon.We also rented a car and a driver for a day and we visited some of the many sights around Kathmandu. One of which was Bakthakur, an ancient city dating back to the eigth century. It was awesome.We then took a trip to the local burial place where they cremate about forty bodies in a twenty four hour period.On one side of the bridge it is the poor people that get cremated for a cost of $50.00 and on the other side of the bridge it is the wealthy people where it costs double or about $100.00. They first wash the body in the river then follow some rituals, then the body along with some hay and wood is cremated.  Next to the river, in about four hours the body is reduced to ashes and the ashes are thrown into the river.This river leads to the Gangis and this as we were told leads to Heaven...This was quite an exprience and the smell of burning bodies was not too pleasant.
On the other side of the river from where the cremations take place people can remember their lost ones by throwing sacrifices in the river in the form of flowers or food.  We saw a naked child swimming out in the river to get some of this type of food. It was very saddening for Alice and I.

We then flew to Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur was like getting back to civilization.  We took a nice historic tour of the city yesterday and today, Friday, we took an eating tour of Little India and Chinatown. We had a great time and finished with very full tummies.

Tomorrow, we have a flight to Manila. We are concerned about whether we should go or not. They had a typhoon last week which has left thousands homeless and there has been bad flooding. I called our hotel and they said everything was okay so we think we are going to risk going there  tomorrow. We will try to post again soon and let you know about that part of the adventure.