A busy day at the office

This morning I was going to visit the Volunteer Initiative Nepal offices which were about 2km from where I was staying in Thamel. I was up bright and early and wandered into the main area to grab some breakfast. I'm acutely aware that the diet both in Nepal and Thailand was sadly lacking in fresh veg and fruit so, in addition to taking my supplements. I'm also aiming to have at least a few of my 'five a day' this started with a fruit salad in the curry kitchen. When it arrived and I looked at the amusingly 'pale' colouring, the waiter said "sorry, we only have apples and bananas" nevertheless less it was more healthy than an american breakfast (though not as filling).

On my way to way to the curry kitchen, as is often the case, in was 'accosted' by a street seller, this one introduced himself and a "shoe doctor". Hen had noticed that my hiking shoes were in need of some attention over an above a good clean. Thats what you get spending days trekking in the deepest jungles of Borneo and hiking around the hill tribes of Northern Thailand. I hoping he had found some other custom). Quell surprise, he was still there when I came out so, good as my word, I let him have a look at the shoes. I asked "how much" and he was reticent to give me a price without a full inspection.
After sitting on a step in a small alley off the main street he gave me a could of insoles to put my feet on and gave the boots the once over. He decided that stitching the rubber that was coming away was the "cure". For this and a clean he wanted to charge me 950 NRP. About £9.00. "You can bugger off, I could buy a new pair for that. Besides , you said it would only take 10 minutes. At an hourly rate that is more than I used to get paid!"
He was clearly chancing his hand and as I was putting my shoes on he graciously accepted my only price. 500NPR, still not cheap. I was still concerned that stitching was not a good idea but he convinced me that he was the doctor, and if I was not happy, I didn't have to pay. Fifteen minutes later we were done. I couldn't pay him there and then he told me, but further down the road as he had sneaked onto someone else's patch!






After the shoe emergency room, I headed for a taxi to the offices VIN. It was only 2k but the taxi isn't cheap here and charged a couple of quid.
Now I know the way, which is really straightforward, I'll walk next time.

Once there, I met a couple of other volunteers, a really nice guy from Nottingham who was working in an orphanage and a really irritating girl from California who was doing something in health education.
I had arranged to meet the executive director of VIN who wanted to use some of my business expertise on a couple of things they had in the pipeline. By the end of the couple of hours in had agreed to look at the business plan for an orphanage they were planning to build and open in 2013. Bhupi wanted a document that could be used to "sell" the project to potential donors. I also agreed to look at another project and create the same type of document and review their funding model for the core business. I'm going to be a bit busy.

I was there most of the morning and left back for my hotel at around 2pm after having a delicious lunch of Momo's a steamed parcel filled with veg and a spicy sauce. Lovely.

I decided to push the boat out in the evening and have dinner at the place that served delicious chicken tikka masala. It turned out to be quite an enjoyable evening, a teacher from east anglia was on the table opposite and we ended up sharing a table and had good conversation. It wording though that I seemed to know more about English grammar than he did. After a couple of Everest beers I was a bit squiffy and made it to my bed at 10.30.





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Location:Paknajol Rd,Kathmandu,Nepal