2011 Trip of the Year!

OK... So here we go. Updating on my latest adventure. I will start at the beginning - a few weeks ago.

April 28th - Day 1
Canada to Hong Kong
Great flight to HKG! Seeing as I was traveling with a friend this time (Jenn), I decided to try my hand at airplane pharmaceuticals. Normally traveling solo I would never do this, but I figured I could count on Jenn to scrape me off the plane if need be. ha! I've never taken Ativan before, but I slept about 75% of the way to HKG (15 hr flight) and happy I did. Wow! How much easier is a long haul flight like that when you aren't even awake for most of it??
Upon landing in HKG we made our way to the bus and headed off to Discovery Bay to visit some CDN mates: Rebecca, Mitch and their daughter Gabby. They got us showered up and then we hopped on the ferry and headed into the city for a day of walking around until our connection later that evening. HKG was hot and humid as it seems is par for the course. We visited a few neighbourhoods, a temple, and had a great brunch at a little place whose name I will have to ask Beck for later, but which had great food for me: gluten-free pancakes!! Oh yeah baby!!! I knew I wouldn't get food like that for a few weeks so I enjoyed every bit of them.
Off to the airport for our connection to Kathmandu, Nepal (with a brief stop to let some peeps off in Bangladesh - random!). Landed late night in Kathmandu airport, stranded since our hotel confirmation seemed to have gotten lost. Hopped a taxi into the city - eek! There were moments when my heart was racing as I had no idea where we were going, the streets are mostly dark (no streetlights), it looks like you're driving down back alleys, but it's just that the streets are really narrow here and the shops all of those garage door style doors all latched up for the night. Not fun, but in the end we arrived safely at the hotel to find there was no room for us. Not impressed, Jenn and I had words with the night manager and ended up sleeping in a hotel across the street which he said was their sister hotel. Who knows the story there. The hotel was dark and dingy and our room was small and old. It seemed mostly clean. ?? We slept in our sleeping bag liners on top of the beds. Interesting start to our little adventure to Nepal and Tibet.