Day 2

The day started early, 6am. After a strange breakfast of toast, sesame seed cake, mango and a banana I headed off into the city in search of a sim card. I found the NCell shop on the door step of the hotel, unfortunately it was closed until 10am. I looked every inch the stranger in a new country: pale skin, clean clothes, camera in hand and totally disorientated. Fortunately, I met an Australian and Spanish pair of seasoned travellers who offered to guide me to the nearest tourist information office. After 20mins of dodging mopeds, pedestrians and cows I arrived at the grand tourist information office to find they only sold trekking passes. I headed off solo in search of the elusive SIM card. Crossing roads in Katmandu requires nerves of steel, split second timing and quick turn of pace. On my first crossing I realised I needed to sprint to get past an oncoming moped. I accelerated quickly and made it to the other side safely, phew! When I got the next junction I reached into my cargo pants, for my Lonely Planet guide book, and realised it had fallen out. It must have happened during my sprint to safety at the previous junction. I was in a strange city with no guide book, no map and no phone signal to get Google maps. I carried on walking relying on my innate sense of direction. I walked through the the amazing streets of Katmandu for three hours. The sights, sounds and smells were amazing. Despite the volume of people, I was only harassed a couple of times in the main tourist area of Thamel, for the rest of my walk the people just got on with their daily business of overloading their bicycles, selling food and speaking on mobiles. Three hours walking the streets and still no sim card shop. I saw a cafe with free wifi and decided to regroup. I logged onto google maps and saw I was a fair way from the hotel. I met an old British mountaineer who looked like he had sumitted Everest in the era of Bonnington and spoke to him of the merits of SIM cards, dongles and wifi.

I made my way back to the hotel and found the same Ncell sim card shop I had visited in the morning. They told me I would need passport sized photos, a copy of my passport and two finger prints before they would let me buy a sim. I decided for the full monty of mobile communication. A sim for phone calls, a sim for 3G data and a sim and dongle or the Assus Transformer. I tested the voice sim with a call to Jill, used the 3G sim to acess my email and plugged in the dongle. Tech warning. If you don't like Tech speak please ignore the next sentence.. Because the Assus runs on Adroid and not Window or MacOS the dongle did not work. Never mind. I can put the sim form the dongle in the iphone and get the dongle unlocked for home use. Android 0 Apple 1.

I'm about to meet my fellow trekkers in the hotel lobby. Thank you for all the generous donations to the "Make a Wish Foundation" please pass on the blog and fund raising details to friends and family. Simon