Cycling in the Valley

There was a public holiday in Nepal on Tuesday, so the guys at KAPEG suggested it wasn’t worth heading up to Dhulikhel until Wednesday morning. That allowed us some unexpected tourism time on Monday and Tuesday after a relatively quiet weekend hanging around Thamel. Led by Kalu (and his mate Paul), a former AYAD volunteer who one of the other EWBers happened to meet at the airport on the way in, Madeline, Di and I took off. Getting out of Kathmandu on a bicycle is seriously crazy. As Jai, who joined us later in the day, put it, “That was one of the most intense mountain biking experiences of my life”. If it wasn’t for the life-threatening nature of it, it might be fun. Although Paul thought it was precisely because of that life threatening nature that it WAS fun. At the end of the day, there IS method in the madness of driving / riding in the city, and you can do it in a relatively safe manner, and the general traffic speed is much lower than that of a typical Australian city, so don’t worry too much Mum.

Once off the main roads, the riding becomes beautiful – nice country roads with lots of small villages and rice paddies filling every other available inch of space. A few of the villages obviously had a thriving weaving industry as we could hear the clack-clack of the machines as we rode by. After Kalu dropped his original plan of reaching the original destination due to an inconvenient mountain, we decided instead to head to a Danish-initiated organic farm. This was the best decision that could have been made as it was a piece of serenity that couldn’t have contrasted more from the wet, muddy, exhausted group of cyclists that stumbled in.

They served an amazing lunch of pasta and salad that we could eat knowing it was safely prepared, along with the best chiya (tea) we’ve had so far in Nepal. We ended up lazing around all afternoon, then realising we didn’t really feel like continuing riding in the rain that was setting in, stayed there the night. Such a relaxing escape from the world… just what we needed before embarking on the challenges of my EWB placement.

The next day (Tuesday) we managed to pull ourselves away from the organic farm, after being joined briefly by a few other friends who took the easy ‘car’ option from Kathmandu. It had rained all night, but as we departed for the ancient town of Bhaktapur to check out its famed Durbar Square, it slowed enough that we weren’t absolutely soaked. It did pretty much set in for the rest of the day after we reached the town, so sitting at a café and observing the square from a café was the best option. We followed that up by a nice walk around and a long lunch (long as in, we had to wait for an hour or two for our food). It was fantastic just strolling around the streets where people were generally just hanging out on their day off – although there was work going on here and there, such as at the chook-slaughtering house. Interesting.

The ride back to Kathmandu took longer than we realised it would and it was getting dark as we finally pulled into Thamel after a long muddy sojourn around the airport. Being the intrepid travellers that we are (and inspired by Jai’s enthusiasm) we showered and headed straight for Boudanath – Kathmandu’s biggest Buddhist Stupa where the full moon is a special occasion. We were a little late for most of the festivities but still saw some dancing and plenty of candles in the serene atmosphere. Dinner again with the gang in a Tibetan restaurant followed by a walk around the stupa with no one else around capped off an amazing couple of days!

This was right next to the runway at Kathmandu Airport. Not fun.

Almost home.

Announcing... Our First Himalaya!

So today it happened... the clouds finally cleared long enough for us to catch our first glimpse of the Himalayas. It happened a few hours after we finally made it up to where we'll be living near Dhulikhel. The view from here is astounding - and will be even MORE astounding once the clouds clear properly. The mountains are 100km away and more, but we are still looking up at them.

Of course, the even more amazing thing that happened today was that Norah Lily was born to Ben and Sarah back home in Brizzy... we are so happy for them and sad to be so far away! See you in 5 months Norah!

First few days in Kathmandu

Landing in Kathmandu...

Mostly our days at the moment consist of sitting in cafes / restaurants in Thamel, Kathmandu. I’m sure a lot of you know it – it’s the backpacker area and the easiest place to find WiFi and a decent feed. I’ve been going through EWB policies / procedures / expectations with the other volunteers and meeting people.

Ride around Kathmandu – We also had a great intro to cycling in this crazy city when Jai (EWB field officer AKA ‘our fearless leader’ here in-country) hired mountain bikes and took us for a ride. The ultimate goal was the Australian Embassy, but we took the ‘scenic’ route along the river – and the poor areas along it. Amazing to see people spending their lives pulling gravel out of the bottom of such a dirty river. I also picked up some rendering tips (see below) - puts our Ross St efforts in perspective!

A short stop at the Australian Embassy for some of the group to vote, and to meet the first secretary. Fresh from a Baghdad posting, he was not keen to let us to far through the front door!

We also visited a few interesting NGO/projects during the day. KEEP Nepal (Kathmandu Environment Education Project), NEWAH (Nepal Water for Health) and another organisation who’s acronym eludes me at the moment. There’s a lot of good stuff happening here – a lot of huge challenges too. One of the guys that presented to us spoke about their work to stop practice such as the sacrificing of a nine year old girl that occurred recently due to a bad season in that particular area.

I've posted a few more photos up here on PicasaWeb (or see below).

Nepal

Election Night in Kathmandu

Sitting here in an Kaldis Cafe in Thamel, Kathmandu watching the Australian election results come in... wow. Sounds like politics is going to be even more painful for a while in Australia. Similar to Nepal really - neither country can work out who they want to be Prime Minister.

We've had a great few days meeting a lot of people - from fellow Engineers Without Borders volunteers to AYADs (Australian Youth Ambassadors - AusAid funded) to people from EWB partner organisations to other random travellers...

More soon!!

Nepal!

So we're off to Nepal for 5 months - as of August the 17th. Here's the rundown - I applied for a volunteer position through Engineers Without Borders and was subsequently offered the position which is a project commercialising a low cost LED lighting system in Nepal. Apart from being an incredibly poor country, Nepal suffers from 'load shedding' meaning that there can be blackouts for 12 hours a day or more. So having access to a really low cost lighting system that runs even when there is no power is important. There's plenty of options around for this, but KAPEG (Kathmandi Alternative Power and Energy - the group I am working with) thinks there is an opportunity to get Nepalis to manufacture something locally using some locally sourced materials - thereby stimulating the local economy and improving on the low quality Chinese imports.

Whether it's all possible... we'll see. But five months is not a very long time to find out. We spent last week in Melbourne with a bunch of other volunteers heading out into the field undergoing some pre-departure training. Learnt a lot and got to hang out with a great bunch of people!

We'll be located near Dhulikhel, about 30km from Kathmandu and are heading off on 17th of August. I'll be updating the blog along the way. For starters - here's a photo of Dhulikhel. More soon!

Why the hell is Brad Juggling?

A little update on the project I have been working on over the last couple of years...

Back to the Blog

So I think I might be posting a little more on here in the coming weeks and months. More on that later. First of all, I'd like to do a little catchup...

First of all - New Caledonia. Di and I used up a few frequent flyer points and ducked over there for a week over Easter. What an amazing place - closer to Brisbane than Adelaide!

Then there was a quick 2.5 week jaunt around the world earlier this year for work:

I don't believe I even linked to Borneo on here (Jan 2009):

That's enough excitement for one night.

Weekend in Melbourne... Happy Wedding Chey and Libby!

Chey Libby Wedding Weekend

Dear Senator Fielding...

Dear Senator Fielding,

I note your recent attendance at a conference of Climate Change skeptics in the USA and I complement you on your attempts to understand the arguments for and against humans-influenced climate change. However I would like to offer a perspective on the debate to which I don't believe you have yet been exposed.

As an engineer, I take a risk management view of these things, and it comes down to two basic things:

• Impact of Risk
• Likelihood of risk.

If a risk is of low likelihood, but high impact, then any engineer - whether running a mine site, factory or power station, will do all they can to reduce the chance of that risk happening.

What climate change comes down to is a matter of probability. Most scientists agree that the likelihood of climate change being caused by humans is high. However even if you personally believe the chance of this is low - let's say 25%, then given that the impact of climate change is massive, far reaching and devastating, I believe this likelihood still warrants urgent action by all governments internationally.

A few other notes,

• Australia is not going it alone - we are trailing many countries with regards to our actions on climate change and need to catch up.
• Even if we were going it alone, then that does not change the morality of the issue, and the fact that we need to take action, however small proportionally.
• The argument that we don't need to take urgent action because we are only a small proportion of world emissions is childish - on a per capita basis, we are at the top of the list, and I use the example of other crime - the argument that 'everyone else is doing it' has no impact on the personal or local morality of any issue.

Senator, please consider my arguments. I trust you will respond appropriately to this issue and work with the government to come up with a good climate change policy and emissions trading scheme.

Kind Regards,

Brad Schultz

More Dubai / Abu Dhabi Photos

A few more photos from my work trip... click HERE to go to the album in Picasa Web.

I only blog when I travel...

I still can't say Dubai endears itself to me... It's so spread out that it needs lots of big roads to carry all of the traffic.  To make room for the big roads, the city is quite spread out, which means it needs big roads to link it all up...  you get the picture.

I managed to get up on top of the Hilton - best view of the city I've had so far.  You can see Burj Dubai - tallest building in the world - back there somewhere, and down below in Dubai Creek, the old wooden Dhows which carry freight between here and Iran - they carry everything on their decks from cars to tvs.  Everything the USA doesn't want imported into Iran.

The above is the entree to the Syrian meal I had last night.  That bowl in the middle is Hommous (which I always get mixed up with Tabouli... if any of you can tell me why, that would be great).

Off to Abu Dhabi for the day tomorrow... bye all!

Chin up old chap...

Travelling again for work... this time it's the UK, Dubai and Singapore - two weeks in total.

The highlight really would have to be running into Prince Charles after being in London only a couple of hours.  He was laying a wreath at an Armistice Day ceremony.  I couldn't stop smiling.

Managed to catch up with a couple of friends in between meetings.  Had to buy an umbrella... act of purist optimism to have not brought one with me I suppose. 

Another Baby update...

Almost ready to go in the fish tank with the big fishies!

They Grow up so fast...

Update on our Angelfish Fry - this is a couple of weeks ago

Hail at Maleny

View from the place we stayed at Maleny - family weekend away with Mum/Dad/Sis/Bro/sis-in-law

While the hailstorm was still hitting

All the cars had a bit of damage - big crack in our windscreen, but I think that's all as it was under a tree. Quite exciting really...

Check out our Babies!!!

They are Angel Fish in case you were wondering...

Gav and Mel's Wedding - Ballina

Me with Animals

Singapore Zoo