Back to Kathmandu

It was with no little concern that I found myself back on a Gulf Air plane back to Nepal. Despite all our efforts at Christmas, and all Nir Lama’s considerable efforts over the following weeks and months, with 3 weeks to go we still hadn’t been re-granted full permission. We had individual permissions from just about every relevant ministry in the Nepali Government, but were being floundered by some corrupt politicians and the sticky power-share arrangement currently in power.

I’ve actually been stressing this ever since Christmas. The regular updates from Nepal have on some days been reassuring, and some days deeply concerning. Something I have not felt I can share with the rest of the expedition. Cuzza knows some of the concerns, but even he not all of them.

It’s difficult to keep this stuff from Wes. However, I am aware of his ongoing problems with anxiety. I don’t get anxious easily and some nights this keeps me up all night. Really don’t think it would help if Wes knew and the last thing I want is him getting sick again. Besides, unless you’ve been to Nepal and seen how they operate I think it would be too easy to take wrong conclusions.

Anyway, here I am. I love this City and it’s always great to be back here. However, I’d like to come back and spend time here when I can actually enjoy it!

So, the score is that various ministries now want to send liason officers, at our expense. The home office want to send security, at our expense. They also want a Royalty payment for each team. This amounts to rather a lot of money. Money we don’t have. So my job over the next few days is to negotiate all this down to something we can afford without blowing the permissions all together.

Essentially I am in a bit of a corner as if they don’t give permission in the end, we can’t do it. I also can’t reimburse anyone as we have spent all the money getting this thing this far. No pressure then. This will certainly be an interesting few days!