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Yesterday we became the proud owners of Indian tourist visas – this had involved 3 separate visits to the Indian embassy, filling out 4 forms and waiting around for a total of 5 or 6 hours. The process took over a week, and has kept us in Kathmandu longer than we'd have probably stayed otherwise.

During the last week the cables finally arrived so Drew had the computers networked in no time and the teachers were wowed by a document created on one computer miraculously appearing on the screen of another.

We have had a better week – whether this is because we are learning to let things wash over us more or because we have been busier and feeling a bit more like we are gainfully employed we are not sure.

Having finished the last post saying we were enjoying the food, as a weekend treat an ox curry was cooked up. Heather, having elected to be vegetarian from the start, was very pleased with her omlette. Drew, meanwhile, was already feeling ill before he had finished the plate of 'tough as old boots' meat. We won't dwell on the fall out but he has now told them as politely as possible that he would also like to be vegetarian!

Wednesday morning saw the largest solar eclipse of this century; unfortunately although the BBC World Service interviewed people in KTM about it, they only said that it would be 'at dawn' so we weren't sure exactly what time to look out for it. We peeped out a couple of times but it was a little cloudy and the sun does not come up above the hills until later in the morning. Later it was confirmed that it was not possible to see it from here.

The plan today was up early and quick march down the hill with Marianne back to Busti where we would pick up a bus that would take Marianne back to Ktm and we would get off at Charikot to buy some IT bits and pieces and make our way back up this afternoon. We made good time down to Busti despite the ground being quite slippery and Drew and Marianne ending up on their bums at least once.

After a slight mishap with alarms, we woke at 5.20 when we were meant to be meeting Marianne at the bus stand at half past five. Thankfully we'd done most of our packing the night before so we managed to get out quickly and find a taxi. However, there was nobody on reception so we had to just leave our bag of surplus stuff behind the desk (we had agreed with them that they'd look after it for us)... we hope it's still there when we get back.

Thankfully, as tends to be the way here, plans changed and we have had an extra couple of days recovering and relaxing in Kathmandu. This has mainly involved enjoying lots of good food, the odd beer and catching up with emails and the world at large.

Although we've said a couple of times that we were looking forward to the creature comforts Kathmandu has to offer; when we got our first view of the sprawling, polluted Kathmandu valley at 10.30 this morning, it was much more of a sight for sore eyes than we could have ever anticipated. 

Although we were planning to stay in Melamchi for a few more days to be here for the start of the Nara festival, we have had to change plans slightly to fit in with the start of term at the next school that we are going to, so today is our last day here.