Arrived In Kathmandu!

Hello everyone! Charles checking in here. I left Tuen Mun this morning at 6:00AM, to catch the flight to Kathmandu International Airport via Bangkok. The flights were fine; the usual delay in Bangkok, but nothing out of the ordinary. I arrived at Kathmandu (which is GMT + 5:45, so a few hours from Hong Kong’s +8:00), got my Visa, bags, and went out to go meet Muni. He was standing in a large crowd — there is a big holiday across Nepal, India, Bangladesh and other Hindu-majority areas this week — but I recognized him from the picture I saw on his website. He half-recognized me (not too many 6′3″ Americans were in that crowd), so I went up to meet him. I laughed when I saw the sign he was holding — it said “Muni” on it.

We drove in his Toyota Starlet back to his house in Dilli Bazaar Road, Kathmandu, and he showed me to my room. It’s on the fourth floor of a building he owns, above the Research and Development floor, the ISP and the manufacturing floor. Because of the holiday this week, the engineers and programmers are not here (they were all leaving just as I was arriving). I think that is something of a good thing; I have some time to relax for a week and settle in before we kick into full speed go. It has also given me some time to talk to Muni and his wife Nani. I have learned a lot about them in such a short time that I’ve been here; their English is terrific! I’ve also been joking with them that by the time I leave Nepal, my Nepalese will be better then theirs. I picked up a English / Nepalese dictionary, and I’ve been writing down what they say. It looks like the grammar is simple Subject + Object + Verb in the majority of situations, and I’ve already learned a few basic phrases: I would like some water, I am hot, my name is Charles, etc. Here’s hoping that I leave Nepal with some proficiency in the language! Unsurprisingly, many of the Nepalese words are similar to Hindi (I assume because of a common root in Sanskrit) — hello is “Namaste” in both languages, tea is “chiyaa” instead of “chai”, etc. I asked if counting was the same — “ek, do, teen, char, paanch, cha, saat, aat, nau, des”. It’s not…it’s “ek, dui, teen, char, paanch, cha, saat, aat, nau, des”. Practically a world of difference!

We’ve also detailed some things we’d like to do with the computers (which we agreed will be either donated or sold at-cost), and some methods to fund this philanthropic adventure. One of the things that Muni seems most interested in is constructing 3TFLOP/s supercomputers for usage in the largest Nepalese banks, hospitals, universities, governmental positions, etc. Hospitals can use them for medical imaging, Universities can use them for research purposes, banks can use them to run financial software, etc. The government of Nepal had a multi-million dollar supercomputer project, we can build them today for $9,000 USD each. Selling these would enable us to fund more of the low-cost, low-power computers.

Speaking of which, bringing the seven computers into Nepal was no problem. There is a slight problem with the WiFi that is installed, but we hope to sort that out soon. We will be dual-booting Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux to show prospective buyers what the computers can do. The native 12V DC input is perfect for this country, as the power goes out around 8:00PM every night; so many families have 12V deep cycle car batteries in their homes to power the lights or the heat or other appliances when the load shedding takes place.

I’m still using my phone as a modem, but we will be setting up ADSL tomorrow, so that I can post some more pictures and update this website more often.

That’s all for now.
Charles