Civil wars, doncha just love 'em?

The flight to Muscat is pretty boring, but at least I have about two million channels on the seatback TV and can pic the tedious Hollywood romcom of my choice (so keen on offering a plethora of choice are Gulf Air that I could instead pick an Arabic, Hindi, Malayalam or Philipino romcom if I wanted).

I have a four hour stopover in Muscat, which turns into an eight hour stopover with no explanation. Should you ever be tempted to get delayed in a Middle Eastern airport I wouldn't recommend Muscat, there is not much to do. Although signs did apologise for our inconvenience while terminal building works (make your own jokes) are carried out. So perhaps by the time you visited they'd have an enormous amusement park or something.

We arrived at Kathmandu airport somewhat later than planned. But I have to say it was all pretty painless. I've just noticed I'm switching my tenses seemingly at random, sorry about that, I'm not going to be proofing this so you'll just have to cope. Only my fellow pedants will even notice anyway...

Right, airport, getting a visa and changing money, etc are incredibly easy and straightforward. It's a tiny airport. I spurn the taxi touts and get on a special minibus. Slightly worryingly this has a big banner saying 'Tourist Only' on the front and five uniformed police officers inside. Ho hum.

Kathmandu looks smoggier than I imagined but you can see the mountains ringing the valley and it smells just like India. You know how you can't recall a smell when you're not smelling it? Not like you can call to mind a song or a picture. But then when you smell it again you recognise it utterly.

I got dropped near the centre of touristville, sadly one street East of where I thought I was, necessitating quite a lot of walking around and covertly checking the map until I got to the hotel I was heading for. Hurrah for walking from one side of Britain to the other carrying a rucksack! Before Hadrian's Wall I reckon that would have been far more of a nightmare.

So, dumped stuff, had a shower, went and emailed Mum and Dad that I wasn't dead yet and went and got some lunch. After that I went to bed and slept for 14 hrs.

Getting up this morning was weird. Part of me seemed to be surprised, like, 'Fuck me, I'm in Kathmandu, how did that happen? I wasn't serious...' And the other part of me seems to think we always live here or something. 'Oh yeah, Kathmandu again...' I noticed that I have already clicked into viewing money differently, I thought to myself that 100 rupees was expensive for the set breakfast. Then considered that that's about 85p. And then I sat reading the paper they kindly provided.

There's something very strange about sitting in a garden restaurant with uniformed waiters, music playing in the background, etc, and reading about how the police are shooting demonstrators, the government has cut the mobile phone network, hundreds of people have been hospitalised, opposition politicians have been disappeared, food shortages are likely, the security forces have beaten up and arrested journalists, etc. And all in the strangely formal English, peppered with unusual colloquialisms, beloved of the subcontinent's newspapers.

I'm pretty impressed with the Himalayan Times actually. I thought under the circumstances the press here would be like in China, but obviously not.

Anyway, it's not half as bad as you would think from reading this stuff. I've not seen a single tank in the streets. Only two APVs, and as you'll know if you've ever accidentally strayed onto this subject with an army person, that's not the same thing at all!

There are quite a few soldiers (a surprising number of them women) in outfits of a strange blue camouflage fabric. It's possible they aren't soldiers but some sort of riot police, as the police uniforms are blue, and what the hell is blue camo supposed to camouflage you in? Some of them have machine guns, but only the ones standing in machine gun nests at strategic corners. And some of the ones in the APVs. And some of the ones in other vehicles. See, hardly any!

There were two large trucks full of the soldier/police guys sitting by Durbar square. I assume they are targetting areas where they expect demonstrations to take place.

There are plenty of people in the streets just going about their normal business, trying to sell you carpets, guesthouse rooms, taxis to the airport. Yesterday afternoon at one point all the shops suddenly put their shutters down, which I took to be a pretty good sign to get inside and stay there for a bit. But as long as you're sensible and pay attention to warnings I don't think tourists are in any danger.

However, the FCO, curse them, have now advised against all but essential travel to Nepal. Do you think this now means my travel insurance won't cover me? Even though they weren't saying this the day before? Please no-one mention this to the parents as they'd really start having kittens then.

As I said, I reckon it's safe and I'd be quite happy to sit tight here for a bit, were it not for the fact that it's actually unpleasantly hot, and Kathmandu is incredibly smoggy. I want clear mountian skies and maybe a picturesque lake! Unfortunately I think travelling anywhere within Nepal at the moment could prove difficult. I reckon international flights are running, but I can't afford to get a flight to China until my next wage cheque clears and Delhi would also be disgustingly hot.

Also, I kind of feel wierd about being in the middle of this situation but totally insulated from it by virtue of money and nationality. From what I can gather the King dissolved parliament and seized power arbitrarily and has refused to give it back. The people I've spoken to want democracy. And they're the business people working in the tourist trade, not lefty students or human rights activists! But there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it without an unacceptable degree of risk. And tourists getting hurt would only hurt the tourist trade even more. But then, morally speaking, is not doing anything about it from here really any worse than not doing anything about it from the UK?

I don't know, see, I try to be flippant but actually there's serious stuff here... Amyway, I'm going to go and get a cup of tea and think about getting on with my sportswear articles, which (my apologies Liam) seem about a million miles away at the moment.

BTW I LOVE how because it's a blog I can put links in and stuff. Just you wait, if I can manage I might even put pictures in!