KATHMANDU
Trip Start
Jan 02, 2007
1
4
56
Trip End
Apr 09, 2007
KATHMANDU,
Nepal
Friday, January 5, 2007
(GMT +5h45m)
And I thought the Indians were being awkward with their GMT +5h30m! Seemingly the Nepalese have this time zone to show their independence (i.e. They're not India and they're not China!)
Leaving Delhi, on advice from the Lonely Planet, I requested a window seat on the left of the plane and was rewarded with some of the most spectacular views of the Himilayas peaking above the clouds for most of the 1h20m flight.
Having eased myself gently through the whole culture shock with my luxury hotel in Delhi, it was time to snap out of that buzz and take a step or two down on the accomodation front. I checked into the Kathmandu Guest House which is a popular budget type hotel in the center of Thamel, the main tourist area of the city. The room was very basic but clean(ish!) and in a good part of town.
I dropped my bags in the room and headed out for a stroll around the area to sus it out. The city has plenty of big wide roads around the outskirts but the centre is a maze of winding laneways going in every direction and I discovered fairly quickly that you don't have to try too hard to get lost! There's no street names and the postal addresses are just numbers in whatever area a particular building is in. There's pretty much everything for sale in these 'streets' but nearly every other shop in the tourist area is a trekking & camping outlet with everything you're ever going to need for your trek in the Himilayas. On leaving the hotel, I was greeted at the gate by a multitude of rickshaw drivers screaming for business. I politely declined and set off on foot. Before I was 200m from the hotel, I had been offered everything from jewelery to hash & marajuna and some dude was even trying to sell me a puppy!
It's an amazing city to stroll around, full of really friendly people and a great buzz about the place.
Regular power cuts in Kathmandu seem to be the norm and when they happen, everyone fires up their generators and the fumes from these, added to the traffic pollution, make it almost unbearable to walk around the streets if there's no breeze (and there was no breeze that night!)
Having spent a couple of hours getting lost, finding my way and getting lost again, I found my way back to the hotel (The KGH is somewhat of a landmark and everyone knows where it is) and had dinner and a few beers there before heading to bed.
The following morning after breakfast, I set off again to see a bit more (promising 'KC', one of the friendlier rickshaw drivers, that I'd get him to take me on a tour that afternoon). I booked a flight to Pokhara with a travel agent and was to call back to collect the ticket an hour later. Arriving back a little over an hour later, there was no sign of the shop where I thought it had been! I walked up and down the street a few times before deciding that it definitely wasn't there. Starting to panic a bit at this stage, I wandered into a few surrounding streets with no luck. I finally decided that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and headed back towards the hotel where I had told KC I'd meet him for my rickshaw tour. I got him to cycle back down where I thought the place was originally again, just to be sure but no sign of it. Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I went off on my tour (which was nothing special - a few temples, etc.) and decided to worry about it later. That evening when heading out for dinner, I saw the travel agent's shop less than 50m from the gate of the hotel! I had just approached it from a different direction and got a bit confused - tickets were collected and panic was over.
I had dinner in a place called Helena's on recommendation of an American staying at the hotel and ordered Chicken Cordon Bleu. What came out on my plate must have been an ostrich or something cos I've never seen anything as big described as chicken! From my seat, I could see into the kitchen of a restaurant across the road and, although I'm quite sure the kitchen of Helena's was pretty similar, I was glad I wasn't eating the stuff I could see being prepared over the road.
The following morning I checked out early and headed to catch a flight to Pokhara...
