Arrived at Varanasi airport real early and spent the time "eating" the remainder of our Indian currency as its illegal to take it out of the country. The plane was booked with tourist groups mainly from Europe all going to KTM for aobut 4 days then returning to Delhi. There were signs around the airport (which is tiny) advising that if you are approached for bribes please report it. We then spent the next couple of hours watching the group leaders of the tour groups pay off everyman and his dog to raise their group in the pecking order. After we were in the departure lounge an airport employer came up to all of us travelling independently and asked one only in the party to come outside on the tarmac and verify our baggage on the cargo trolley waiting to be driven to the plane. I walked out and pointed to our 3 and then the guy aks for money (no with smiley face hee and walked away) But one UK women and her husband lost it and wanted to report it. They got the big guy in (bosses always have the white suit? ha) to settle them down. So much for the sign asking for reporting.
BYE BYE INDIA - NEPAL HERE WE COME....haaha (sort of a fitting finish for India..ha)
The Plane arrived about 2 hours late but the guest house guy was there waiting for us (free again) The GH - International Guest House - is absolutely lovely. The building, beautiful courtyard garden and the furniture and decor with wonderful things on every wall and floor make it lovely. The staff at the hotel are great and really relaxed and come and chat all the time like theyre real friends. Wehn were were getting our key ond day one guy came up and introduced himself and told me he was the one answereing my emails from Australia.
I caught a bad cold the last day in Varanasi so we just went for a slow stroll around the streets of Thamel near our hotel before having an early dinner ready for bed. KTM is a real suprise as I had read many times how busy and polluted it is now but wow what a relief after India - no comparisson. We decided the main thing that improves the streets over India is that KTM keeps the cows out of the central areas. This means there isnt the continuous cow shit have have to always be looking for and of course the traffic dont have to dodge or honk them.
Now after a couple of days we find that Nepal is nicer on most levels. The food is 1000 times better with more varienty and more vegtables and LESS OIL.... I think that is why I got rundown as every dish was floating with oil and even veggie dishes had a token bit of cabbage or a slice or 2 of carrot in them. The street in Thamel which is the tourist area are lovely and clean and filled with shops with good quality goods (tons of rip offs especially North Face) and great restaruants, bars and bakerys, book shops and internet phone shops everywhere - Nivana (all with smiley happy faces not expecting tips!!!! hahaha)
Anyway on returning to the hotel the 1st day there were 2 messages for us. One was a phone message from Santaman and Rame who I found over the Internet. Rame is going to be our porterguide and carry all our stuff - fantastic hee hee. The 2nd was from a guy call ed Wayne. Hed call into the hotel while we were out. He is about our age and comes from QLD. He had answered a couple of my questions on the Nepal trekking forum over the last couple of months and we'd discovered we'd both be in KTM at the same time. Its he's 6th trip (trek) and he was only in KTM for 2 nights before leaving to trek Langtang for 12 days.
I rang Santaman back and made a time for us all to meet at our hotel the next morning at 8am. I then rang Waynes hotel and we decided that Rob and I would call in at his hotel the next day if we were passing... bedtime.
Santaman (the boss) and Rame (his nephew) arrived on the dot and they were great. Real professional. We discussed our expectations of the trek and how fast we wanted to go (slow) and Santaman made a few suggestions for a a couple of days 9slight diversions on the route) Rame then came to our room to check out every bit of clothing we had for the trek and also oaur boots. We had a few things still to get which we knew and wed buy them when Rame took us to the shop to hire our sleeping bags. We then finalised payment with Santaman and confirmed what was included and it was a done deal. Santaman left and we went off sightseeing with Rame (10$US for the day) Rame seems lovely He's a 27 year old Tamang with great English. He's confident but relaxed so it should be good spending the next 3 weeks with him. It costs $US15 a day (about $20AU) for a porterguide. He carrys everything and he also is responisbile for his own food and lodging on the trek. (The tea houses have a porterroom where they all sleep on the floor for free and they get free dahl baht for being with us).
Wed asked Santaman to change our flights due to my cold so we are having an extra night in KTM and then also an extra night in Pokhara so hopefully Ill be better by then.
We had a good day visiting Pasupati, Buddhanath Stupa (nepals biggest stupa) and Soyumbunath - Monkey Temple. We stopped and had a great lunch (a full plate of steamed vegetables!! heaven) on a roof top directly overlooking the Buddhanath Stupa.
At about 3pm Id hit the wall so we asked Rame to take us to organise the sleeping bags and call it a day. another great meal that night at the hotel (missing India less evertime I eat) and early bed only to have a shocker of a night coughing.
Next morning we set off to Durbur Square. I was feeling pretty flat so we walked around it slowly then went up on a roof top restaurnat (yep everybuilding in Nepal has put in a rooftop restaurant..bloody steps...) hee... for some tea and veggie momos - delicious before making our way back towards our hotel. We sidetracked and asked people as we went and eventually found Waynes hotel, rang up to his room and he was in. Nice bloke. We spent a couple of hours with him over lunch and it was nice to put a face to the name "Boulia" his trekking forum name. He leaves for his trek tomorrow at 7am.
Rame was at our hotel waiting for us when we got back to confirm 11am plane for tomorrow to Pokhara.... trek ...getting closer....
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