Ep9- Morning in Kathmandu (Pt.1)

  Kathmandu, Nepal
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

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Watch this episode here.

We make the cross country trip from Pokhara to Kathmandu without any problems. The drive is foggy and we can't see much further than the edge sheer cliffs to either side of the narrow road.

Kathmandu is nestled in a large valley with mountains on all sides. The thick smog lends a dirty hue to the horizon. The mountains are not the massive snow capped himalayas one might expect- you have to get further out of town to see those. Our first question in town, as you might expect, is "where can we go to see Everest?" For even a chance to glimpse Everest at this time of year, no road will bring you there, and the quickest path is a short flight, then a 3 day trek through the mountains to the east. It didn't seem worth it, especially at this time of the year.

We settled in to our Kathmandu guest house and went exploring. This was Jen's final week abroad and we wanted to do something cool, and Kathmandu seemed like the place to be. The backpacker section of town we were staying in, called Thamel, is very modern, very touristy, and very intense. Shops line the streets selling Nepalese ornaments, yak blankets, hats and gloves, very impressive looking knockoff North Face gear, pirated DVD's and just about anything else you can think off. Seemingly every other window is a restaurant or a travel agent, and you can't make it down a single block without being asked "rickshaw?", "trekking?", or "you smoke hash?". We ate our fill of Momo's (steamed dumplings full of veggies or buffalo meat) and made our plan for the week.

...continued in the next entry.