Entering Nepal
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2008
1
32
59
Trip End
Ongoing
Kathmandu,
Nepal
Sunday, November 16, 2008
It was a hectic and new experience with people and vehicles squeezing and streaming past in all directions. People with huge sacks and boxes on their backs, supported by head straps and wearing sandals. Already the other change was that it was getting warmer!
We tried to bargain hard for the bus fare, but later found out we d still paid over the odds, even though it was less than £3 for the 5 hour journey
First view from the friendship bridge
. We has amazing views as we drove up and down the hills and valleys passing lush green hills, waterfalls, rivers, little huts and the people and houses in vivid bright colours. Initially it was a bit of a disappointment then to emerge from the hills and drive into the polluted, concrete mass of Kathmandu. We found our hostel, got some food and started to get to know this new country.
I spent a few days getting to know this new place - we were right on the edge of Thamel - the main tourist centre, and it was quite an experience. You could' t walk a few yards without being offered tiger balm, hash, opium, a rickshaw, a taxi, a trekking guide, a massage or some Nepalese love , all the while dodging the same rickshaws, taxis and motorbikes. After a while it became funny and I managed to tune out of it and get past a bit quicker!
You could also get any type of food you in Thamel from Israeli, Mexican, Italian, Tibetan, Indian, Burgers and of course Nepali. I came to love the national food - dhal bhat which is a dish with rice, and lentil soup/sauce that you pour over the top, salad, pickle and vegetable curry. It was tasty, healthy, cheap (about 80p depending where you got it) and you got free (and expected) refills. Many Nepalis eat this 3 times a day, using their hands. I tried it with my hands a few times, and it was actually better that way but for hygiene reasons I usually used the spoon that they gave to foreigners, even though it wasn' t necessarily any better! (EDIT: By the end of my time in Nepal I had mastered eating with my hand and definitely preferred it) Unfortunately Zsuzsanna got ill on the first night, and I think nearly everyone I've met here has had a few stomach problems
Monkey Temple
. One thing I also had to learn to get used to across Nepal was the power saving. There is a shortage of electricity so to accommodate this there are planned power cuts every day - this increased to 45 hours a week while I was there, so you had to work around this for charging/internet/phone calls or find somewhere with a generator, carrying a torch was also very important! In addition to this, there were many times that the water ran out - hostels and a lot of other places had tanks that were filled daily and it wasn' t so pleasant to run out when so many people have tummy problems -i.e very full toilets!
Ok now I ll skip through some of the places I went to/things I saw. I m writing this a bit after the event so excuse me if I miss some details or confuse some names!
The monkey temple - Swayambhu. It s a temple complex up on a hill top so it s out of the bustle of the main town, a nice walk up and then quite a few steps to the top. You get a fantastic view over Kathmandu and I saw my first monkeys! They are all around the temple and especially at the top were enough people feed them peanuts to keep them happy. It s interesting to watch them trying to swipe food from around the temple and compete with the dogs around the place for scraps. There were lots of interesting things to see up here but also lots of people selling stuff or trying to offer guide services.
A Newari wedding - I was walking around Durbar Square with Zsuzsanna and Joel when we heard some music - a band playing
Monkey Temple
. I was curious so we followed the sound through the back streets and found a wedding procession. We didn' t want to intrude so we stood to one side and just watched from a distance for a while. I noticed a couple of the older men from the wedding party looking over at us so I approached and asked if they minded if we stood nearby, I explained that we had been drawn by the music but didn' t want to be in the way. They weren' t worried at all and in fact asked us to join them. They gave us packages and nuts and sweets (that are given to all the guests) and explained what was going on. We went with the procession from the grooms house (where we had met them) along the streets, with the band playing, to the brides house. Here there was to be the ceremony and while the close family attended, the guests went for a feast in a nearby marquee. Again we didn' t want to intrude but they beckoned us inside and we enjoyed some amazing food and drink and got to talk to some of the guests. Later we were taken to meet the groom and then went with the procession back to his house where there was more food, drink and some card games. It was really interesting and amazing to be part of this and I enjoyed speaking to everyone. The groom invited us to the wedding party (a separate event) a couple of nights later so we also went along to that to chat to the people we d met and enjoy more local food and drink! Here I also managed to chat to a lady of a similar age to me who worked in Marketing in a big Nepali bank so it was great to be able to compare. I felt very lucky to have been involved. Boudhanath - just a few kilometres out of town was a huge Buddhist stupa. This area was a great place to spend an afternoon and it felt good to be around Tibetan people again. We visited various temples around and received blessings from the monks there.
I had been trying to decide what to do next in Nepal - a lot of people go there for trekking and rafting, the latter of which really appealed to me so I did a bit of homework and decided to go for one of the longer trips. Zsuzsanna and Joel weren' t really ready or interested in rafting so I d leave them for this section. Another guy staying at the hostel had just got a good price on the trip I was looking at so I signed up and got ready...
