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Kathmandu - like India, but nice.

Kathmandu, Nepal


Kathmandu was not exactly how I had imagined it. I had imagined it to look very quaint with wooden houses, the whole town surrounded by mountain. I'm not sure where I developed such an idea but it wasn't like that, it was just modern concrete buildings like anywhere else, and there were no mountains to be seen. On the other hand it was nothing like as horrible as we'd been told by some people earlier on our trip. If they had been right it would have made an Indian city look like a clean paradise, but it was actually much cleaner than anywhere we had seen since Bangkok, and nowhere near as polluted as we had been warned either. The “when to go” section of the Lonely Planet had warned us that May and June are not good times to go to Nepal because temperatures can “soar” up, sometime over 30C! Considering we had just left 40C behind in India we had all had a good chuckle at that over dinner the night before. Sure enough it felt lovely and cool when we got off the bus, so much so that the bath we had been desperate for after two nights of transport and two days of 40C, suddenly seemed unnecessary; it was as if the cooler air was as good as a shower. Sleep was now the important thing! Most people seemed to be on a higher budget than us, but Al was definitely in our price-range, so we clubbed together for a taxi and went to the budget hotel the driver suggested in Thamel, the backpacker bit, which meant the taxi was free.

Soon after checking in we crashed out until we were woken by several Indian families on our floor, who seemed to communicate only by shouting. Another culture difference: is it that quiet is such an impossible goal in such a busy country that nobody ever tries because everyone is used to constant noise anyway? I asked the hotel owner if we could move to another room further from the families but he assured me they would leaving soon for a karate competition they had come from India for. Apparently karate is very popular in Nepal, but the competition explained why we had seen to many children walking around in full karate suits. They eventually went out and we got some sleep. A shower later, we popped down to see Al. Joanne asked him if he wanted to come trekking with us, since he had nobody to go with yet, and it's safer if you're not on your own. He had been planning to find people to go with when he got to Pokhara, but he said he'd have a look in our book at the Langtang trek we were planning. He seemed quite keen so we agreed to leave the morning after next.

We went out for a wee walk around to get our bearings. Amazing! At first most people look like Indians, the Nepali language is very similar to Hindi so they sound the same, much of the culture like the food is the same, and much of the body language is the same – even the very typical Indian head wobble. Yet there is something very very different. After a short time I realised that it's because people are smiling at us and people look happy rather than sullen. They don't shove you out of the way and we even saw people putting things in bins. When people do try to hustle you into an auto-rickshaw they are friendly and it feels like a human interaction instead of feeling like you are being herded by them. When you go into a shop people make conversation with you and nobody, the whole time we were in Nepal, tried to cheat us once. Nepalis are really nice. What a difference after India. The area we were in is highly touristy, but it was also very nice, and it was a pleasure to walk around the streets, knowing that it would take a few hours for our feet to get dirty instead of a few minutes. The shops were full of lots of really cool stuff, too: cheap hiking gear, loads of psychedelic clothes, lots of yak wool garments, and plenty of lovely handicrafts; and the prices were very reasonable as well. One thing was unchanged from India: everywhere we went people sidled up to me and said “You want smoke? Hashish. Good quality.”

We set about discovering in what ways the cuisine does differ from Indian, and found a Tibetan restaurant. It seems that much of the difference between Nepali and Indian culture is down to the Tibetan influence, which we had already seen was everywhere. I had heard of “momos” and they were on the menu of this restaurant, so we ordered them as a starter. They were described as “buff momos” which I realised was buffalo, and they were absolutely delicious, flavoured with lots of ginger and garlic. We had read about Tongba in the guidebook: it's a millet beer, where the alcohol is steeped out of the grain as you drink it, by continually topping it up with hot water, and they had that too, so we ordered it as well. We saw they had steaks on the menu and, seeing that, forgot about Nepalese food and decided we were both craving meat. We assumed it would also be buffalo, since Nepal is a Hindu country and killing a cow attracts a prison sentence, but I was curious so I asked the waiter. “It's cow” he said, but we didn't believe him. It was all very nice, but the Tongba was very filling after all we had eaten and we had to go to bed and lie down as soon as we'd finished. Again the Indian families were making loads of noise, and we didn't get to sleep until late.

The next morning I had a nasty hangover made worse by a rally outside our window. I'd drunk an Everest beer and a couple of Tuborgs, which were better than any Indian beer I'd tasted, but I was fairly sure the Tongba was to blame. It took a while to get going, but we had to move because we had an appointment with Al to go and get park permits which would allow us entry into the area we wanted to trek. Also, we wanted to move hotel. It wasn't just the families: the hotel was also a bit out of the way. Al had been given a recommendation for a more central place and he wanted to move as well. The new place was cheaper too. That done we set off in search of our permits. Typically, the government office involved had moved location since the Lonely Planet was printed, but our new hotel owner was able to tell us the new location, so we got a taxi, fearing that it would be shutting soon. It turned out to be shut anyway because it happened to be a public holiday: Independence Day, which is also “Everest Day”. Further reading of the book suggested we would be able to get the permit at the border. We had a few things I felt we needed to buy before the trek: iodine to sterilise the water; a rain coat for me, since we were fairly sure we would get soaked; an actual trekking guide and a map; a bag to store the stuff we didn't want to heave up the hills; and provisions. After a feeble attempt I couldn't carry on; the hangover had reasserted itself rendering me an invalid. I went back to bed, cowardly leaving Joanne the task of apologising to Al and saying that we wanted to postpone by a day.

The next day I managed to organise myself a bit better and bought everything that was required. It was a good day for food too: I started with an Indian breakfast, which was puris (greasy puffed-up fried breads) with curried vegetables and achar, then we discovered some copy Ferrero Rocher, which actually weren't very nice, but I was amused by the copies. Al told us of a cheap place he had discovered and we went there for dinner. The food there was fantastic: buff momos were only Rs40, but I went for the posh option and had chilly momos for Rs60, which is about 40p. Joanne got a vegetable khaja set, which was curry with flaked rice, and was also very nice. Mine was the nicest thing I had eaten in some time. We were starting to suspect it was in the rules that you had to get ten momos; we had now ordered them several times and every single time there were ten. The food was so delicious I thought we should order some pakora to take away and have as a snack later, but a communication breakdown meant that we (most me) ended up eating them in the restaurant on top of what we had already had.

We got to bed at a sensible time without touching any tongba, ready for the early start.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on May 30, 2009 from Kathmandu, Nepal
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Very nice story all the food pictures make me hungry



permalink written by  Deepak on June 26, 2009

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