Shopping in Kathmandu

The following day we had to get our Nepal visa extended because the extra day we stayed in Kathmandu before going on the trek meant that we were nearly out of time but by then we had decided that we really liked Nepal anyway and we wanted to stay a bit longer: we wanted to get some shopping done in Kathmandu and maybe check out the lively night scene. We had also decided to pay a quick visit to Pohkara just to see what the mountain views around the town were like.

We asked at reception to confirm where we had to go for our extension and the Lonely Planet was out of date again. We got a taxi there to drop off our money, forms, and passports and then another taxi back because Joanne's feet were not up to walking anywhere anymore. Then, in the afternoon, we repeated the journey to pick up our passports with new visas. On the return leg the taxi driver told us that we might have some trouble getting back to Thamel because of the strike. Every day, he explained, the Maoists were striking between midday and 2pm, which meant some roads would be blockaded. He took us a long way around, without charging any extra, and managed to miss all the problems. I was a bit confused because as far as I knew the Maoists were now the government, so why would they be protesting? A little bit of online news revealed that, although the Maoists were the biggest party, they had no overall majority so, when a motion of no confidence in their leader, the prime minister, had been proposed, it was successful and the leader of another party had replaced him. Subsequently the Maoists had withdrawn from parliament in protest and this is why there were now strikes.

Nightlife in Kathmandu

Over the next few days we did quite a bit of shopping then posted most of it home along with some other things we had decided were too heavy to continue carrying with us. We did go out at night, but we are obviously getting too old because it seemed like the live music playing everywh ere was just too loud and we soon moved to a quieter place where we could hear ourselves think. It was a cocktail bar apparently popular with mountaineers, and there was a group who had just returned from an attempt on Everest. One guy, and American was only interested in using his Everest credentials to chat up a couple of girls half his age but, sitting next to us was a nice quiet guy from Peru, where he works as a guide. He had missed his return flight because the whole expedition had taken two weeks longer than he had anticipated. In the end they had not made it to the summit because, being such an experienced mountaineer, he had turned back when he realised his feet were wet, rather than press on and risk front bite. He would rather come back without the summit, but with all of his body parts, he explained. He said he has known of lots of people who didn't turn around and are now missing fingers and toes just so that they made it to the top.

Bhopki

I managed to fit it an extra couple of unusual Nepali dishes in between the buff momos, to which I had clearly developed a serious addiction. On one day I had Bhatmas Sadeko, a chili, bean, and onion dish, then the next day I ordered Bhopki, which I thought was going to be a drink; it was listed with the alcoholic drinks and, when I asked the waiter what it was, he told me it was what comes before chang, so I thought it was maybe a weaker rice beer before it is fortified. In fact it came in a bowl; it was like alcoholic rice pudding, not at all what I was expecting but really delicious actually. It was flavoured with cloves and cinnamon and it had raisins in it.

Bhatmas Sadeko

Al left for Pohkara the day before us because he wanted to squeeze in a trek there, whereas we were still shopping. When we did leave for Pokhara the bus was as uncomfortable as usual but to make matter worse it stopped in a huge queue of other buses and lorries for ages. We initially thought that there had been an accident or that somebody had jumped off the bridge we stopped next to, but Joanne eventually worked out that that it must just be the two-hour daily strike by the Maoists again. Of course nobody thought to explain to the foreigners what was going on. We eventually arrived in Pohkara over two hours late and allowed ourselves to be taken to a quiet hotel owned by a man who had turned up at the bus station to poach customers. It sounded perfect after all the noise and rushing around in Kathmandu.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 12, 2009 from Kathmandu, Nepal
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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