Our flight to Kathmandu had an overnight stop in Seoul (here’s a tip…it’s not well known, but if you fly with Korean Air, and you’ve got an extended layover at Incheon Airport, they’ll put you up in a hotel for free if you arrange it with them in advance). We slept poorly in Korea, both waking up at 2am - our brains thinking it was around 8am - but we got enough rest on the final 7-hour leg into Kathmandu that we were pretty functional when we landed Monday afternoon.
The trek organizer, Furwa, met us at the airport, which was certainly welcome as the crush of humanity orbiting the airport exit was rather overwhelming and we weren't quite ready to dive into the world of Kathmandu taxi fare negotiations just yet. I’d always heard that its best to get out of Kathmandu as quickly as possible because the air quality isn’t particularly good, but I still wasn’t prepared for what we saw. Somehow I expected an ancient city filled with climbers and Buddhist monks, or something way overly romanticized like that. What we got instead was an ancient city that was a loud, chaotic, dusty beehive of activity. It seemed like only the main roads are paved, everything else is cobbles and/or dirt. There are no traffic lights. Some of the biggest intersections do have cops directing traffic during the busiest times of the day, but many intersections will have six lanes crossing four lanes with the intersection being a complete free-for-all.
Our hotel, the Hotel Nepalaya, was a simple old building with zero views and was down a narrow alley off an already small street in the middle of the Thamel tourist district of Kathmandu (imagine Times Square, Nepal style). I don’t think we realized that staying in the middle of Thamel would be as loud and busy as it was.
After a couple hours, Furwa came back with Ongchhu, our guide for the trek, and the four of us headed off to the nearby supermarket and picked up a few final odds and ends. Most of the food had been purchased already, they just wanted our opinions on which candy bars, cookies, and canned meat we wanted to have along. I think Becky and I might’ve tossed a few more items than necessary in the grocery cart as when we go climbing/hiking we eat of lot of packaged food, and it hadn’t really been explained to us that our cook would be stuffing us with three large meals a day and we’d have little room for our usual 2-3 daily candy/energy bars.
Dinner was with Furwa and Ongchhu at a Nepali restaurant that had a little cultural dance program before dinner that Becky got to participate in. We also had our first introduction to dal bhat, the rice and lentil dish that the Sherpa on our trip would eat for lunch and dinner every day. While that might sound monotonous, it seemed like every time we had dal bhat, there were slight variations depending on the cook. Sometimes the curry side dishes were meat, sometimes veggie, and the green vegetables were usually different as well. Becky and I could see how one could eat this all the time and never get sick of it.
Jet-lag reared its ugly head and we were both wide awake at 2am. And if the time change wasn’t bad enough, Thamel was just one loud noise after another. Cars honking into the evening hours, with dogs barking through the night, and roosters crowing just as the dogs finally went to sleep.
...the next day
link to all the photos
Thamel tourist district
Our first (of many) dal bhat
The trek organizer, Furwa, met us at the airport, which was certainly welcome as the crush of humanity orbiting the airport exit was rather overwhelming and we weren't quite ready to dive into the world of Kathmandu taxi fare negotiations just yet. I’d always heard that its best to get out of Kathmandu as quickly as possible because the air quality isn’t particularly good, but I still wasn’t prepared for what we saw. Somehow I expected an ancient city filled with climbers and Buddhist monks, or something way overly romanticized like that. What we got instead was an ancient city that was a loud, chaotic, dusty beehive of activity. It seemed like only the main roads are paved, everything else is cobbles and/or dirt. There are no traffic lights. Some of the biggest intersections do have cops directing traffic during the busiest times of the day, but many intersections will have six lanes crossing four lanes with the intersection being a complete free-for-all.
Our hotel, the Hotel Nepalaya, was a simple old building with zero views and was down a narrow alley off an already small street in the middle of the Thamel tourist district of Kathmandu (imagine Times Square, Nepal style). I don’t think we realized that staying in the middle of Thamel would be as loud and busy as it was.
After a couple hours, Furwa came back with Ongchhu, our guide for the trek, and the four of us headed off to the nearby supermarket and picked up a few final odds and ends. Most of the food had been purchased already, they just wanted our opinions on which candy bars, cookies, and canned meat we wanted to have along. I think Becky and I might’ve tossed a few more items than necessary in the grocery cart as when we go climbing/hiking we eat of lot of packaged food, and it hadn’t really been explained to us that our cook would be stuffing us with three large meals a day and we’d have little room for our usual 2-3 daily candy/energy bars.
Dinner was with Furwa and Ongchhu at a Nepali restaurant that had a little cultural dance program before dinner that Becky got to participate in. We also had our first introduction to dal bhat, the rice and lentil dish that the Sherpa on our trip would eat for lunch and dinner every day. While that might sound monotonous, it seemed like every time we had dal bhat, there were slight variations depending on the cook. Sometimes the curry side dishes were meat, sometimes veggie, and the green vegetables were usually different as well. Becky and I could see how one could eat this all the time and never get sick of it.
Jet-lag reared its ugly head and we were both wide awake at 2am. And if the time change wasn’t bad enough, Thamel was just one loud noise after another. Cars honking into the evening hours, with dogs barking through the night, and roosters crowing just as the dogs finally went to sleep.
...the next day
link to all the photos
Pete and Ongchhu at a traditional Newari restaurant
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