Leave Approved

It was actually a relief to finally get to Kathmandu after our 7 hour bus ride from Pokhara. It’s funny to think that as we arrived here from Pokhara I was so pleased to be “back in civilisation”, whereas when we flew in from Malaysia I was quite apprehensive about LEAVING civilisation. Everything is relative!

Kathmandu is a fascinating town but it takes its toll on you. Apparently it used to be a peaceful and beautiful place before motor vehicles were around - you could see mountains from here. You can’t see anything now apart from crowds, dust, and a hodge-podge of random vehicles all honking at each other and going in all kinds of directions - reversing around blind corners etc.

As you leave the tourist area of Thamel, you enter a medieval world of ancient houses and apartments, sprinkled with religious monuments like Buddhist stupas, tiny Hindu shrines, little temples etc. Women sit around these monuments selling fresh vegetables, and kids climb over them as though they were a playground.

The people here have really moved on though - there is a lot of fake Western gear (mostly from Thailand), and young people are incredibly trendy (the rapper look is in fashion).

We enjoyed a rooftop dinner at Helena’s restaurant, where we looked out onto the lights of this sprawling urban metropolis (if you could call it urban??) and had cocktails and grilled chicken and chicken Kiev for about $8 total. The next day we had Illy coffee at a swanky new cafe that offered free Wifi.

I then succumbed to my first illness since being here - a day of frequent diarrhoea, leaving me pretty much bed bound (or toilet bound). It’s painful being ill in Kathmandu. Our hotel room had no ventilation and got terribly hot. You have to filter your water before you can drink it. The street noise is unrelenting. If you wander outside to get some oral rehydration salts so you don’t dehydrate to death from what you fear might be cholera, you get bothered by pesky men who follow you asking “Hello, hello, you want rafting? trekking?” Fortunately we have an ensuite toilet within stumbling distance of my bed.

Hopefully we have no more illnesses after this. We leave tomorrow for our little village of Gundu where we definitely won’t have an ensuite toilet.