However sad I felt about leaving India, I felt ready to start the next part of the trip and so was ridiculously excited about Nepal. I didn't really know what to expect, obviously I knew about the mountains, but otherwise thought it might be quite similar to India but a bit colder!
Well, Kathmandu was same same but different to the cities in India. Lots of pollution, and lots of shops for me to spend my money in! Nikki and I spent the bulk of our first evening in Thamel (the backpacker area) happily haggling away for jewellery, yak wool blankets, woollen socks and all other bits and pieces. The taxi driver on the way to the hotel told us that Nepalese don't like haggling and we shouldn't ask for less than 90% of their price. What nonsense! I eventually bought a blanket for 200 rupees, starting from 500, and a new pashmina also for less than half price.
Our hotel was absolute luxury in comparison to the cell we had in Mumbai - we had soft beds (it had been literally weeks since we'd had a mattress that you could sink into), big windows and best of all, hot water! AND the hotel provided not only soap and toilet roll but slippers to wear in the bathroom and a toothbrush with mini toothpaste! Only 10 USD a night, such a bargain.
On our second day, we headed for Durbar square, which was like a little preview of China, pagodas everywhere and lots of Chinese looking statues. Very nice but touts everywhere unfortunately, plus we were given a lassi made from gone off yoghurt which wasn't too pleasnat! Since then I've been avoiding dairy in Nepal. The biggest problem I have with Nepal is the electricity - they have a really bad grid so they have to plan daily power cuts to keep things from running. This means that you have only a few hours a day to charge phones and camera, get on the internet, and make sure the torch is close to hand for the evening! I think for this reason it must be hard to keep food fresh for long.
We decided not to hang around in Kathmandu for too long as we'd heard so many good things about Pokhara, and so far none of our recommendations given by fellow travellers have let us down (namely Hampi and Gokarna). So the next morning, we got the 7am bus for a gruelling 8 hour trip to Pokhara.
No comments:
Post a Comment