Our First Day In Kathmandu,
Despite our late bed time, we awoke early in the morning covered in sweat, the air con was off & we realise that we are experiencing our first Nepal black out. Something I've read is very common & we will no doubt continue to experience.
We order some room service breakfast & start to organize our lives. The first thing is to book some accommodation for the rest of our time in Kathmandu. It's amazing how cheap it is. We then have to track down a bank to withdraw cash. Working out how best to use our money in Nepal, has been a bit of a nightmare for Tom. Our travel cards do not load the correct currency, withdrawals of NPR in another currency will incur higher fees. We could load a strong currency like USD, Withdraw USD cash & then convert to NPR, but this again incurs high fees. We decide to just bite the bullet, avoid fluffing around, load USD & withdraw NPR. There is no point exchanging money every time we make a withdrawal & we can't avoid it. We also read that most restaurants & shops in Nepal will widely accept our Visa & our Amex! Our poor credit card has been neglected in China & Mongolia.
After breakfast we check out of our hotel, only to walk out the reception & be greeted by Amrit, the man who organized our taxi the previous night. He is enthusiastically giving us recommendations for hotels & offering us a price for a taxi into Thamel. He is outwardly disappointed to learn we have organized accommodation on our own & will only need a taxi. It takes him only a second to recover from the disappointment & organise the taxi. We are slightly surprised when he gets into the front seat of the taxi, not really knowing what to expect. The taxi ride is slow & the taxi is hot. It's a teeny tiny car that slips between trucks & overtakes regular sized cars with ease. Most of the time in the car is spent in traffic jams, Amrit explains the Indian prime minister is visiting & road blocks have been set up. This also explains the heavy police & military presence on the streets. After sitting in the car for some time without moving, we ask to get out & walk, Amrit happily agrees. As I shuffle over & try to get out, the taxi suddenly drives forward with me half in & half out. I respond without thinking & hold my body weight on the car door, lifting my legs out of the way of the tyres. The driver notices quickly & I can jump out & stand on the sidewalk, unharmed, slightly shaken, surprised the tiny doors of the car held my weight. We shoulder our packs, pay the taxi driver direct & with Amrit leading the way, navigate a path through the streets of Thamel. The streets are a mess of giant holes, smashed cement, rocks, dirt & tiles. Perhaps it is still damage from the earthquake. Some areas are worse than others. When we get to the street our hotel is on, Amrit directs us to a trekking tour agent and introduces us. He then gives us a business card for himself & departs with a wave. I've always been suspicious of his eagerness & willingness to help, he must get commission if we book a tour. Perhaps he is genuinely really nice & I'm being paranoid.
We sit & listen to our tour agent's best sales pitch for a 5 day trek to the Annapurna's & Pokkhra. He is pretty convincing but we need time to research & decide what we want to do. We take his card & book an appointment for 9am the next day before going to our hotel & checking in.
Check in finally happens, it's hard to believe it's now early afternoon!
We got a double bed in a private room with a private bathroom & a 4th floor view, in Thamel, for 5 nights at $50 AUD. We are in the central hustle & bustle of Thamel, with all the sights & sounds you could ever want from a big city.
Thamel is a tourist based, commercial suburb in kathmandu, it has been the heart of tourism industry for more than 4 decades & first originated with hippies & artists. The streets are absolutely crammed with hotels, hostels & guesthouses, cafes, restaurants & pubs, nick nack merchandise, hand made Bohemian jewellery, clothing & homewares & of course tour & trekking companies. Its amazing!
We both shower & get dressed before heading out to lunch & to explore. We find a nice little courtyard cafe/restaurant tucked away behind a garden wall. We order beer, wine & a traditional Nepalise vegetarian thali dish. The thali is several small dishes of food, served on a big brass platter. It is delicious & exactly what we needed. After lunch we head back to the hotel to briefly recharge & to research local bars. We find a place just round the corner that draws our attention. It's called a hole in the wall, the entrance way is literally a hole in the wall & you would miss it if you didn't notice the signage on the second storey. After ducking through the entrance you walk up a flight of very narrow, very steep & shallow stairs to the first floor. The first floor contains the bar, a couple of couches and another staircase of similar design. The second floor contains more couches and smaller chairs, with another staircase. The third floor has floor cushions & a table in the centre. We pick this floor to set up the laptop & order coffee, followed shortly by beer. The bar has an impressive collection of rock and roll, reggae & blues music memorabilia plastered on every inch of every surface. We spent 6 hours here & surely missed things.
A very cool little place to hang out on a Friday night. Tom video called his best friend (Ahoy, Pooley) via FB for a chat. Pooley was at the boys favourite local bar so a shot via video call was facilitated. I finally managed to publish 4 blog posts from Mongolia, it only took the better part of 4 hours & several soothing beers. The internet is very slow. After my fourth blog post, my patience was running very thin, right at this moment a black out happened! A sign to call it quits for the night & relax.
Back down on the first floor we met 2 American chicks who we we got along with very well & a German couple. The night passed by with conversation, laughter, music & beers! I was grateful our hotel is only a short stumble away!
- Alli
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