Day 59, Day 2 In Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal

Day 2 in Thamel,

It was with medium hangovers that we both awoke with & a slightly grumbly tummy that I initially ignored blaming hunger.
Tom was first out of bed & went to organize breakfast, while I soon realised my tummy pains were not hunger, rather an urgent & uncomfortable need to go to the toilet. My first gastro upset of the trip! I think back over everything I ate & blame the fruit salad that was included in the traditional Nepalise thali we ate for lunch.
Thankfully it's over relatively quickly & apart from some internal gurgling & cramps the rest of my day is undisturbed.

We eat a delicious breakfast on the rooftop of our balcony among potted flowers & sparrows, admiring the skyline. We arrive for our appointment with the travel agent just after 9am & hes not there. We wait around a few minutes & leave. We haven't really decided what we want to see our do just yet.
We walk along the streets of Thamel looking for a cafe to spend some hours researching Nepal & India, blogging, budgeting & primarily getting our Indian Visa application sorted.
The Indian Visa, the blog & the budget takes up our day & before we know it, its 6pm.

During this time we eat 4 plates of Momo's, 2 plates more than we actually needed, drink organic coffee, local beer & I celebrate finally publishing all of the Mongolia blog posts with a few cocktails. It's been a great day & we feel like we have achieved a lot of technology admin!

We go for a walk around the streets of Thamel just as the sun sets, admiring various items in the shops. Tom has decided he wants to buy a traditional Nepalise knife & I am trying to find a unique piece of jewellery. We walk into as many knife & jewellery shops as possible, trying to find the one. While Tom is in a large knife shop, I wait outside, sitting down to watch the hustle & bustle of the street.

I am approached by a friendly black street dog who nudges me for a pat, I oblige her request which attracts the attention of another 5 street dogs who were watching near by. When Tom walks out of the shop, I am surrounded by my own pack of friendly street dogs. They follow us a short way home & are then distracted by another friendly tourist. I am very happy to see that so far all the street dogs are an adequate weight, some are even fat! They have glossy coats, dont have external parasites, smell or look mangey. As we walk through the streets, I notice that some have collars on & sit guard at shop fronts, identifying them as owned.

On our way home, we stop at a supermarket to buy toilet paper, alcohol & a snickers chocolate before calling it a day. It's nice to lie in a semi familiar bed reading my book. The night would have been perfect if not for the sounds of the road works going on below in the street. Every inch of the dirt road is being  dug up & new pipes were laid down. A job that took all night & intermittently disturbed us. Nothing a day time nap can't fix! 

- Alli