Kathmandu - Nepal
3/19/05
As you already know we went by car up to the border, Sonauli, in Nepal, so our driver picked us at the hotel at 4 am. The trip was quite pleasant and Angie could rest and recover from her food poisoning, since she couldn't sleep well last night. Around 30 minutes after we left our driver kindly asked permission to put the radio on. "Of course!" we said. Oh hell, he right away put Indian music as loud as his sound system could play and started singing along. As we drove north we could see that there were more and more fields and it was getting less crowded. After 4 or 5 hours of drive, listening to the same tape being played over and over, we stopped for a break in Gorakpur and went to visit a nice Hindu temple. Gorakpur is a big city where the specialty seems to be sweets. On every corner there were shops with nice colorful Indian sweet. 1.5 hour later we got to Sonauli. We stopped at the Indian border to regularize our passports and there was an exchange bureau next to it where we got some Nepalese Rupees. The bus leaving for Kathmandu was scheduled to leave at 3:30 pm and since it was only 1:3p we had some spare time for lunch. Angelique only ate only plain rice. Then the driver took us to the border to the Nepalese office where we got our visa done, it didn't take more then 15 min. He gave us the bus ticket and showed us where to take it. An Indian guy told us that the bus won't make it to Kathmandu on the same day since there was a curfew due to the Maoist and of course tried to sell us a cab drive. Already aware of the Indian mentality we did not believe him, he just wanted to sell us his trip and when we asked to the Nepalese authority they confirmed that there was no curfew anymore and that we should not worry. They were really nice and welcoming. When we arrived at the bust stop some people came to help with the luggage and to find our seat. The bus was called Express, but we learned later on that Express in Nepal means that it will stop only around 50 times, as a Nepalese guy explained to us joking. The bus stopped just after 5 minutes of the departure. It was a check point made by the army. A soldier came in with a machine gun looked around while other soldiers investigated the luggage on the top of the bus and in the trunk. Also we realized later on that it is a routine check and it happens quite often all along the road in order to stop drug and arm traffic, especially regarding goods for the Maoist. The bus kept going with the door open and people were jumping inside since it was driving so slowly. A little boy jumped in playing Nepalese music with a little instrument that looks like a rustic violin and after collecting enough tips jumped out again. He was singing terribly bad and he played uninterruptedly the same song for about 1 hour. The streets were clean and there little well-maintained houses, each one with a haystack next to it. 20 minutes later, the bus stopped again. This time it was to replace a flat tire which took us more than an hour. It was getting dark and unfortunately it was where the landscape started to be nice. We could see the high mountains. We stopped again and again for different reasons: food, add air in the wheel, change again another wheel, fix some stuff. It was getting scary because the road was really narrow and it was more and dirt path than a road and there were huge drops. Luckily we could not see everything. We finally reached Kathmandu at 5:00 in the morning. The bus stopped in the middle of the road and asked us to wait few minutes. After a very long wait, people asked what was going on and they told us that there was a load on the top of the bus that had to be picked up before we could head to the bus station. We decided to jump off and take a taxi since we were close and a Nepalese guy kindly help us without asking anything. He called a taxi and went with us to the hotel where we had our reservation. Hot shower and bed after a 26 hours trip in a stop-move-stop bumpy road is an indescribable pleasure.
3/20/05
The hotel was really nice with a garden where we had a nice breakfast chatting with the owner, Mr. Harry. They were really friendly. Since we did not book any trek, they called their associate who came right away to speak to us about the different treks. Also he gave us some advices about Nepal, gave us a map of the city and showed us the places to visit which we did right away. Our first stop was the Syambhu Nath temple, also known as Monkey temple due to its inhabitants, at the top of a hill from where there is a great view of Kathmandu. This is probably the most famous symbol of Kathmandu.
There we watched a praying ceremony and the monks playing Tibetan worshiping music and meditating.
Also, outside the the Buddhist temple you can see Hindu priests.
The monkeys are really everywhere and they were quite aggressive. It’s not rare that some tourists get attacked. The architecture was quite different from the Hindu temples and another History student showed us around.
After that we crossed part of Kathmandu walking to go to Durbar Square. It is located at the heart of ancient city Kathmandu. It is a complex of beautiful and old temples and stupas, both Hindu and Buddhist.
Most of them have been built in the Pagoda style between the 12th and 18th century. It is here that kings of Nepal are crowned and until the early 20th century Durbar square was also the king’s residence. Durbar Square is also the place where people meet for centuries during the festivals. We went in front of the house of the living Goddess, Kumari. It is a little girl that is chosen according to 20 physical signs. The pre selected ones are then submitted to other tests being a interesting one the scare test, when they leave the girl alone in the dark for more then 3 days. She must not cry or fear to be the one. A new Goddess will be chosen after her first periods. During her Goddess time she will be worshipped, people bring her food and presents and the only time she can leave the house in Durbar Square is for a festival. She is not allowed to walk, they carry her around in the crowd. She can not look at the sky otherwise she will loose her title of Goddess. After her Goddess time she will follow a normal life but probably nobody will marry her, because there is a belief stating that whoever marry a former living Goddess will die in the following 10 months. Heading back to the hotel, we meet several people that kindly spoke to us. One guy was a trek guide that provided us some information. We went to a tea place at the top roof of a restaurant on the corner of Durbar Square where we chatted and watched the busy street. We studied with him the different treks and prices. They were similar to the ones we got in the morning with NEAT (www.neatadventure.com). Back at the hotel, we then decided to book the trek the same night and start our trek as soon as possible.
The guy from the last morning, Shandra, came with his documents and we opted for the Around Annapurna trek, which is 21 days plus the Annapurna Base Camp which adds 4 days to it.
3/21/05
The next day we went to his office to pick up the tickets and meet our guide, Sappa. After our trek was arranged we just walked around in the busy streets of Kathmandu. it is a nice cosmopolitan city. There are lots of little shops: music, books, cool clothes and lots of trekking shops.
There are also all kind of restaurants with cuisines from all around the world. There are lots of Internet cafes but unfortunately it is slow. We enjoyed the typical Nepalese meal, the national dish, which is called Dal Bhat. Dal means lentils and Bhat rice, so now you know what it is made of... We went then back to the hotel to get our backpacks ready for the next morning.
As you already know we went by car up to the border, Sonauli, in Nepal, so our driver picked us at the hotel at 4 am. The trip was quite pleasant and Angie could rest and recover from her food poisoning, since she couldn't sleep well last night. Around 30 minutes after we left our driver kindly asked permission to put the radio on. "Of course!" we said. Oh hell, he right away put Indian music as loud as his sound system could play and started singing along. As we drove north we could see that there were more and more fields and it was getting less crowded. After 4 or 5 hours of drive, listening to the same tape being played over and over, we stopped for a break in Gorakpur and went to visit a nice Hindu temple. Gorakpur is a big city where the specialty seems to be sweets. On every corner there were shops with nice colorful Indian sweet. 1.5 hour later we got to Sonauli. We stopped at the Indian border to regularize our passports and there was an exchange bureau next to it where we got some Nepalese Rupees. The bus leaving for Kathmandu was scheduled to leave at 3:30 pm and since it was only 1:3p we had some spare time for lunch. Angelique only ate only plain rice. Then the driver took us to the border to the Nepalese office where we got our visa done, it didn't take more then 15 min. He gave us the bus ticket and showed us where to take it. An Indian guy told us that the bus won't make it to Kathmandu on the same day since there was a curfew due to the Maoist and of course tried to sell us a cab drive. Already aware of the Indian mentality we did not believe him, he just wanted to sell us his trip and when we asked to the Nepalese authority they confirmed that there was no curfew anymore and that we should not worry. They were really nice and welcoming. When we arrived at the bust stop some people came to help with the luggage and to find our seat. The bus was called Express, but we learned later on that Express in Nepal means that it will stop only around 50 times, as a Nepalese guy explained to us joking. The bus stopped just after 5 minutes of the departure. It was a check point made by the army. A soldier came in with a machine gun looked around while other soldiers investigated the luggage on the top of the bus and in the trunk. Also we realized later on that it is a routine check and it happens quite often all along the road in order to stop drug and arm traffic, especially regarding goods for the Maoist. The bus kept going with the door open and people were jumping inside since it was driving so slowly. A little boy jumped in playing Nepalese music with a little instrument that looks like a rustic violin and after collecting enough tips jumped out again. He was singing terribly bad and he played uninterruptedly the same song for about 1 hour. The streets were clean and there little well-maintained houses, each one with a haystack next to it. 20 minutes later, the bus stopped again. This time it was to replace a flat tire which took us more than an hour. It was getting dark and unfortunately it was where the landscape started to be nice. We could see the high mountains. We stopped again and again for different reasons: food, add air in the wheel, change again another wheel, fix some stuff. It was getting scary because the road was really narrow and it was more and dirt path than a road and there were huge drops. Luckily we could not see everything. We finally reached Kathmandu at 5:00 in the morning. The bus stopped in the middle of the road and asked us to wait few minutes. After a very long wait, people asked what was going on and they told us that there was a load on the top of the bus that had to be picked up before we could head to the bus station. We decided to jump off and take a taxi since we were close and a Nepalese guy kindly help us without asking anything. He called a taxi and went with us to the hotel where we had our reservation. Hot shower and bed after a 26 hours trip in a stop-move-stop bumpy road is an indescribable pleasure.
3/20/05
The hotel was really nice with a garden where we had a nice breakfast chatting with the owner, Mr. Harry. They were really friendly. Since we did not book any trek, they called their associate who came right away to speak to us about the different treks. Also he gave us some advices about Nepal, gave us a map of the city and showed us the places to visit which we did right away. Our first stop was the Syambhu Nath temple, also known as Monkey temple due to its inhabitants, at the top of a hill from where there is a great view of Kathmandu. This is probably the most famous symbol of Kathmandu.
There we watched a praying ceremony and the monks playing Tibetan worshiping music and meditating.
Also, outside the the Buddhist temple you can see Hindu priests.
The monkeys are really everywhere and they were quite aggressive. It’s not rare that some tourists get attacked. The architecture was quite different from the Hindu temples and another History student showed us around.
After that we crossed part of Kathmandu walking to go to Durbar Square. It is located at the heart of ancient city Kathmandu. It is a complex of beautiful and old temples and stupas, both Hindu and Buddhist.
Most of them have been built in the Pagoda style between the 12th and 18th century. It is here that kings of Nepal are crowned and until the early 20th century Durbar square was also the king’s residence. Durbar Square is also the place where people meet for centuries during the festivals. We went in front of the house of the living Goddess, Kumari. It is a little girl that is chosen according to 20 physical signs. The pre selected ones are then submitted to other tests being a interesting one the scare test, when they leave the girl alone in the dark for more then 3 days. She must not cry or fear to be the one. A new Goddess will be chosen after her first periods. During her Goddess time she will be worshipped, people bring her food and presents and the only time she can leave the house in Durbar Square is for a festival. She is not allowed to walk, they carry her around in the crowd. She can not look at the sky otherwise she will loose her title of Goddess. After her Goddess time she will follow a normal life but probably nobody will marry her, because there is a belief stating that whoever marry a former living Goddess will die in the following 10 months. Heading back to the hotel, we meet several people that kindly spoke to us. One guy was a trek guide that provided us some information. We went to a tea place at the top roof of a restaurant on the corner of Durbar Square where we chatted and watched the busy street. We studied with him the different treks and prices. They were similar to the ones we got in the morning with NEAT (www.neatadventure.com). Back at the hotel, we then decided to book the trek the same night and start our trek as soon as possible.
The guy from the last morning, Shandra, came with his documents and we opted for the Around Annapurna trek, which is 21 days plus the Annapurna Base Camp which adds 4 days to it.
3/21/05
The next day we went to his office to pick up the tickets and meet our guide, Sappa. After our trek was arranged we just walked around in the busy streets of Kathmandu. it is a nice cosmopolitan city. There are lots of little shops: music, books, cool clothes and lots of trekking shops.
There are also all kind of restaurants with cuisines from all around the world. There are lots of Internet cafes but unfortunately it is slow. We enjoyed the typical Nepalese meal, the national dish, which is called Dal Bhat. Dal means lentils and Bhat rice, so now you know what it is made of... We went then back to the hotel to get our backpacks ready for the next morning.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 7:16 AM
1 Comments:
I think you were little clueless as to what place to see in India. What you had written is like seeing just Newark, USA and passing a comment "US stinks". Going to a new country without enough knowledge is not easy. even though going arong the golbe looks fancy, it doesnt solve any purpose. May be you could spend couple of months in a country a year. if not affordable , take 2 trips to a country as big as India. Looks like you had seen the worst of things what could be seen and you want it to call it a "around the globe" trip. Pity for having spent your money and time without getting nothin'.
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