After much anticipation, we arrived in Kathmandu in the middle of rush hour. We got a good view of the ‘automotive’ area of town while our bus waited in traffic with its engine off. When it dropped us at the bus station (actually just a dirty street corner) we found a nice hotel and settled in for the evening.
After our three days there, we had spent two of them doing chores and planning the next month of our trip, and only one day really ‘sightseeing’. However, we didn’t feel like we missed out on much, in many ways the city disappointed us and we looked forward so much to returning to India. At the end of a month in Nepal, we felt that the country really seemed to alienate us – in Nepal you are never a traveler, always a tourist. There are special buses and every restaurant has a tourist menu with inflated prices and dulled down spices. We did manage to get away from this a bit on our trek but it was never more evident than in the capital. Kathmandu had some nice sights – we hiked up to a hill for a view of the city (covered in smog and haze), saw some gorgeous temples compete with resident playful monkeys, and stumbled across many hidden religious sites during our wanderings, but we missed the fairness of being able to haggle right alongside the locals and catch whichever bus we want. Of course, Nepal does a few things the best: incredible bakeries (best chocolate cake ever in kathmandu, we went there every day) and more general politeness. And it turned out to be quite the competetor with India in the ‘funny signs’ competition – when we entered the park to climb up the hill above the city, the sign announced that we would have to pay 20 rupees to walk on the path. We felt relieved, because the same sign announced that if we happened to be riding an elephant, we would have had to pay 100 rupees.
Overall, we did have a relaxing few days in the capital, but recommend the rural areas to the smog and busy nature of the city. However, it did provide us with all the tools necessary to learn how to book our Indian rail tickets online (2 hours), plan our month and book said rail tickets (8 hours) and begin our search for accomodation in Goa over Christmas and New years (ongoing).
great tips. I enjoyed reading this