Into Nepal and Through Kathmandu

So contrary to popular opinion (which I will assume is always consistent with my opinion) the name Kathmandu has a completely unnecessary h in the middle. I was in the city almost 2 days before I realized the error of the city planners in spelling it differently than I thought it was spelled. I hope the future saves people like me moderate embarrassment by bringing with it a westernized spelling of an area that has been settled for thousands of years.

That paragraph has been bumbling around in my head for a few days so I felt the need to expel it. I have also been reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and there is not a whole lot I like more than satire,  so that may also explain part of it.

Anyway. . . KatHmandu. It is an interesting place that takes a long time to get to. The journey there started in Darjeeling when I took a jeep back down the mountain to a city that doesnt matter (It is called Siliguiri if you must know) and from there took a bus to the Nepal border.  The India-Nepal border is unguarded and unpatrolled in every way. I had walked about 300m into Nepal and across a bridge before I  even realized I had crossed the border. The most difficult part of the endeavor was finding the immigration office where I was to get my seemingy arbitrary visa stamped. From there I meandered around the town of Kakkarbita until a guy ran up asked me if I wanted to go to Kathmandu. I informed him that I thought that would be a fabulous prospect and did not mind the rip off that would surely ensue. We went to a travel agent and booked my 10 dollar 18 hour bus ride. Turns out he only charged like 75 cents extra so I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of rip off.  The bus ride was short, very comfortable and I got lots of wonderful sleep. That is completely false but it was fine and I got to Kathmandu Wednesday the 18th at about noon (not 6:30am like the original plan said but I am not bitter).

One thing I have learned for sure so far is that every city has an enormous and mostly terrible tourist ghetto where an incredibly large majority of the foreigners stay. In Kolkata this is Sudder Street and in Kathmandu it is an area called Thamel. I met a guy in Darjeeling that warned me of this so I was fortunate enough to end up on Freak Street. That is the real name and it was significantly more laid back and lacking in people selling trinkets, “100% pashmina shawls” and “genuine tibetan artifacts.” I also scored a hotel for just under 3 dollars and it was right on an area called durbar square, which has massive quantities of old palace temple action. After completing about 7 hours of sleep over the previous 2 nights, I slept quite well.

Overall Kathmandu was very enjoyable. There are pictures on facebook if that strikes your fancy. The city itself has a lot of awesome temples and palaces to check out so that was cool.

I feel moderately unitelligent for not realizing picture mode was possible before. . . oh well.

So this was some sort of Siamese cow and easily the weirdest experience of Kathmandu. At first all I noticed was a huge crowd of people yelling and playing loud music. This is what I saw when I went up to check it out. There were people bowing and praying and leaving money. I have other pictures but they are further along on the uncomfortable scale.

After Kathmandu was a town called Ghorka about half way to my current location of Pokhara. Not very many people stop in Ghorka and that is unfortunate. I stopped because I read about a hilltop palace with great views and that is exactly what I found.  Here I am:

There are lots more pictures on facebook. This hill was on top of lots of stairs and I got to watch the sunset up there. It was quite enjoyable.

Now I am in Pokhara in west centralish nepal. It is hailed as the best city to visit in all of Nepal so I feel pretty good about the prospects. I have only been here long enough to check in and get some tea so I will update about it in a day or two. I will say that the internet cafe I am currently in is by far the best I have encountered on the journey. I can actually watch videos without delay. Usually a 5 min video takes at least 15 minutes to load. Well that is that. This one was long but I did not update in Kathmandu because I could only find crappy internet places with power cuts.

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