August 17-18
We didn’t get back to our hotel from our late night festivities until about 5 in the morning. Definitely not our style, but who am I to argue with good company and great hospitality? We slept late and got up just in time to meet back up with Bianca, Victor and the Aussie Steve for noon lunch at a wood fired pizza joint. Yes!!
This is my four cheese pizza – one of those cheeses is yak cheese! It was delicious! Bianca mentioned this pizza place days earlier and all of us had been counting the days until we could get our hands on this pizza.
Afterwards, Bianca walked us through Thamel to check out a Tibetan bookstore. They sell all of the books that are banned in Tibet by the Chinese government. Perfect opportunity to pick up a few new books!
Michael even found this book that clearly describes me lately:
Afterwards I would love to say that Michael and I went out to see all that we could see in this city. We only had about 36 hours in town. But we were exhausted. The late night and the tough drive completely wiped us out. So instead we went back to our hotel room, watched movies and slept. We didn’t even leave for a second meal of the day.
The next morning, fully rested, we made it to breakfast in the hotel and went out for a few hours before heading to the airport. We walked to Durbar Square – about a mile from our hotel – which is another UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
This square is in front of the old royal palace. Several buildings in the square collapsed due to the April 2015 earthquake. The damage is still being repaired… apparently by the Chinese.
We were going to check out the museum in the square as well, but things got a bit strange. While walking towards it, a soldier wanted to see our tickets, which we had. While I was getting them out of my purse, he pulled his gun out of the holster and pointed it at us. It was only for a few seconds, but it freaked Michael out big time. He let us enter but we were then told by a group of Spaniards that it was opening in ten minutes. We waited for a few minutes but then just left. Not the right vibe for us.
Off to the market instead.
Our feelings about Kathmandu? The city of Kathmandu has infrastructure issues that are pretty similar to the problems outside of the city.
In general, we just didn’t enjoy the city that much. That said, we also didn’t give it much of a chance. It was muddy and hard to get around and hot.
Things didn’t get much better when we got to the airport. We arrived nearly 3 hours before our flight at the suggestion of our hotel. Thank goodness for that. The line to check our luggage took an hour or so even though there were only a few people ahead of us and when we got in line for customs their computers went out right as we were two away from the front. So we just stood there for another 40-60 minutes. We were losing our cool both literally and figuratively.
When they finally got the computers running again, the group in front of us stepped up to be processed. Then a porter pushed a person in a wheelchair up to the front of the line. In front of us. Michael nearly lost it. Then a second person in a wheelchair started coming up to the front of the line. Time to take action. I just put myself in customs’ no man land to ensure that they didn’t cut us off. You know – that area that you get yelled at for standing in? Past the red line on the ground that says please wait here? Yeah – I know, I’m a huge rebel. But it had to be done.
So that was it for Nepal. Not our finest couple of days. For all of the patience that we had on the crazy long drive and standing in long lines during Buddhist festivals with Tibets pushing us, we had zero patience for the following 36 hours in Nepal. Time to get to Bangkok and relax for a few days.