Kathmandu I

September 27^th – 30^th 2010

Our 3:15pm flight from Bangkok to Kathmandu was scheduled to arrived at 6:30pm local time. (Kathmandu was an hour and 15 minutes behind Bangkok – what a weird time difference!). We landed, filled out all the paperwork for a 30-day VISA, paid and got an entry stamp, and then proceeded to find our bags. While waiting for our bags a tall, blonde, young man (Russell) approached us and wanted to know if we wanted to share a cab with him to Thamel. Thamel is the main downtown/backpacker area of Kathmandu. The airport is about 8km from Thamel. We agreed to share a cab with him and then we spent about 10 more minutes finding 2 more people to share a cab with us as well. We wanted five people so that we could split the cost as much as possible. We found a couple from Germany and they jumped in the cab with us. It was a small car, so four of us crammed in the back and Russell sat in the front. None of us had booked a place to stay so we chose a place that had good reviews in Lonely Planet and told the cab driver to take us there. The drive was slow as the streets were busy. The cab driver tried several times to drop us off somewhere random before our actual destination, but Russell was firm with him and we eventually got where we needed to go. It took us a while of going hostel to hostel to eventually find a place that had vacancy and was within our price range. Russell, Ali and I found a room for 400 rupee total ($1CAD = 70 Nepalese Rupee). We checked in and unpacked a bit and then the five of us headed out for a late dinner. As a group we decided we wanted to try some traditional Nepalese food. Russell had heard of a dish called "Momos", so we decided to find a place that had good momos. Eventually we found a restaurant on the second floor of a building, each ordered a plate of momos, and enjoyed trying the dish for the first time. (note: momos are almost like a pierogi or dumpling. They are fried or stream and contain veggies or meat inside)

The next day we busted out Russell’s Lonely Planet book and decided to follow one of their recommended "city walks". We ate breakfast in the hostel (a full "American Breakfast" of eggs, toast, tea, and hashbrowns for only 120 Rupiah (roughly $1.60 CAD)) and then headed on our way. We started in Thamel and the walk was supposed to end at the Dunbar Square. It was a fairly long walk because we stopped a lot to look at Stupas, talk to local art vendors, and to sample local foods. At walk ended with a stop to a bakery where we ate way too many croissants, pieces of cake and doughnuts. The perfect way to end the tour J

The next 48 hours were spent booking our flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, exploring the city a little more, buying gear for our hike, and hanging out with Russell. The night before we left we went shopping for all our gear and ensured we were well prepared for Everest. We finally finished all our shopping around 8:30pm that night – just as the shops were closing. Tired and dragging tons of purchases we headed to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner and then walked back to the hostel to get all our gear organized for the morning. We had an 8am flight from Kathmandu to Lukla so we had to organize everything at night and wake up super early the next morning in order to get to the airport on time. We kept our larger 70L bags at our hostel, took our 45L bags and trekking gear with us and headed to the airport to catch our small plane to Lukla. The adventure was about to begin!