Krazy Kathmandu

Once we crossed the border from Tibet into Nepal the group of us hired a car to take us to the travellers district of Thamel in the heart of Kathmandu where we were all staying.  I had stayed there 5 years earlier, also in the high season of October, but back then Nepal was in civil war.  As a result there were not many travellers and Thamel felt almost like a ghost town.  This time around was the complete opposite.  The streets were crowded with cars, bikes and a wide assortment of travellers, from the older tour bus crowd to the new-age hippy to the hardcore mountaineer.  There were a ton of busy restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels, and shady dance clubs.  It was like a Nepali version of Khao San Road in Bangkok.

Our original plan way back when was to stay for 2 weeks in Nepal so that we could hike the Annapurna circuit.  We had booked our flight to leave to Bhutan on the 28^th (which had to be planned way before) and had allocated about 6 weeks for China/HK.  We ended up staying a lot longer in Hong Kong than we expected, therefore cutting our time to only 4 days in Nepal.  With such little time we didn’t have many options for trekking.  We therefore decided to spend a few days exploring Kathmandu city and its surrounding valley, and another day doing some white water-rafting on one of Nepal’s famous rivers.  After checking in to our hotel we went to a café with wifi where we were able to log in to facebook for the first time in over a month.  What was crazy was that through facebook status updates we were able to find out that our Australian buddy Kent, who we travelled all of Syria with a few months earlier, was also in town at the exact same time.  After Syria we parted ways as we continued heading south while he made his way to Europe.  We immediately met up with him as he was also staying in Thamel and we had a great night catching up.  Ahh the magic of facebook.

We spent one afternoon in Kathmandu’s Durbar square, about 15 minutes away from Thamel.  This square is the heart of old Kathmandu and has a pretty cool collection of ancient architecture.  The last time I was here the only foreigners were my buddy Adrian and I, and a bunch of Hare Krishna dudes.  This time the place was deservedly packed with tourists.  We spent the next day in the old town of Bhaktapur and at the Changu Narayan temple, about 25 km out from the heart of Kathmandu.  Changu Narayan had a nice little temple on top of a hill and an excellent collection of Hindu stone sculptures dating back to the 5^th century.  Bhaktapur was the place we liked the most of Kathmandu’s sights though.  Its Durbar square (pictured above) is a lot less busy than Kathmandu’s and the area is refreshingly traffic free.  The town seems a lot more intact, physically and culturally, than Kathmandu’s old town.  The Newari style architecture with its intricate wood carvings was a pleasure to admire, and the laid back atmosphere of its streets and residents was a far cry from Thamel’s hustle.  In fact, if you’re not into air pollution and loud music I think Bhaktapur is a fantastic place to make as a base in the Kathmandu valley instead of Thamel as it’s still very close but it’s a lot nicer and quieter.

The next day we went white water rafting in the Trisuli river.  The bus left early in the morning, only to be delayed by 3 hours due to really heavy traffic before reaching the drop off point.  Not fun.  The river itself was decent with some Class II and III rapids.  Not exciting enough to write home about, but still enjoyable.  The better rafting trips were farther out with camping on the riverbanks mandatory for at least one night, an extra night we didn’t have.  Thus we stuck with this one day trip and completed our journey about 4 hours after getting in the water.  The rafting company assured us a ride back on a bus to Kathmandu when the trip was over.  What they didn’t say was that meant waiting by the side of the road for a random bus to Kathmandu to stop for us.  Since the morning bus ride to the rafting point took so long, by the time we were ready to go back to the city it was late and not many buses were passing by.  When we finally got one, it was already pretty full.  This meant the ladies got to sit inside, and 2 Korean guys and I had to get on the roof where a luggage rack also doubled as “extra seating”.  The luggage-less luggage rack was just a series of one-inch thick metal rods running front to back and a guardrail about 6 inches high all around.  You know how when you travel to a foreign country you want to live life like the locals to maximize your experience and understanding?  This was not one of those times.  I sat down with a nice hemorrhoid-inducing rod right in between my butt cheeks, just like the rest of the Nepali dudes who were chilling up on the roof.  Things only went downhill from there.  When the ancient bus started up I quickly grabbed some metal bars on either side of me for stability.  The highway was windy and the driver was driving damn fast, and with each pitch and roll I could feel myself holding on for dear life as I tried to lean into each turn so I wouldn’t tumble over the edge.  The driver was passing cars, motorbikes, and trucks like he was driving the Daytona 500.  I tried to think positive the whole time to make myself feel better.  For example, I was like “my shorts were soaking wet after finishing rafting, but they’ve become dry super quickly up here with all the wind in my trunks”.  However as our bus came around a blind corner another oncoming bus approached in our lane as it was trying to pass a truck.  Both vehicles slammed on their brakes to come a complete halt.  As I saw the other bus come around the corner I heard the 2 Koreans yell in unison “WHOOAAAAAAAA”.  I, on the other hand, was far cruder as I heard the words “HOLEEEE SH*******T!!” coming out of my mouth while I held onto the bars as hard as I could in case we hit each other.  Have you ever thought about what you want your last words to be?  I have now, and I’m 100% positive I don’t want them to be “Holy Sh*t”.  Thankfully both busses were able to just miss crashing into each other head-on.  My recently dried swimming trunks I was trying make myself feel better about almost became soaked again, only this time with my own urine instead of river water.  After about an hour of this the bus driver stopped at a rest stop and I quickly got down from the rooftop, grateful for being alive as I touched solid ground.  Di and the other ladies were laughing at us as they waited for us to climb down from the top.  Di said with much amusement that with every sharp turn or bump in the road she would look out the window, expecting to see my body rolling off the roof.  Though I’m down with the jokes, that wasn’t too comical to me at the time as I just endured an hour long ride from hell with the sensitive part of my ass on a cold metal rod.  When the bus started up again, the 2 Koreans and I forced ourselves inside as we refused to get back up on the roof.  They ended up sitting in the aisle, and I cozied up beside the driver.  I took a look at his speedometer for the rest of the 2 hour ride back to town, and he was consistently between 50-80 km/h the whole time.  That might not sound like much, but when you’re on the roof of a bus it feels damn fast.  And what were the rest of the Nepali dudes doing up there as the 3 of us newbies were having the crap scared out of us?  They were enjoying the scenery or listening to their mp3 players, calm as Hindu cows.  Though I’m sure experience has a lot to do with that, I’m not willing to build up my hours on the roof of a bus to find out.  So yes you Nepalis out there who have no problem bus surfing, I commend your bravery and concede that I am a wimp compared to you.

Nepal, being wedged between Tibet and India, has been influenced heavily by both of those countries and their respective religions.  Thus a lot of their architecture and culture has aspects of Indian Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism, which is a pretty cool combination.  In addition, its outdoor activities of biking, rafting, canyoning, and especially trekking are obviously world famous.  Kathmandu is far from a picturesque town nestled in the shadow of the Himalayas.  There is enough for you to see here for a few days (like what we did) before heading into the mountains to really enjoy what Nepal has to offer.  It’s too bad we didn’t have enough time, as we heard the Annapurna trek is gorgeous.  With Everest Base Camp or Langtang as other amazing trekking options in Nepal you could easily spend well over 3 weeks here.  I know I’ve said this about other countries on this blog, but Nepal is definitely one we’ll need to come back to.  The next time around though I’ll just hire a driver.