You know how these trips are, you wait for them for what feels like ages but then when the day arrives you feel like "oh my gosh, I'm not prepared for this yet!?" Well this one wasn't an exception. But so, honeymoon time it is.
We started off on the "blue and white wings" on a Tuesday evening 11th of October. The 6,5h flight to Delhi went smoothly despite sucky food and even suckier movies (come on, Mr and Mrs Smith... that's like so last century! And Brangelina aren't even together anymore).
After a sleepless night we arrived early morning to Indira Gandhi only to hear that instead of the mere 6 hour wait for our flight to Kathmandu it would now be 9 h. Fun.
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| Morning sun at Indira Gandhi |
Things to do at Indira Gandhi: Nil. Zero. Nada.
But if you really twist your imagination:
1) WiFi
Free for 45 min. Only 8 h and 15 min left.
2) Sleeping
Classic "sleeping on the airport benches", always a winning option.
3) Drinking coffee
Still freaking expensive, even in India. Because airport.
4) Trying to check in luggage
At 6.30 am "Sir, madam, the check-in opens at 7 am."
At 7 am "Sir, madam, the check-in opens at 8 am."
At 8.20 am "Sir, madam, the check-in opens at 9 am."
....at 10.30 am we could finally check in our bags.
At one point we ordered 2 cappuccinos, some 170 rupees each. The lady behind the counter told us how lucky we were, today they had a special offer: with the coffee you get 1 muffin, no cost! In the end we ended up paying 250 each. Quite a special offer. We were too tired to complain. I passed out in the comfy chair of the cafe.
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| Dosas for lunch! |
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| One tired tourist |
Flight to Kathmandu was short but not too short for a quick nap. We did wake up in time to see the amazing mountain ranges in the horizon as well as a pretty sinister sight when entering Kathmandu: we flew straight into some dark clouds and turbulence. Beautiful, check the pics.
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| Mountains of Nepal! |
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| Enter storm |
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| Exit storm |
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| Enter Kathmandu |
We were picked up from the airport and taken to our hostel Andes house which was not bad at all. It's located in Thamel which entails the busy tourist streets, the local Khao San road ;) It all resembles Bolivia's La Paz (the souvenir shops with all those woolen things) and Guatemala's markets as well as Bali with the touts and the scooters. Pretty busy and horrible but convenient. The air is filled with smog which makes breathing hard but we're hoping not to get any infections before the trek.
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| Local well |
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| Street food |
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| Older housing |
Since the trip had been longer and more exhausting than we expected, we completely made up for the lack of z:s the next night. I think we slept over 13 hours and almost missed breakfast. Pheww, a near catastrophe, successfully avoided.
Notes from the last few days in Kathmandu:
Climbing: We live right next to a climbing wall Astrek! A great thing. We visited the place a few times, met the Nepalese Women's Champion and of course Bikash, a friend of Samuli who also showed us around a bit. Such nice people! We brought the locals ten pairs of our used (but still somewhat decent) climbing shoes and I think they were pretty well received!! :D
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| Dyno to the top |
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| Bags full of shoes |
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| A few pairs for Bikash to hand out |
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| The boy in the light blue shirt was climbing in my first climbing shoes! |
Shopping: we did plenty.. mittens, light shirts, fleece pants and all that was missing. It took time but I'm quite sure we got everything.
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| Shopping streets of Thamel |
Sightseeing: krhm...we're not the best at this but we did visit the monkey temple which is a beautiful Buddhist temple on top of some 300 stairs and has - surprise surprise - a million monkeys running around. Also we went to the slightly cheesy named Garden of Dreams which indeed felt quite a dream come true with all the noisy traffic left outside. We actually tried to go to Durbar square, a sight with some temples, but it was so costly that we decided to skip it. On the way there and back we got out of the Thamel tourist streets into the local market streets which was more of a sight itself. Busybusybusy and jesuchristo those scooters, rickshaws and cars driving in the midst of the crowds in those narrow streets. I'm amazed we saw (or experienced) no collisions.
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| Praying monkey |
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| Happy temple fans |
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| More of those selfies |
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| Above Kathmandu |
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| Another enlightened monkey |
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| Speedy ride |
Food: is incredible. Twice we had Dal Bhat which is rice, lentil soup, different curries or soups etc. For dessert you have cinnamon and honey spiced yoghurt, perfect. Mo mos, which are like dumplings made of rice flower, are delicious and the masala tea (like chai) has quickly become our favorite. Our hostel served great brekkie and often we'd have that, something small for lunch and then a proper dinner. And masala tea every time we needed a break ;)
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| Fresh, canned - same same but different |
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| Masala tea and the holy Chris |
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| Momos, curry and an omelet. Yam. |
On Saturday we moved to another hotel, next door, since it was included in the price of our upcoming Mera Peak trek. We climbed a bit more at the Astrek gym and then hurried to meet our group. And quite a group it is: 8 trekkers with all different nationalities! A German-Aussie couple who also got married on the 20.8.2016 :D, three older men from Denmark, Israel and Singapore and a young guy from Hong Kong. In the other group which is continuing from Mera to Island Peak has also a guy from Finland! Cool!
We sorted our gear for the trek with the guide and the next day went on a guided tour in the city. We visited a Hindu temple where they cremate the dead and the biggest Buddhist stupa in the world. Pics below.
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| A cliche monkey with a banana |
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| A funeral |
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| Some holy men |
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| And animals |
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| This one was licking my toes |
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| This guy posed really well |
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| A big but very destroyed stupa, under renovation |
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| Angry birds |
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| And piggies? |
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| Good karma for Chris! |
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| This is what the stupa used to and will look like in the future |
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| Mandala painting |
Tomorrow we will leave with an early morning flight to Lukla where we'll start the trek towards Hinku valley and Mera peak (6476 m). We will be back around the 2-3.11. and there's probably no way of catching us before that. Radio silence. Wish us luck!
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