Friday, April 08, 2005

Kathmandu - Heaven!

Up at 6:30, about 6:35, the front desk called because my 7:00am taxi was here. Oh brother. I told them I would be down shortly.

Got downstairs, me and a U.S/Korean dude were sharing the taxi. The taxi left about 7:15, got to the airport and found the Cosmic Air counter, and checked my baggage and asked for a window seat on the left side of the plane. I was hoping to see the Himalaya's as we flew towards Kathmandu. The lady remarked that I'd have to identify my luggage after immigration.

I headed through immigration. Holy, talk about a three ring circus. The lines moved so slow, like the queue at the train station in Jaisalmer. And the immigration agents would just up and leave, or move to a different station, abandoning the people in the queue. What a joke. Needless to say, it took me about an hour to get through immigration. Once I got to an agent, she had me done in less than a minute.

After getting through, I was hungry, and spied a Subway restaurant sign! So, I went and got a submarine. Mmmm.

As I was getting ready to eat my sub, a woman came up and asked me if I was flying Cosmic Air. Yes, I wsa. She told me that I didn't identify my baggage. Ack! I thought I had to identify my baggage once I got through Nepal immigration, not here. She took my baggage claim ticket, disappeared for a few minutes, then brought it back and said everything was good, and asked me to go through security and wait at the gate.

BTW, security at the airport is everywhere. They are always checking your ticket and your carry-on luggage for approval tags.

At the gate, I ate my sub, then saw the lady (Shawna) that I met last night, and sat with her. Then we had to pile on to busses, which whisked us away to a plane waiting on the tarmac. Once on the plane, we had to wait for more passengers that were stuck at immgration. Flight was supposed to leave at 10:05, but we didn't leave until about 11:00.

The airline was a Nepal airline, and the two flight attendants were HOT!

The flight was only 1 hour, and I couldn't see the mountains at all. There's a lot dust or something in the air, but I suspect that you just can't see them flying in from the west.

Kathmandu airport is NICE! Unexpected! Delhi's airport is pretty much a dive, I expected the same in Kathmandu. You need to purchase your Kathmandu visa in American dollars. Of course, I didn't have any. The two customer relation ladies kind of implied I was SOL, there was no way to get US money, but I headed over to the currency exchange booth and the man was kind enough to cash one of my $50 US travellers cheques, give me $30 US cash and the rest in Nepalese rupees.

Immigration and customs went very quickly. Me and Shawna booked a prepaid taxi to the Kathmandu Guest House.

Outside the airport, the army was in full force, with armed guards walking around, toting massive machine guns. And, there wasn't a mob of touts at the airport front door...very calm and quiet! Very nice!

The taxi ride to the guest house showed us lots of greenery, very clean city. They definately don't just push all their trash onto the streets, like they do in India. And NO COWS!!!! As we got close to the guest house, in the heart of the backpacker/tourist area, the shops were amazing. Quite a number of tourists around, and they weren't getting mobbed by 100 locals at every step, trying to sell something. It looked so much calmer .

Along the way, we also saw many more army personnel, standing around, guarding "important" locations.

For those not in the know about Nepal, there is no government right now. The king fired the gov't a couple of months ago, and the Maoist insurgents have been calling for nationwide strikes periodically, and occassionally clashing with the armed forces and police.

As the taxi pulled up the guest house, we were in for another shock. The guest house is protected by security personnel (not army...private, I believe), who open the gate to let the taxi in. The taxi drove up a long, tree-lined driveway....it looked like we were entering a 5-star resort hotel! The prices here range from $2US for the cheapo backpacker to over $60/night for luxury. I booked an $8/night room, overlooking the great courtyard/grassy garden area.

Kathmandu is AWESOME! So very different from India. I expected it to be so similar to India, but it's not.

Thamel, the area of town we're in, is the main backpacker and tourist area in Kathmandu. It's full of nice shops selling everything from mountaineering/trekking equipment, pirate CD/DVD's, fabrics, clothes, shoes, trinkets and everything in between. Beautiful, open-air restaurants, serving any kind of food you could imagine, western, Mexican, middle eastern, Chinese, etc. Bakeries galore. Everything is so very clean. They don't push their rubbish out on the streets here.

I love it here!!!! This is the best backpacker haunt I've ever been to in any Asian city (better than Bangkok).

Me and Shawna had lunch at the hotel. Very good food. She lectured me on eating my veggies.

After lunch, I walked around the streets. Everything is so much tamer than Delhi. You still get the store workers trying to get you into your store, but they don't harass you and follow you for blocks...it's just so much tamer. And not a million touts around.

I checked out a couple of respected rafting companies. One is doing a 12-day trekking/rafting trip on April 13, it's $700US. The other company didn't have any planned, because of lack of tourists. The political instability has really hit tourism hard here. This rafting trip I'm looking into was supposed to go earlier, but because of a nationwide strike called my the Maoist insurgents recently, all overland travel is at a standstill, so they had to delay it.

There is so much to do here. Treks to the Everest Base Camp. Worlds 2nd highest bungy jumping. Paragliding. Rafting trips. Trekking trips. The bulletin board at the guest house has posters looking for people interested in doing an inexpensive overland trek into Tibet. Kathmandu KICKS ASS!

Back to the hotel and sat in the courtyard, had an Everest beer (160 rupees - there is about 55 rupees to 1 Canadian dollar) and wrote in my journal.

The temperature is pleasant. Not to hot, not to cold. I started to get a tad cool in my shorts and shirt about 5:30, as I was sitting in the courtyard.

My bank card works here. Go figure.

I can buy STEAK here! YES!!!

The big Everest beer I had (650 mL) made me drunk...it's been a while since I had antyhing. I went back to my room and laid down for a bit. About 7:00, I walked around and bought an apple muffin from a bakery. As I was walking, I had a number of offers to purchase drugs, and a couple of rickshaw drivers asking if I wanted a woman for the night.

Went to sleep about 9:00.

No comments:

Post a Comment