After three flights from India I arrive in Kathmandu. Immigration takes ages, even for the people with a visa. There is a group of Americans behind me in the queue for passport and visa control. One woman has a particularly piercing American voice and keeps up a commentary on the situation, ‘Well I can’t see why this needs to take so long, they should just get more staff. Don’t you just hate having to stand in line?’ etc etc. The queue of people who are applying for visas at the airport is really long and they will be there for hours.
Coming out of the airport my initial impressions are that things seem pretty familiar. I get a taxi from the airport to my hotel. The general greeting from everyone is, ‘Namaste’, with the hands held in the prayer position. The roads and the driving are much the same as in India. If anything the vehicles are in worse condition, but the roads in rather better condition, with defined edges and some pavements. My driver uses the kind of steering technique used by a small child who is playing at driving. He swings the wheel around wildly– and that’s just to go in a straight line. Some people wear masks over their nose and mouth. I have heard that the traffic pollution in Kathmandu can be awful, but it seems OK today. The shops look similar to India, with open fronts, but they have narrow, hinged wooden doors that they fold back, concertina-style, to open them up. The clothes the people are wearing seem more western than in India. There are some women wearing saris, but there are more jeans and T shirts. Some of the men wear the distinctive brimless tight cotton patterned hats.
This part of my trip is an organised group tour and this feels quite nice. For 10 days I won’t have to think about where the next meal or bed is coming from. The hotel where we start and end the trip is run by a family from Tibet.
Hotel Tibet
In the evening we meet up. Our tour group is very diverse. There are 12 of us, plus Anil our local Nepali guide.
Anil - our guide
We range in age from 21 to me. There are 5 guys: 3 friends from Ireland who are very funny; Robert from Norway and Sven from Germany. There are 7 women: me; Kristine from Denmark; Romy from Lebanon, but currently living in the UK; Erica from Canada; Theresa from South Africa; Debbie from the US, but currently living in Hong Kong and another Debbie from Taiwan, also currently living in Hong Kong. We take a 20 minute walk to the touristy/backbacker Thamel district and get to know each other over dinner. We talk about last week’s earthquake and the plane crash. The earthquake didn’t cause much damage in Kathmandu, although sadly 3 people died when an old brick wall around the British Embassy collapsed. Today a small plane carrying tourists to see the mountains crashed killing everyone on board. One girl is particularly freaked out by this news and we are all glad that there are no plane flights involved in our trip. After dinner we pass an Irish bar called ‘Paddy Foley’s’. The Irish guys decide they need to pay Paddy a visit.
The Irish boys
Thamel street at night
Bicycle rickshaw
Restaurant
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