Kathmandu
Before arriving in Kathmandu, we were already amazed by Nepal simply from the view from the plane during our approach to the airport: massive green hills, rivers lining the floors of valleys, terraces cut into the lush countryside, and homes sprinkled throughout the landscape. Once on the ground, we realized just how different the weather was going to be as we walked across the tarmac to the main airport building. Goodbye to wearing shorts and tank tops in the sunny heat; hello to wearing jeans and multiple layers in the cloudy cool weather.
We went through the usual immigration/customs/ATM/currency exchange/SIM card process, made surprisingly modern by the touchscreen kiosks for getting our visas on arrival. After we got into our ride from the airport and started making our way through the streets of Kathmandu, the culture shock started to set in a little bit, made worse by the long travel day and the less-than-usual amount of sleep the previous night. The cold weather, unfamiliar surroundings, heavy traffic, and darkness were disorienting enough, but also many of the streets in the city were muddy and unpaved due to lots of active road construction. And then there were the power issues: Nepal doesn’t generate enough electricity to meet demand, so there are planned power outages every day for many hours, sometimes for half the day.
For our four days in Kathmandu, we stayed in an Airbnb flat in Sorhakhutte, the neighborhood just north of Thamel, the main tourist neighborhood in the city. While Thamel is built on restaurants, bars, and shops catering to Westerners, Sorhakhutte is a local neighborhood with Nepali families, local shops, and small eateries. We loved staying in a more authentic place with a Nepali family (with a four-day-old baby!), but we found ourselves missing the convenience of Thamel. Normally, Thamel would have been an easy 10-minute walk, but with the construction and traffic, it might as well have been an hour away. Our dinner every night was takeaway Indian/Nepalese food eaten in our flat by candlelight, partially for the ambiance but mostly out of necessity since the power was out.
The next day was our outing in Thamel for shopping and errands since we had to buy cold-weather clothes for our respective excursions: a five-day trek in the mountains for me and a six-day yoga retreat for Ayu. All of the shops in Thamel sell knock-off cold-weather clothes, North Face being the most popular. I was able to get hiking pants, a lightweight down jacket, long underwear (top and bottom), two pairs of socks, a wool hat, and wool gloves for under $90 total. In fact, between all the cold-weather clothes we bought and the clothes we bought for the wedding party in India, we had to buy a knock-off North Face duffel bag to hold everything since they didn’t fit in our regular backpacks anymore. When we got tired of shopping and walking around the narrow, crowded streets, we made a point of seeking out one of Kathmandu’s many rooftop cafes for some snacks and masala tea.
Wednesday was our big sightseeing day, so we hired a car and a driver and had him take us to a few of the big attractions in the area. First was Swayambhunath, a religious complex on one of the many hills in Kathmandu, also referred to as the “monkey temple” due to the monkey population that entertains/terrorizes tourists. The stupa, prayer flags, prayer wheels, and other Nepalese visuals were certainly beautiful on their own, but the view from the very top was unbeatable. As we sat on the patio of the local cafe, we had a spectacular view of the city and the mountains behind it.
Next was Bhaktapur, one of the medieval villages just outside the city that is also a UNESCO world heritage site. After hiring one of the many guides that wait around for tourists to arrive, we bought a ticket and had our guide take us around the village for a few hours so we could admire Durbar Square (the general name for any royal palace square in Nepal), old architecture, temples with intricate stone carvings, small shrines, and a labyrinthine network of courtyards and narrow alleyways.
After leaving Durbar Square, we walked to Pottery Square, where the locals specialize in creating, you guessed it, pottery. There were lots of coin banks drying in the sun as well as other clay vessels for transporting water. As we walked down one of the alleys leading away from the square, we came across a potter and his wheel, so Ayu decided to try her hand (pun intended!) at making something.
For another hour or so, our guide took us through more alleys and courtyards until we arrived at a local painting school. A couple of the rooms were filled with students working on pieces with bright colors or gold and a couple more rooms were filled with finished art for sale. The more inexpensive pieces were painted by students, whereas the pieces made by masters command higher prices.
After finishing our walking tour and locating our driver, we made our way through the heavy Kathmandu traffic to Boudhanath (a.k.a. Boudha), the largest stupa in Asia. The stupa and the circle of buildings, shops, and restaurants that surrounds it feels like a small town unto itself. Thousands of tourists, locals, and monks flock to the stupa and join the crowds making their clockwise pilgrimages around the massive religious site. The grey clouds, cold weather, large crowds, and palpable energy in the air gave the whole place a subtly exciting feel. The Buddha eyes on all sides of the spire atop the stupa heightened the scene even more. My mind settled on a comparison to a cold Manhattan evening during the Christmas season; it felt energetic, like you were at the center of the universe.
After having a late lunch at one of the rooftop restaurants overlooking the stupa and the people, we joined the crowds for our own circumnavigation.
The next day was Holi, one of the more important and notable Hindu festivals; it’s celebrated mostly in India and Nepal, but also anywhere with a large Hindu population. To Westerners, it’s known as that holiday where you throw dyed powder and colored water on each other. We wanted to play too for a bit, so we donned our dumpiest clothes – some of the dyes they use don’t wash out – and walked to Thamel. I had to take care of one order of business (visiting the office of my trekking agency to pay for my trek), but before and after that we joined in the colorful fun for a bit.
An unfortunate tradition for Nepalese Holi is that women, especially foreign women, are often the targets of barrages of water balloons. Thankfully, that tradition is slowly dying year by year, but since we ran into one particular group of pre-teenage boys multiple times, Ayu got soaked. Wearing drenched clothes in cool weather isn’t what I’d describe as pleasant, so we grabbed a ride back to our place and spent literally the rest of the afternoon washing our dye-stained clothes by hand and drying them in the sun. I have a feeling Holi is much more fun in India, where the weather is actually hot.
With that, our few days in the capital came to an end, which was probably for the best as the traffic, air pollution, and seemingly ubiquitous road construction were getting to us. We were up before sunrise the next morning to pack and get a taxi to the bus station, where we bought some masala tea from one of the street vendors and hopped on our 7:00 bus. The ride through the valley offered stunning views of the countryside as we, along with countless other tourist buses and trucks with colorfully designed fronts, chugged along the winding two-lane road that connects Kathmandu and Pokhara.
Pokhara
The main reason for me going to Pokhara was a five-day trek through the Annapurna mountains, which I’ve put in a few separate posts. As a result, there’s not much else to say about Pokhara since most of the rest of our time was spent relaxing and eating, both before and after our respective excursions. When we weren’t doing that and I had some free time, I was feverishly developing and editing the nearly one thousand photos I took during my trek.
Pokhara was a very welcome change from Kathmandu, as there was far less traffic, pollution, noise, and people and a beautiful lake and mountain range to look at. If I were to summarize the town in the form of an answer to an SAT question, it would be something like: “Pokhara is to Kathmandu as Chiang Mai is to Bangkok”.
The one notable activity we undertook was (tandem) paragliding, which is an incredibly popular thing to do in Pokhara. It’s immediately easy to see why: the roughly twenty minute ride was both pleasant and exciting and offered incredible views of the greenery and villages and lake below. There are usually many dozens of paragliders in the sky at the same time, all circling and catching thermal drafts in the same clockwise direction to minimize accidents. The coolest part was seeing hawks and other birds of prey flying at the same altitude as us, often astonishingly close to the paragliders. I’m still surprised that all the foreign, colorful flying contraptions populating the skies day in and day out haven’t scared the birds away from their home.
After a few days in Pokhara, we caught a tourist bus back to Kathmandu the day before our flight out of the country, again admiring the beautiful views of the valley while marveling that our bus driver’s cavalier driving style didn’t land us (or some other vehicle) in a ditch by the side of the road or worse.
Patan
For our last night in Nepal, we opted to stay in Patan, a village outside of Kathmandu proper that is almost like a suburb, though with all the people and traffic, it didn’t feel that different from Kathmandu itself. Patan’s Durbar Square is the main tourist attraction, so we bought tickets and spent some time there that evening and a bit the next morning.
After the late morning sightseeing, we finished packing and made our way to the airport, which had just recently returned to (relatively) normal after a Turkish Airlines accident. As we boarded our plane to Bangkok, we could see the disabled plane in the distance, its body stripped of all identifying markers or logos, probably as a PR tactic.
And with that, we left South Asia to meet up with a friend before journeying to Cambodia. Our time in Nepal felt short as we really only saw two cities, but the trip was densely packed with culture and nature. The trip to Nepal happened almost by accident, more due to its proximity to India than anything else, but turned out to be one of the highlights of all of my Asian travels. I have a good feeling I’ll end up here again someday.