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.

The morning of the last day left me with a lot of bittersweet feelings. I was growing a bit weary of the trail after four days and was very much looking forward to going back to a proper hotel in Pokhara. But I had also grown accustomed to the routine and found myself feeling very attached to Ghandruk, if only in a I-wish-I-could-spend-two-more-weeks-here way. It’s probably for the best that the trek was only five days though, as my clothes (and my body) were starting to smell a little funky; I could smell my feet while standing. I enjoy making fun of foul-smelling Western hippies in South Asia and I’ll be damned if I become one of them!

After our 7:30 breakfast, we were on our way, heading down, down, down stone staircases for hours, descending about 1,000 meters that morning. Once we were finished with the stairs, we found ourselves on much less interesting dirt trails and roads for the rest of the way back to Nayapul, where we had one last dal bhat lunch before getting a ride back to Pokhara.

The five-day Poon Hill trek was perfect for my fitness level and trekking desire. It felt really good to be active and exerting myself again, especially with an elevated heart rate for extended periods of time. The meals were much more delicious and satisfying than usual because my body was craving them so much more. And though I thought I would be tired at the end, I found myself quite invigorated! Maybe that’s not such a big surprise at all, given that I was well-rested, well-fed, and well-exercised, with lots of clean, fresh mountain air.

Although this trek pales in comparison to the other treks Nepal has to offer, I still found it to be a life-affirming experience and I think my photos show that. The scenery – mountains, valleys, rivers, rocks, forests, rhododendron trees, snow, people, and animals – was some of the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen in my life in one place. The experience was beautiful and satisfying in many ways and I would definitely consider – perhaps after upping my fitness level – another trekking trip again in the future.

Over an early-morning breakfast, I met my guide, Sandip, and the other members of our group, a couple of Danish girls who were traveling parts of Asia during their gap year. After breakfast, I climbed into a van with the others for the 90-minute drive to Nayapul, a small town by the Modi River that serves as the starting and finish line for this particular trekking loop.

After Sandip handled some registration paperwork at the local trekking office, we were on our way by 10:00 or so, heading up a gently sloping dirt road that ran alongside the river and through several villages, offering great views of the valley, terraces cut into the hills, and foot bridges spanning the river.

The dirt road gave way to a stone pathway/staircase which would become our “yellow brick road” for the next five days. This trekking style, sometimes referred to as “teahouse trekking”, is relatively easy and convenient, even if you don’t have a guide, as you’ll never walk more than an hour or so without coming across a cluster of lodges that offer hot meals, hot showers, and a safe place to stay for the night. The stone pathway is the only link between the villages in the mountains, so it’s shared by Western tourists, Nepalis carrying crops or rocks or wood in baskets on their backs, and trains of donkeys either carrying fresh supplies uphill or empty burlap sacks and propane tanks downhill.

The first day was relatively easy; we trekked for only three hours or so and made it to Hile, our final destination for the day, a bit after noon. Before doing anything else, we sat down in the restaurant and all had a lunch of dal bhat, a traditional Nepalese meal that is popular throughout the entire country (and even neighboring countries) with pretty much everyone, local and tourist alike. The dal baht I had along the entire trekking route was very reliable: a mountain of rice (how appropriate!), dal (lentil soup), curry potatoes, greens, spicy sauce or Nepalese kimchi (always referred to as “pickle”), and a piece of papadum. It makes for a perfect trekkers’ meal, and a great meal in general, since it’s tasty, nutritious, and very filling. And the best part? Unlimited seconds! Every time I finished about half of my meal, someone would come around with a pot of food and ask if I wanted more. Even though the portions in Nepal are massive to begin with, I found myself easily eating two full plates every day for lunch; somehow, Nepalese rice goes down much, much easier than rice from Southeast Asia. Each lodge along the route is family-run, so each dal bhat is a slightly different recipe, adding a little bit of excitement to my mid-day meal. After eating huge amounts of it for lunch for five straight days, I still wasn’t tired of it.

After lunch, I went through what would become my daily routine upon arriving at our lodge for the evening: I checked into my room, soaked myself in a hot shower, hung up my sweaty clothes on the clothesline, put Tiger Balm (still in my bag from one of last year’s trips to Thailand) on my shoulders, and changed into dry, warm clothes. The days were sunny and warm enough that I’d get sweaty during the trekking, especially with a backpack, but once I showered and emerged from my room into the cool mountain air, warm clothes were definitely necessary.

The rooms at the lodges on the trekking route tend to be pretty standard: four walls and a door, two twin beds with hard mattresses, a small bedside table, windows that don’t fit properly in their frames (leading to a great bicep/tricep workout when I wanted to open or close them), and a single light bulb. No sealing, no insulation, no heater, no outlets, and no attached bathroom. Basically, think of a shed, then add a shared squat toilet, a shared shower closet, and an outdoor faucet that offers only freezing cold mountain river water. The one thing that prevented hypothermia during the cold mountain nights was the multi-inch thick blankets that did a remarkable job of keeping me warm despite the fact that the temperature in my room was the same as the temperature outside.

After accepting what my lodging and “amenities” would be like for the next few days, I was able to take in the environment and really begin to enjoy the setting, which was amazing. Hile is lower in the hills (an elevation of about 1,500 meters), so we were surrounded on all sides by tall, lush valley walls dotted with houses and plumes of smoke among the trees and terraces. The sun danced through the clouds and the green canopy overhead and somewhere below, out of sight, the constant, calming white noise of a rushing mountain river could be heard.

The four of us knocked down cultural and language barriers by spending the entire afternoon playing Uno in the restaurant, then having dinner (momos and Nepalese beer for me) once the sun went down. I had the very gratifying revelation that food is so much more satisfying when I have to work hard for it; trekking for a few hours was much more physical exertion than I’m used to having these days.