From India to Nepal

Well we've been based out of Kathmandu now for the last 5 or 6 days, what a great city. We are currently in the Thamel area which is the main travelers/backpackers area of the city. The area is strangely Western (sort of) full of lots of great places to eat, hear live music and of course, get yourself kitted up and involved in every type of adventure you can imagine in Nepal. Every 3rd shop seems to be an outdoor trekking shop full of all the outdoor clothing you need, crampons, ropes, camping equipment, ice axes and so on. Then you've got mountain bike guides, realty all sorts of guiding businesses, white water rafting, Kayaking, Trekking, para-gliding the list goes on. (Outdoor adventure sports are so well set up here, the organization of hiking/climbing routes is great, with tea houses to stay overnight and guides and/or porters to lead the way through the mountains.) Of course there are no shortage of great book shops, carpet shops, shops selling tourist trinkets.... So, the bottom line on this part of Kathmandu is that it's a great place to be relieved of money. Things are amazingly attractive prices, but there are just so many things to do here.

Before i get too much into the scene here in Nepal I will just quickly tell you about our trip from Varanasi up to Kathmandu, our 2 day bus ride. We left our guest house in Varanasi at about 6:30 in the morning and arrived at the bus departure point shortly after. We had our free breakfast which consisted of a micro-omelet sandwich and the worlds smallest cup of chai. Eating it was especially interesting with clouds of hash smoke blowing our way from a group of young Dutch guys who decided to try and get really stoned to help out with the long bus ride (which incidentally they were smoking giant hash cones every time the bus stopped), i am not sure whether it helped them but on the bus they looked either comatosed or asleep, so maybe it helped(?). So our smoked-out uneventful breakfast finished and then spent a very long day on the bus, driving through flat lands of the Ganges floods plane and never ending inhabitation, there are just so many people, everywhere. It sometimes seems that the cities never end, at best they work down to a trickle of buildings and people before quickly building up again into another city.


The bus, which was a 'tourist bus,' meaning slightly better than an Indian public bus but a far cry from most western busses, arrived in the border town of Sunauli around 8pm, where we got off the bus and were told to just walk through the town towards Nepal (in the dark). In a swirl of confusion; money changing touts, rickshaw drivers, Nepali trucks, complete with cockpit disco lighting, driving by kicking up dust, and then Indian and Nepali immigration (which was about as sophisticated as a small roadside restaurant). Anyhow, somehow through all the disorganization we arrived at the Nepal Guest House, a nondescript place with walls painted institutional green, bars on the windows and simple beds, but something here was different to India, the people. The people looked more Chinese, but with darker skin and, they were so friendly and nice. The niceness of the people has continued since we've been here, they are really are wonderful and genuine.


The second day on the bus got much more interesting as we quickly began climbing into the mountains. The ride was pretty terrifying with the bus clinging to cliff edge roads and trying to avoid head on collisions at high speed (usually due to desperate attempts to overtake around corners), certainly not relaxing. But somehow after a few hours of this you settle into the fact that perhaps this is normal and relax a bit.


The scenery was stunning; deep river gorges and steep hillsides stepped with terraced land for farming (generally consisting of rice corn or potatoes). It was exciting to know that we were driving into the Himalayas, home to our planet's highest mountains. We arrived surprisingly early into Kathmandu, around 4pm.

Kathmandu is a pleasant change from India, the streets are relatively clean, the food is much tastier and more varied and people don't seem to use the streets as a public toilet. And best of all, there are some really exciting eco-adventures and cultural things to do.

New pictures have been posted in the Nepal link above. Enjoy!

Cheers, steff and justin