Kathmandu, Nepal - exploring Thamel

The alarm was set for 6:30 am. 

At 4:50 am my eyes pop open. 

In the bed next to me both Clara and Juliet are wide awake. I try to make us all go back to sleep, but that only ends up in fits of giggles! I guess it is 11 am back in New Zealand and our bodies just refuse to accept that we should be sleeping. So we make an early morning of it. The breakfast at the hotel is basic but fast and filling. We catch the 7 am shuttle to the airport and are the only ones in line for our flight. With two hours to spare we wander the relatively empty shopping mall, oh, I mean airport, finally settling on another food stop. Mangos and sticky rice to fill us up. The girls eyes pop open when they discover this Southeast Asian delight. Mmmm, mmmm.

Suvarnabhumi Intl. Airport, Bangkok

After practicing yoga, drawing pictures, wandering around aimlessly, and people watching we finally board a bus that takes us to the outer reaches of the airport where we climb aboard our plane. I'm tired and we haven't even taken off yet.

In front of us are two Buddhist monks. It's quite the picture to see the humble robed figures climbing the stairs next to a huge jet engine which is being prepared to propel us through the atmosphere to Nepal. I don't know. Maybe it is a statement that the old and the new can live in harmony, we just have to take the good and practical from each.

After three hours we descend into Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, keeping vigil for the snowy peaks of the Himalaya mountains which surround the Kathmandu Valley. From the air the city is blanketed in haze and mist, just like the Himalaya mountains that peek out at us from behind their own sheets of clouds. It's a smooth landing and we walk down the moving stairway onto the tarmac just behind the monks. Even though the air looked hot and humid from the plane, when we get off we are surprised by a cool temperature, sadly a testament to the air pollution of Kathmandu.

So much paperwork!!!

After clearing the visa office, then the immigration office, then customs office (where they didn't even look at the six forms that were required of me to fill out before we landed!) we reached the other side and are out into Nepal for the first time. Durga, our ride to our hotel, host for most of the trip, and co founder of the charity "First Steps Himalaya" is right there to meet us. (More on FSH later in the trip.) 

Smiling and waving to us from the middle of the road he seems oblivious to the honking horns and traffic moving all around him. We are soon to learn this is normal pedestrian behavior here in Kathmandu, something a little daunting to watch until you get used to it! We load into his five seat-er pick up truck (you do the math, we were squashed) and off we went into Kathmandu craziness. 

Kathmandu can be quite a shock to the system if not properly prepared. It's a city with huge growing pains, having gone from 1 million souls ten years ago to nearly 3 million today, mostly Nepali people who have moved to the city to make their fortune, only to live in squalor. Sigh, the story of so many a city and country. 

The kids are a bit horrified at the first impressions. The smog, the traffic, the rubbish everywhere. It is complete mayhem on the roads with no one using the lanes. No traffic lights, cows, dogs, people, motor bikes, monkeys, cars, buses all competing for space on the road. And then there is the smell of the Bagmati river which runs rife with human sewage (not to mention hospital sewage!). Frankly I am a bit horrified myself! But I believe it is good for us to experience life on the other side. It is so easy to be spoiled by soft living in a country such as ours. 

Nepali power lines

Durga successfully navigates us to our hotel, The Summit, which is an absolute oasis in the chaos of the city. With a long driveway and large inner courtyard of grass it is quiet and peaceful. It's nice to know we will have such a place to come back to when we can't take the filth anymore. But for this afternoon, it is much too early to just hang out.

We only have a finite time here in Kathmandu before heading off into the countryside, so after dropping our bags and changing clothes we are back out into the chaotic Kathmandu. Durga offers to drop us in Thamel, Kathmandu's touristy shopping area, before heading off to pick up his wife and kids from the airport. So after another crazy car ride, a few directions, and advice that haggling is important, we are standing on an alleyway corner between a textile shop and a knock-off North Face stall dodging screaming motor bikes, honking vans, chiming bike taxis and a myriad of other vehicles who all seem to driving in an exhausting confusion. 

But we get our rhythm. The kids just naturally fall into our "formation" that we drilled them on when in the Middle East, our last big adventure. And we learned that while the traffic has absolutely no rhyme or reason to it, no one seems to get hurt and truth be told they don't drive so fast that you can't side step whatever is coming at you, or behind you, as the case may be!

Thamel

Thamel is Kathmandu's touristy shopping district filled with all manner of stores. This part of the city became popular forty some years ago as part of the "hippie trail" where it was almost obligatory for sensitive souls to come and practice their art while journeying through th area. The hippie trail was a journey that many alternate people took between the 1950 and 70s that lead from Europe through India, ultimately culminating in Nepal. As the name implies they were the "counter culture" bringing with them a longing to escape the times with a new way of living, oh, and a lot of pot smoking. The so called Hippie trail stopped in it's popularity in the late 70s when the political climate changed leaving the hash houses out of fashion, and/or illegal in some countries. But Thamel lives on in the modern tourist, here now more for the mountains and the cheap shopping.

Navigating the alleyways of Thamel

So here we are in Thamel, once a hash heaven of the hippie trail, now a tourist bargaining epicenter, negotiating over some little items that we wanted to buy for our trek. Nothing is of very good quality, but boy is it cheap. Many a tourist to Nepal comes here to buy cheap gear before heading out into the mountains. Not to be left behind Randall gets a walking stick, Liana a dress as well as a few gift items. The best bargainer of the day was Cara who got  Juliet a pair of cotton pants for 200 rupees - that's just over $2 NZ!

Exhausted by the days of travel and the six and a quarter hour time change (still haven't figured the reason behind the quarter!!) we found our eyelids drooping and interest waning for the goods on display. We managed to delay the kids till five before heading off to another of Durga's suggestions, a hidden away pizza place that hit the spot perfectly. 

With the kids falling asleep on the table we head out and Randall valiantly finds us a cab. After finally throwing in the towel for finding a bigger taxi we have to settle for the ubiquitous Indian made taxi which is only half the size of the last car we piled into. Certainly not meant for seven people, but hey, we are in Asia, this is what they do. So we pile in and honk our way back to the hotel. Pedestrians calmly walking into the thick of the traffic, one hand out and head bobbing back and forth make it across the streets ahead of us. Cows, dogs, cats, monkeys and crazy motor bike all made it safely past and no one was hurt! I'm beginning to get a feel for this place. 

Cheers!

Now it's eight at night and the kids are fast asleep. Our little apartment at the Summit is on the outside of the hotel and I can hear the life of Kathmandu going on around me in the gardens and apartments that are our neighbors. Some neighborhood dogs barking, earlier the clucking of a big bird (a chicken I hope) going to sleep somewhere in the garden below my window, the couple in the apartment to our right chatting away, and the clanking of dishes from the one directly in back. Life goes on. It's all part of it. And we are part of it. I'm looking forward to getting to know more about what makes this city and country tick. But for now my eyelids are drooping... must sleep.....