Day 202: Kathmandu – Day 2
Even though the Royal Penguin offers 24-hour free breakfast, we got up and ate at a normal time in the morning. Reginald, from Wind Horse Tours, had an appointment to meet us at 9AM to finalize our payments, so we met him soon after polishing off our Belgian waffles & crepes. Turns out, our guide – Phurba – had just flown in from Tibet as well, finishing a long trek with another group, and wouldn’t be able to meet up with us until the afternoon. We were a little bummed to miss out on our guided tour of Kathmandu, but we took to the streets and tried to explore on our own.
Real coffee and a bottle of hand sanitizer on the table?! It’s like we’re back in Indonesia!
Playing the typical tourist and shopping in Thamel – Lindsay finds an excellent selection of hand-painted Christmas ornaments (her favorite type of souvenir) as well as a new baseball cap
Window-shopping in Thamel – whether you are looking for golden goblets, marionettes puppets or stuffed animal toys, there is a vendor for you! The *variety* of items available is so refreshing.
Wandering around Thamel, we soak in some of the local color: the organized chaos of the traffic buzzing through the narrow streets, “holy” cows poking their heads into shops, and the Coca Cola truck making deliveries
More sights on the streets of Kathmandu – colorful rickshaws, an old woman making flower necklaces out of marigolds, and a group of young monks walking through the square
Colorful powder dyes and spices for sale in the marketplace
We pass many tailors in the neighborhood – all of them using old-fashioned, foot-pedal sewing machines
Buildings in Kathmandu – a hot tangled mess of electrical wiring and weeds growing on the roof
This one’s for Barbara – a Nepali dentist shop showing off their teeth! Do you think these are replacements for sale…or bragging how many he pulled?
We couldn’t find any of the temples the LonelyPlanet recommended in their self-guided walking tour, as none of the streets have signs. However, we did stumble across a temple with a sign out front that read, “Followers of any religion welcome.” Well! – hard to offend anyone with an invitation like that! We walked around the Janbahal Temple…which we now think was a temple dedicated to pigeons. As true New Yorkers, we have a heathly distain for disease-carrying, flying rats, so we ducked out of there pretty fast.
The Janbahal Temple in Thamel
OK, this sign is either confirming that this is a shrine to pigeons, or it is telling people to stop feeding the pigeons as they are a nuisance…I vote the latter…
Exploring the Janbahal Temple
I’m not positive (since there are no signs) but I *think* we stumbled upon the Kathesimba Stupa and the Drubgon Jangchup Choeling Monastery, which are supposed to be on our walking tour.
We accidentally wander into someone’s courtyard garden, thinking it was a flower shop – love the bathtub lily pads!
Can I just say again, how great Nepal is? Unlike *some other countries,* the pedestrian street is NOT open to motorcycles or cars, and – God bless them – they actually prohibit smoking in public! Former Major Bloomberg would be so pleased
At 4PM, we met up with Reginald and Phurba and reviewed our trekking itinerary together, making sure we had a chance to ask any last minute questions. Once we confirmed our pick-up time for the airport tomorrow morning, Lindsay and Igor followed Phurba down the street to pick up our loaner sleeping bags and our complimentary waterproof duffle bags. (They say “North Face” on them…but we don’t really think they’re legit. Whatever, as long as they keep our stuff dry, the copyright infringement is someone else’s problem.) With our gear in hand, we bade Phurba goodnight and headed out for another fantastic dinner in Kathmandu before returning to the hotel to pack and staying up *way too late* watching TV and sipping some sparkling wine.
Picking up our -20⁰C sleeping bags for the trek to EBC
A refreshing mint lemonade and a goat cheese crostini TO DIE FOR are great starters for our second night out in Kathmandu