Kathmandu in the Daylight

As we entered Kathmandu we hit the rush hour wall of traffic and it took a very long time for us to get to a point where we could be dropped off. When we finally did get off there was a swarm of taxi drivers waiting. We quickly got our bags and started walking south with no real idea of where we were, just that Thamel was south of where we were and that it must be somewhat close. Needless to say we had to ask about 5 different people to get where we were going, but we finally arrived at the Kathmandu Guest House. Ariel and Johnny had recommended the place so we thought we could give it a try. When we arrived we were quite impressed with the outside and lobby of the building. The front gate was large and guarded (though we walked right in) and outside the front door was a very nice café and bar. Inside there was marble and dark wood. It seemed promising. I asked about a room and was shown a list of options and prices, about 10 in all. I chose the cheapest room with a television and made sure that the room did indeed have a television as it had been a week or so since I watched and in China the TV shows are terrible so I like watching TV when I am abroad. Content with the knowledge that I would have a TV, and heater, we proceeded to our room. This was around 6pm. The room was nice enough; a bit disappointing for what we paid, but not so much that we were mad about it. I turned on the TV to make sure it worked and then we headed out for dinner.
About an hour later we returned, me with beer in hand, for a quiet evening watching news shows and movies on the television. Some of you may empathize with my disappointment when I realized that the power in Kathmandu had gone out, as it does every 6 hours or so, and neither the TV nor the heater was able to be turned on. I went to the front desk to inquire as to when the power would be back on. After consulting a schedule the desk man, the same who checked me in, told me 1am. Crestfallen I asked when I might expect it to go off again and he informed me sometime around 7am. I was upset that basically the only time the power would be on, and hence I could watch TV, would be when I and any normal person would be sleeping. When I explained that to him he was unmoved. I asked to then change rooms, since I had no use for a room with a TV and heater that would not function. He was unmoved. In fact he said, “You asked for a room with a television, it has a television.” Which didn’t work! He could have easily told me that when I checked in, but failed to do so. I felt cheated.

The next day we got up late, enjoyed a very warm shower and headed back to our original hotel, the Shangri-La, where we had stayed earlier. After staying at the Guest House we figure Shangri-La was reasonably priced for what we got. We checked in and then headed over to Pilgrims Bookstore/café for breakfast. While there I noticed that the bar had a locally brewed traditional beer. I was looking forward to coming back that night to try it, but unfortunately it was out of stock. Afterwards we moved around to a few bookstores, lazed around at the hotel and then went to the Swayambhunath Temple (monkey temple). It has a magnificent stupa crowning the hill. There were quite a few monkeys and I must admit that the temples were beautiful. It was a very unique place despite the hordes of people that were there and the touts. Afterwards we thought we would use the fact that we were away from Thamel to go to Durbar Square. When we arrived we tried to walk into Durbar Square only to be stopped by a guard. He wanted 300 rupees each for us to enter. We decided it was too expensive. In retrospect maybe it wasn’t since that is about 4 US dollars each, but we were pretty sick of being jerked around and decided that rather than pay to go in we would go to the rooftop restaurant nearby and get a good view of the square while having lunch, no charge for entry. It was pretty nice. By this point we thought we were pretty far from Thamel. On the map it seemed awfully far so we flagged down a bicycle taxi to bring us back. As I was flagging down one guy a really scrawny looking guy cut in front of him and swooped over to us. We figured, why not and away we went. Turns out we grossly overpaid because it took our driver about 10 minutes to get back to Thamel and we easily could have walked, but there you have it. We felt so bad for our driver that we gave him an apple and a bag of chips along with our fee and then I took a picture of his feet. I wanted a keepsake of the scrawniest man who carried us in his rickshaw. By this time it was getting a bit late so we decided to have some dinner at a local Italian place and then pack it in for the night in order to enjoy the electricity that on until 9pm.

Our last full day in Kathmandu we woke late and went to find a laundry service. We were at the end of our fresh undies and I hadn’t washed my pants in about 10 days so I was ready to get those cleaned. Unfortunately I only had shorts and long underwear as an alternative so while our clothes were being laundered I wore those around town. After we had gotten our laundry we set off to the National Museum. Since yesterday’s rickshaw ride proved much shorter than we expected we took a glance at the map and decided the museum was close enough to walk to. After about 1 ½ hours we arrived at the museum.
It was interesting to say the least. The grounds and buildings were fairly well dilapidated. We entered the main building of historical items containing mounted animals, coins, panoramas, paintings, and memorabilia. Some items were quite interesting, but the general feeling of the museum was that Nepal did not have enough items to fill a museum and any thing was put in a display case to fill up the building. It was funny, but also sad and really I felt bad for the Nepalese people who certainly had an interesting and rich history, but could not afford to upkeep a museum of national quality. We visited a few more buildings on the grounds and then began our walk back. Eventually we flagged down a taxi and got back into Thamel around evening. We had dinner at a lovely little place that served Nepalese cuisine and went back early to pack and get ready for an early flight the next day.
We got up at the crack of dawn and took a taxi to the airport where we again waited for hours as our flight was delayed due to haze. After a security guard made sure I wasn’t able to stab anyone with my nail clippers by taking it away we were off into the blue skies and back to India. While I was disappointed to be leaving Nepal I was very excited to finally be seeing the Himalayas albeit from an airplane window.