Kathmandu I

April 12th, 2010 4:54am - Posted By: Brittany

 April 12, 2010.   Another day in Kathmandu.  Tyson and I slept in until 10:30am – yay!  We missed the free breakfast buffet, but by the time we get ready it was lunch time anyway.  We headed out to Thamel again, armed with Tyson’s laptop for free internet.  We tried to get a cab outside the hotel, but the cabbies were giving us terrible deals.  We walked down to the main drag and just kept walking.  Thamel is really only about 4-5 blocks from the Yak & Yeti, but walking means you have to cross all the crazy roads filled with crazy drivers and people.  But we did it and had fun.  It’s just a blur of hot, dusty air mixed with constant noise.  Honking, talking, honking, screeching.  We follow other groups for safety.  There are no real crosswalks or street lights.  And if there are, chances are they have no power.  Everyone just drives in the general area and if everyone knows that how it works, I guess that makes it work.  To cross a street, you just wait for a small opening and go.  The cars will come up to you fast, but they don’t hit you.  Then you weave in and out of stopped cars until you make it to the other side.  Imagine Arapahoe Ave in Boulder filled with about 100 times more cars at rush hour with no power to the lights, 95 degrees and no traffic cops or rules.  It’s that every day in Kathmandu. 

We’re headed back to the Roadhouse for lunch.  We know it will be good food and we need that comfort right now.  Just outside Thamel 3 beggar children pull at our pockets and ask for money.  It’s terrible to see these thin, dirty kids, none more than 7 years old sleeping on the sidewalk and asking for things.  It breaks your heart.  But the truth of the matter is they only hit up white tourists for a reason.  Most of these kids are not homeless and don’t need food.  In a lot of cases, their parents send them out to get extra money from tourists.  When this has happened with Deana with us, she will stop and ask them where they are from, where their parents are, etc.  They always answer honestly: their from Kathmandu, parents at work, they don’t like school, just collecting money.  She then yells at them in Nepali telling them to go to school.  They are always shocked at a white woman speaking such good Nepali.  This isn’t to say there are not impoverished children in Nepal.  Of course there are, it has a lot of poverty.  But Kathmandu has a lot of children’s homes and tries hard to help this problem, as do the various religious organizations.

Just inside Thamel I see a cute clothing shop.  The man invites us in and it’s full of various shirts and summer dresses.  I want a pretty shirt, and find one, but also find a summer dress.  It has an Aeropostle tag in it, but who knows.  The man tells us it is made for the company in Nepal, and these “fell of the truck” before exportation.  If this is true, this dress would sell for $50-60 in the US.  He sells it to me for $7. 

We make it to the Roadhouse and enjoy salad, bruschetta, and Nachos.  Yum!  We look at some gongs for Tyson, but they are so expensive!  $100 for a medium gong.  That’s a ton of money, especially for Kathmandu.  We find our way to Chops Café.  It’s in a new street in Thamel called Mandala St.  The shops look clean and the brick in new.  Chops has free WiFi.  We order some tea, a strawberry  milkshake, and a brownie.  Once again, the brownie was nasty.  Oh Nepal!  We need to open a dessert café with good brownies in it.  The internet is the fastest we’ve seen on the whole trip.  Our bill is less than $10, including some Chow Mein we get at the end.  Not bad for fast WiFi!  The only downside to Chops was their music.  They only played 5 songs, over and over.  Most were cheesy 80s songs, Michael Bolton, some Celene Dion and a terrible James Blunt song.  Over and over and over….

We decide to hit the locals area that Deane recommended for gongs.  We need to go to Indra Chowk, a bustling intersection that will lead us to the metal working area and spice area, as well as a Nepali bakery.  We head to the taxi stand and get hit up by a Rickshaw driver.  We decide what the hell and hop on.  We agree to $250 rupees ($3) and take off.  We barely fit in the tiny basket and have to hold on.  Now we’re flying through all that Kathmandu traffic in an old basket on wheels.  It was a lot of fun, but insane. 

 We pulled up to a massive intersection of old buildings.  It looks like it should be pedestrians only, but every type of transport is there.  We get off and the rickshaw driver tells me $500 rupees.  I’m like, no, $250.  He says it was $250 each person.  I said no, it wasn’t.  He then says he’ll give me a deal of $400.  I say no, here’s your $250.  He then says, but it is hot out today.  He won’t take the $250.  I say, take the $250 or I’m leaving.  He finally takes it and I walk away.  Jeez!  I love Nepalis and this city, but I’m so tired of the haggling.  

We get out and try to find our way.  Not sure we got to the right area, but the shops all seem to only sell metal goods: pots, pans, incense burners.  We find a small shop that has Nepali knives for sale.  The owner invites us in and brushes off some small stools for us to sit.  We negotiate over some knives and then spot it:  a simple, pretty gong tucked up in the corner of the shop.  We ask about it and he’s more than excited to sell it.  It has what looks like a scratch, but he says no.  Then he begin to polish is right there.  After a few minutes, the gong is bright and shiny.  Tyson loves it and we get it for $40.  Great deal! 

We head out and are pleased with ourselves.  There are no other tourists in the area, we’ve found the locals shopping district, along with the deals! 

We head down Indra Chowk in search of the Angan Bakery.  We find it quickly, pick out some goods, and catch a cab back to the Yak & Yeti. 

We have our Mountain Madness final dinner tonight with Deana and Taru.  We get ready for that and head to the lobby.  We have to pick up our laundry first, so we all walk back to Thamel.  Tyson and I have 5 bags!  We then have to walk to the restaurant, luckily not too far. 

The restaurant Deana picked for us was in the Garden of Dreams.  This whole complex used to be the Rani leader of Nepal’s garden home and sanctuary.  He modeled it after Roman architecture.  Built in the 1920s, it was a place for royalty.  But after his fall, it fell into disrepair.  Just as it was about to be demolished, the city and the people wanted to fix it.  Now it’s a preserved city attraction.  It was really beautiful and proof that even in Kathmandu, you can find a secluded, almost quiet area to relax.  One of the buildings is now a swanky restaurant.  We sat outside and enjoyed some Italian food and wine. 

We headed back to the hotel after a few hours.  We said good bye to Deana in the lobby.  She is working after all, and we may not see her again.  She was the best guide and showed us so much more than we could have seen or known on our own. 

We all go to our rooms, but Tyson and I are not too tired.  So we head back down, get some chocolate cake from the bar and Everest beer, and go out to the pool.  We just relax for a while, then go to bed.  It was a long, crazy day!!  

Posted in: Nepal 2010

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