...Je serai parti alors... Katmandou - Népal (Etape 3)

Even more chaotic, even more crazy, even dirtier, even more people... Welcome to Kathmandu!

And as if that wasn't crazy enough: Get on the motorcycle and dive into the traffic... Now it's time to squeeze through, drive against the traffic and find a gap :-)

At first, it was a lot of fun to plunge into the chaotic traffic and weave through the narrow streets. But after a while, constantly clutching and braking became exhausting and the extreme air pollution put a strain on the respiratory system.

With the bike, I headed east to Boudha to visit Kathmandu's famous temple, Stupa Bodhnath. There, 6,397 km away from home, I met a friend from my climbing group in Berlin and his buddy. With Philipp and Steffen, I spent 2 days exploring Kathmandu together. The Stupa Bodhnath is surrounded by prayer wheels. Many locals, pilgrims, and tourists walk clockwise around the stupa and spin all the prayer wheels, whether for religious reasons or just for fun. In the countless restaurants, you can enjoy local cuisine and admire the entire temple complex from their rooftops.

In the evening, I cruised with Phillip to Durbar Square near Thamel. On the market square, sellers try to trick you with touristy overpriced prices. But if you negotiate well and act skillfully, the price can quickly drop from the initial 5000 NPR to 1500 NPR. Durbar Square consists of many small wooden temples where animal sacrifices are reluctantly carried out - I don't believe that the dove got tangled up and hanged itself... Just in time for sunset, we enjoyed the view from the rooftop of the Thamel Grand Hotel, where I spent the night.

Thamel is the ultimate tourist hub in Kathmandu, lined with shops, rentals, bars, and restaurants. As the evening approaches, the streets light up and the hustle and bustle in this area never seems to end. The Israeli restaurant "Or2K" is highly recommended.

From one sacred place to another, the next day started with a visit to Swayambhunath, also known as the "Monkey Temple". As the name suggests, there are plenty of free-roaming monkeys on the temple grounds. Swayambhunath is reached after climbing a few stairs and offers a magnificent view of the entire city nestled in the Himalayan mountains. Similar to Stupa Bodhnath, the temple consists of many prayer wheels. Here, some Hindu pilgrims are on their way. Just for fun, we had a "Tikla" painted on our foreheads, of course for a fee... ;-)

While the two guys headed east to the base camp of Mount Everest, I set off on the journey to Besisahar, a small village west of Kathmandu. There, the famous Annapurna Circuit begins, a 200 km long trekking route in the middle of the Annapurna National Park.

The path to the mountains was very colorful because throughout Nepal, the world-famous Holi Festival took place on March 20th and 21st. During the ancient Hindu festival of colors, people everywhere joyfully celebrated the end of winter. They splashed and threw water and various colors on each other on the streets, symbolizing divine blessings.

In the Annapurna Circuit, the journey goes up to the Thorung La Pass at a total of 5416 m and then back down into the valley. This explains why I left some things in Kuala Lumpur: to carry as little as possible on my back.