Week 27 - Kathmandu + Bhaktapur

Aaaaah, finally in Nepal! My long journey began with an 8-hour flight from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, where I had booked a night in a hostel. Even one in a high-rise with a rooftop pool! However, I have to admit that I can write Southeast Asia off my list for now. I am now happily leaving the humid air and the very typical backpacker crowd that has to go out drinking in bars every evening and is generally not that interested in the culture behind me and I am soooo excited about Nepal. On my 5-hour flight to Kathmandu the next day, I was sitting next to a nice Frenchman who also only comes here to hike (like almost everyone here). The flight had pretty strong turbulence and when we landed, we had to slalom between the mountains to the airport and then had the most wobbly landing I have ever experienced. During the visa on arrival process, I immediately connected with another girl (Floor from the Netherlands) from the plane to navigate everything together. There were a maximum of five women on the plane and generally a lot of locals and very few tourists. In Kathmandu I moved to Floor's hostel relatively quickly because mine was really rustic and unfortunately not very social. A friend of Floor's came along too (Daan from the Netherlands) and we explored the city together in the first few days.

I really like Nepal and Kathmandu. For the first time, it's a challenge as a woman (I couldn't feel safer in Southeast Asia, by contrast). You definitely don't wear shorts here and you still tie a pashmina around your shoulders. It's really interesting to visit a Hindu country and see the gods and culture everywhere that I'd only known from yoga and stories. The tourist district of 'Thamel' in Kathmandu is very cool with hundreds of outdoor shops that sell all kinds of fake functional items (complete hiking outfits, filters for water bottles, homemade woolen hats and socks and much more). The air here is extremely bad, you can hardly see the next hill because of all the smog and in the first few days I could hardly breathe because of the dust. Your throat is constantly dry and you just keep gulping down liters of water.

We visited the monkey temple, which sits on a hill and is an impressive sight at sunset. The monkeys still don't let me relax at all, but they seem to be less aggressive here than in Thailand. The next day we went with Daan and Floor to the former old town of Bhaktapur. The 20-minute taxi ride took more like 1.5 hours, but the main thing is that the little old car has Bluetooth and you can turn it on loudly. I haven't found anyone wearing seatbelts in the car or bus yet, so it remains exciting. Bhaktapur is pleasantly quiet and has a very beautiful old market place with temples, etc. In general, there are cafés and restaurants on all the rooftops for the perfect break in between. They basically always serve the same dishes in a variety of variations. Mainly momos, dumplings with veg, chicken or buffalo, which come from Tibet, and dal bhat, a large plate of rice with various curries around it and pickled vegetables and curd. I think it tastes great, but sometimes you long for variety. Even though momos come in all kinds of forms (steamed, fried, half fried (kothey), in curry (jhol), chilli, and so on). The price is again at the absolute lowest limit, but you have to shell out a lot for the hikes.

The days in Kathmandu were mainly used to overcome the jet lag, arrive in the new country and book the first trekking tour. There are a million options for this in every imaginable price range. If you book online in advance, you pay $1000-2000 for a comfortable package perfectly organized by western tour operators. On site, you have to dig through the incredible number of providers, but you can then negotiate a price between €200 and €1000. Different things are always included and there is usually something extra during the hike. Finally, you can also go on your own, which is definitely the cheapest, but you have to organize everything yourself, navigate, etc. Floor and I got together very quickly and decided on the Annapurna Circuit (with Tilicho Lake, which means a small extra route, a total of 14 days on the road, 12 of which are hiking). For convenience and because of our inexperience, we opted for a guide with option 2. The whole thing is handled professionally via WhatsApp and then confirmed in the office. We include everything except lunch, dinner and a tip for the guide.