Today we landed in Kathmandu, Nepal. I have been dreaming of coming to this country for longer than I can remember. Why, you ask? Two words: Mount Everest. Who wouldn't be intrigued by the thought of visiting a country whose people spend their time literally on the top of the world? I'm not adventurous enough (yet) to actually start climbing these beastly mountains, but for now I'm happy to explore the valleys and less hardcore experiences that Nepal has to offer.
For being a country largely dependent on tourism for its economy, Nepal was surprisingly difficult to navigate as a foreign visitor. It's not as bad as Bhutan, mind you, but there were a series of hoops to jump through before we were allowed to enter the country. We had read online that we could get a visa upon arrival for a small fee - sounds simple, no? If only. First we waited in the visa line only to be told we hadn't filled out the right forms. We complete this task and see that the visa application requires a passport photo to be attached. Thankfully I was carrying a spare with me, but Ami wasn't. No worries - they have a photo booth set up where you can pay an arm and a leg for a photo. Then, we get back in the visa line. Ami goes to the front of the line, and her paperwork is underway until they ask her to pay the fee. We have Indian rupees on hand and figured we could pay with those. Nope. How about Nepalese rupees from the nearby ATM? Nope. Instead we had to get out Nepalese rupees, then go to the money exchange counter and trade them in for USD. Why so complicated? Who knows. We return to the visa desk - there are 5-6 visa officers sitting behind desks - Ami returns to the one she had been working with before. I approach another counter and am quickly waved off by a supervisor, who instructs me to wait in line to talk to Ami's guy. The reason behind this seemingly inefficient way of doing things eventually becomes apparent - this particular desk is the first stop in the "visa assembly line" that these desks represent. After paying our USD to this guy, we head to the next desk, who validates that our receipt is in order (as if he didn't just see us pay the guy sitting across from him). Then another guy starts reviewing our forms, and another scans our passports, another prepares the visa to put into our passports. Needless to say, the process took a while. As we're waiting, one of the officers starts talking to Ami, asking her if she has any Nepalese family, since her last name is apparently common here. They chat about her Gujarati background for a couple minutes before he asks her who I am - a friend? She says yes, we are friends. He then gives her a weird look and says "Oh i see. You're intimate friends." We pretend to ignore this comment, assuming it has to do with English being his second language, and try not to laugh at his phrasing until we've left the visa area with our passports in hand. I have to admit I was tempted to reply to him by saying that "yes, we are bosom buddies." I'm not sure he would have gotten the joke, though.
By now we have realized that our Indian SIM cards don't work in Nepal, so we are happy to see a SIM card dealer right next to the prepaid taxi counter. Thankfully getting a SIM card here is much quicker than in Mumbai - we received them on the spot, although not before being first fingerprinted and photographed. Apparently all administrative tasks here require a hard copy of a passport photo before you can get anything done. Go figure.
The easiest part of our day was the taxi ride from the airport to our hotel. We had to listen to a ride-along taxi company employee give a sales pitch the entire way, but that was fine. He wanted us to hire him for the day tomorrow to take us around town. No, sir, we don't think that you are trying to cheat us, and yes we believe you when you say you're passionate about your job and don't do it for the money, but the rates are way more expensive than we'd like to pay, so thanks but no thanks.
Our hotel is beautiful - lovely local decor in a classy 5-star setting. One of the many things that prove I am my mother's daughter is our shared love of nice hotels. I'm just a sucker for high thread count linens, I guess...
Our first task after settling in was to book our airline tickets within Nepal. All Nepalese airlines don't allow you to book tickets online - for some unexplained reason (like I said, it's surprisingly difficult to visit here). We sat down with the travel desk coordinator at the hotel to get our domestic flights arranged. It may have been that I was super hungry, having slept through the meal served on the flight, or that I was reverting back to my American attitudes while traveling, but I started to get annoyed with the travel desk guy. Ami and I have different destinations on our return flights from Pokhara - she is going to Kathmandu to catch her flight back to Mumbai, but I'm connecting in Kathmandu before flying to a Nepalese town on the border with Darjeeling, where I'm headed next. The guy didn't want to book separate itineraries for us, so he wanted to book us on the same itinerary to Kathmandu and then make me pick up my bag, re-check in for my next flight, and go through the whole security process again too. All with only an hour long layover. He was telling me it's "not possible" to do it any other way until I called him on his BS, which then made him agree to take the extra 3 minutes to book my itinerary all as one ticket. Sigh. In addition to our Pokhara flights, we also booked a tourist flight to go view Everest for tomorrow morning. Yay!
Finally we were on our way to explore the city. We were both getting cranky from hunger, so our first stop was into a Chinese restaurant for some mo-mo's (basically a type of local dumpling). It may have been the extreme hunger, but they were the most delicious dumplings I've ever had! We also ordered this veg noodle soup called thathel (I think) that turned out to be a bowlful of spicy warm deliciousness.
Our next stop was to a nearby stupa (which seems to be the name of a certain type of religious building, similar to a temple but with an obelisk-type of structure at the top) - the Boudhra Stupa to be exact. As we are walking around the square, Ami and I both realize that we know close to nothing about Buddhist practices. There are people who have wooden blocks attached to their hands, and they lie down and swipe their arms on the ground with the blocks making contact with the ground for as long as possible. I'm not describing this very well, but apparently it's a form of prayer. There are also these canister-shaped decorations on and around the temple, spinning, and people will touch them to make them spin as they walk past. There's even a huge one in a small building in the temple complex that people spin using their body weight to start it rotating. Note to self: do some basic research on what these practices are all about.
The square surrounding the stupa was charming. It was circular, with all of the buildings being about 3-5 stories tall and sporting rooftop cafes from which you can view the stupa. There was a large monastery in the square, too, which explains the presence of Buddhist monks everywhere. They might even have outnumbered the tourists!
It started raining as we were leaving the temple area, so we decided to change our itinerary (because our plan had been to go to another temple outdoors next) and instead went straight to Thamel, the touristy neighborhood in Kathmandu. We did some shopping and grabbed dinner at an Italian restaurant that had been recommended by no fewer than 3 separate people. It's by far the best pizza I've had in this region, but didn't quite meet the rave reviews we had heard from our Indian friends. I plan to bring these same friends to my favorite Chicago pizza joints so that they can start to appreciate what amazing pizza really is :)
Time for bed - I have to go see Everest bright and early tomorrow. Yawn - you know, should be just a typical day for me :)
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