We woke up early the next morning to make the border crossing from Tibet into Nepal. I was looking forward to it, despite the fact that we had decided to scrap our original trekking plans with everyone being so ill and beaten down from Tibet's environment.
I had heard that the border checkpoint was especially gruelling, and it wasn't far off the mark. The Chinese officials examined our luggage pretty thoroughly, taking special care with any books and papers to make sure that we weren't carrying any "forbidden" literature. They even looked through our various travel books to make sure that they didn't have fake covers! At that point, I was glad that I had decided to leave my guidebook behind instead of trying to smuggle it underneath my clothes. Although it was incredibly useful, I found that our guide and driver would get in trouble if I was caught with that book, and it just wasn't worth that risk.
A group of young Nepalese men waited right outside of the building, and we bargained with the least unsavoury looking of the bunch to take us to Kathmandu. The driver took us through the Nepalese immigration office to get our visas, and we were soon on the road to Kathmandu.
The drive was absolutely terrifying. It was so scary that it became ludicrously funny. It was four hours of speeding through winding mountain roads and narrowly dodging buses with loads of people strapped to the roof with Miley Cyrus blasting on the radio. Um, yeah. We had to go through multiple military checkpoints, where they checked our luggage for who knows what, until we reached Kathmandu. If possible, the traffic there was even worse. Cars, motorbikes, buses, trucks all sped around each other at top speed while trying to avoid the cows standing in the middle of the road and honking all the while.
Tibet had pretty much near killed us so we decided to get some R&R at the Crowne Plaza, which had a pool. The hotel was awkward - it was trying to be posh, but it hadn't figured out how just yet. Our reintroduction to fruit and vegetables was the high point, but other than that, it was a disappointing experience.
After one night, we ditched the Crowne Plaza for the Kathmandu Guest House, which is practically an institution in Kathmandu, and caters perfectly to the backpacking set.
It's located in the middle of Thamel, which is the tourist ghetto, and everything you could possibly need is within 5 feet of the outer gate.
You couldn't beat the joint for convenience, and its outdoor spaces were pretty nice too.
After we settled in, we roamed around the twisting streets of Thamel while trying to avoid getting hit by a car and chasing off any street urchins that wouldn't leave B alone. I couldn't believe how polluted and dirty the city was. Every time we stopped for a break, I couldn't help taking out a face wipe and trying to clean off some of the dirt that felt permanently ingrained in my skin.
The plus side is that we figured out the mystery of where all of the hippies have gone. They're all in Kathmandu, wearing harem pants, beads and leather bracelets while sporting a turban on their head. Dreadlocks are de rigeur for men as well as some kind of facial hair. They seem to spend most of their time at embassies getting visas to other Asian countries or eating at OR2K, the local vegetarian Israeli restaurant. I went to Berkeley, so I'm used to hippies, but these were pretentious hippies. Ugh.
OR2K was the only restaurant that didn't make us sick, and we ate there more days than not despite the black lights and hippies that were laying down on the cushions. Is it even possible to digest like that? Anyway, the food was pretty good, and I highly recommend their breakfast and babaganoush.
We couldn't spend all of our time in our room or at OR2K, so we decided to do some sightseeing around the city. For some reason, we couldn't rustle up any excitement for sightseeing but we caught a taxi to Durbar Square to check out the sights.
There was some kind of event going on, but we couldn't figure out what. I read that Durbar Square is frequently the setting for political demonstrations, and that tourists should stay out of those situations. Not reassuring. And the sight of tons of policemen lurking nearby with long sticks didn't do anything to calm my nerves.
There were some interesting buildings...
Incredible wood carvings...
Strange statues...
Even a monkey or two...
But we just couldn't get that excited about it. Maybe it was because it was on the heels of Tibet, where we saw so many amazing things. We also realized that there really that wasn't much to do in Kathmandu, so we decided that we should try to go on a short trek since everyone was feeling much better since we had left Tibet. Woohoo!
I had heard that the border checkpoint was especially gruelling, and it wasn't far off the mark. The Chinese officials examined our luggage pretty thoroughly, taking special care with any books and papers to make sure that we weren't carrying any "forbidden" literature. They even looked through our various travel books to make sure that they didn't have fake covers! At that point, I was glad that I had decided to leave my guidebook behind instead of trying to smuggle it underneath my clothes. Although it was incredibly useful, I found that our guide and driver would get in trouble if I was caught with that book, and it just wasn't worth that risk.
A group of young Nepalese men waited right outside of the building, and we bargained with the least unsavoury looking of the bunch to take us to Kathmandu. The driver took us through the Nepalese immigration office to get our visas, and we were soon on the road to Kathmandu.
The drive was absolutely terrifying. It was so scary that it became ludicrously funny. It was four hours of speeding through winding mountain roads and narrowly dodging buses with loads of people strapped to the roof with Miley Cyrus blasting on the radio. Um, yeah. We had to go through multiple military checkpoints, where they checked our luggage for who knows what, until we reached Kathmandu. If possible, the traffic there was even worse. Cars, motorbikes, buses, trucks all sped around each other at top speed while trying to avoid the cows standing in the middle of the road and honking all the while.
Tibet had pretty much near killed us so we decided to get some R&R at the Crowne Plaza, which had a pool. The hotel was awkward - it was trying to be posh, but it hadn't figured out how just yet. Our reintroduction to fruit and vegetables was the high point, but other than that, it was a disappointing experience.
After one night, we ditched the Crowne Plaza for the Kathmandu Guest House, which is practically an institution in Kathmandu, and caters perfectly to the backpacking set.
It's located in the middle of Thamel, which is the tourist ghetto, and everything you could possibly need is within 5 feet of the outer gate.
You couldn't beat the joint for convenience, and its outdoor spaces were pretty nice too.
After we settled in, we roamed around the twisting streets of Thamel while trying to avoid getting hit by a car and chasing off any street urchins that wouldn't leave B alone. I couldn't believe how polluted and dirty the city was. Every time we stopped for a break, I couldn't help taking out a face wipe and trying to clean off some of the dirt that felt permanently ingrained in my skin.
The plus side is that we figured out the mystery of where all of the hippies have gone. They're all in Kathmandu, wearing harem pants, beads and leather bracelets while sporting a turban on their head. Dreadlocks are de rigeur for men as well as some kind of facial hair. They seem to spend most of their time at embassies getting visas to other Asian countries or eating at OR2K, the local vegetarian Israeli restaurant. I went to Berkeley, so I'm used to hippies, but these were pretentious hippies. Ugh.
OR2K was the only restaurant that didn't make us sick, and we ate there more days than not despite the black lights and hippies that were laying down on the cushions. Is it even possible to digest like that? Anyway, the food was pretty good, and I highly recommend their breakfast and babaganoush.
We couldn't spend all of our time in our room or at OR2K, so we decided to do some sightseeing around the city. For some reason, we couldn't rustle up any excitement for sightseeing but we caught a taxi to Durbar Square to check out the sights.
There was some kind of event going on, but we couldn't figure out what. I read that Durbar Square is frequently the setting for political demonstrations, and that tourists should stay out of those situations. Not reassuring. And the sight of tons of policemen lurking nearby with long sticks didn't do anything to calm my nerves.
There were some interesting buildings...
Incredible wood carvings...
Even a monkey or two...
But we just couldn't get that excited about it. Maybe it was because it was on the heels of Tibet, where we saw so many amazing things. We also realized that there really that wasn't much to do in Kathmandu, so we decided that we should try to go on a short trek since everyone was feeling much better since we had left Tibet. Woohoo!
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