1/5/22
After arriving in Kathmandu just before 05.30 on my night bus, I got a motorbike taxi back to Yog Hostel, where I had stayed before. Since I’d kind of skipped dinner, I was starving so I walked about around Thamel until the first cafe was open at 6am. On my wanders, I saw a guy selling samosas at the side if the street. They looked delicious so I got one and sat next to the other three people that were tucking in to them, sitting on mat. They were rather nicely dressed and I quickly realised that they were still out from the night before! (Guess I’m old now!!). Then, once the cafe was open, I got coffee and breakfast and chilled awhile.
When I returned to the hostel, who was coming out from reception but Stephen, who was searching for breakfast!! I decided I may as well head back out for a catch up and another coffee since I had no other crazy plans for the day. After coffee in another cafe that I’d been to before, I returned to the hostel to read and eat momos on the roof. Then I took a nap in my room before heading back out for the afternoon. I wanted to go to a nearby monastery for sunset since it was recommended, so I got a motorbike taxi there and climbed some steps up to it, only to find that it was permanently closed to tourists (the same as the Red Mosque!). Aaaah! Why are things recommended if you can’t access them?!
Nearby the entrance were three other people milling around. I got chatting to them and we decided that since we couldn’t go in the monastery, we would go to a rooftop cafe to enjoy the views over the city as the sun set. The three of them lived in Dubai – two were Indian and married to each other, Bivan and Rupa, and the other, Mohammed, was their best mate, a Jordanian guy. Afterwards, they went back to Thamel and I headed to my favourite stupa, Boudhanath for dusk. It had such a calm and spiritual vibe, I loved it there! I got there and walked round the stupa once, before heading to a rooftop tapas bar that I had been eyeing up since the last time I came to the stupa. I got a great seat, drank wine and waited for my tapas. They were playing great music and I also people watched. The two couples in front of me got chatting and it turned out one couple were newly weds – an Indian Nepali arranged marriage – while the other had ‘met’ online and had been chatting for months, but this was the first time they had met in person. She was Vietnamese and he was American with Vietnamese heritage! What a story! After my scrummy tapas (man, I had missed potatoes!), I headed back to the hostel to sleep. I had been considering going out with some of the hostel gals for drinks, but in the end decided against!
2/5/22
I went out for another glorious breakfast of waffles and chilled there a longggg time with my book. Then I wandered towards the Palace, before realising that it was one, expensive, two, requiring masks, and three, you had to leave all your possessions at the front desk including water!! I decided against and headed back into Thamel via a mall. I messaged the hostel girls and went to meet Lena 🇩🇪 and Maya 🇪🇸 in a cafe. We chatted and ate, before heading off in search of an art exhibition. We went to one, which was fairly small before walking back across Thamel to another one. By this point, it had started raining REALLY hard and we had to pause to take cover in a shop!! The shop people were very nice and not annoyed at all that we were just using their shop for cover! They gave us seats and we chatted while we waited for the rain to stop! When it stopped raongi quite so hard, we scurried through the flooded streets, holding our trousers up out of the puddles and trying not to let our flip-flops fly off when the puddles were covering the tops of our feet! We followed a sign to the gallery, walking through a few floors of building site before reaching the exhibition and adjoining cafe.
After going round the exhibition, we chilled in the cafe. I got hot rum punch since I was so darn cold and wet and we relaxed, ate momos, ordered more drinks, ate more momos! Maya, brought an Israeli guy, Abi, back to us from the hostel and he told some people he had met at the airport. We ordered desserts and then the airport people left and Gil and Ben joined us. It was a cute last evening in Nepal for me, while it was some peoples first evening!
When we returned to the hostel, Ben, Gil and I decided we were not done, so we headed back out to Sam’s bar for another drink! We chilled there awhile with a guy Gil had met originally in India and had just bumped into on the street (small world ayy?!), before heading home.
3/5/22
Today was my final day in Nepal, which also meant it was going to be my final rabies shot day, since I didn’t fancy trying to sort it in Europe! After a speedy ish breakfast, I headed back to Silverline Hospital by mototaxi and went straight to pharmacy to buy my vaccine. Then I sat outside pharmacy and did my last shot before disposing of my sharps in ED and going to meet my sixteen year old friends at park we met in.
Once reunited with Liza and Kanxa, we headed first to meet Kanxa’s older sister. She was a few years younger than me, but had a husband and her own business selling booze. Each day after school/college, her younger brother and sister came to chill in her shop with her for a few hours – normally business was slow. While we were there, we chatted, drank tea and the girls painted my nails! Liza was very precise but Kanxa less so, so Liza was not happy with the standard and redid Kanxa’s work!! 🤣🤣 After awhile, we went to Kanxa’s home in a block of flats. They had a shared kitchen and bathroom and obviously separate bedrooms. We chatted with her older brother and said hi to her mum and dad again before heading out into the countryside by bus to meet Liza’s family. Kanxa and Liza are best friends, but Kanxa had never been to Liza’s house before so it was an adventure for us all!! We drove through a couple of small towns before getting out to farm land and more rural village life. Where Liza lived, they had a huge house in the village, with a tiny temple (more like a shrine) at the bottom of the drive and mountains all around them. Liza’s grandfather was a farmer and had plenty of land – he paid people to work the land for him. Her mother was a tailor and had her own studio at the front of their house and her dad a business man. They also had a cafe which Liza’s grandma and mum also seemed to run with Liza’s help. We helped skin already boiled potatoes before going on a walk while our food was cooking (the three of us, plus Liza’s cousin Bonita). We walked down a lane that went to a popular meditation centre for tourists and then on to some farmland. We picked berries off the lane, which were delicious, before we headed back to eat.
We ate spicy potatoes with some sort of dry rice crisps and a fried egg. The potatoes were glorious! They made mine less spicy which I wanted to protest about, but when I tried the ‘proper’ version, I thanked them for making mine less spicy because it was pretty vicious just in one mouthful! After dinner, we went to the roof, took some snaps before Kanxas and I headed back to Kathmandu. I was in many a family photo before I left and was invited to stay with them for a night next time I come to Nepal! Liza’s grandma said that if she could speak English, she would ask me many things! She was a warm, friendly lady.
On returning to the hostel via local bus, I showered and prepared for the airport. I got my last mototaxi of Nepal to the airport ready to hit Europe!
wanderingwelshie travels 