Kathmandu

We arrived in Nepal's capital on Sun Oct 29th, fully exhausted from our trip through Tibet. We set out to do what we'd all been dying to do for so long - nothing! We all stayed together in a hotel in Thamel (the main tourist area of Kathmandu), which meant that we were unfortunately surrounded by tourists everywhere we went. But it did have an up side - the food!!! The variety of restaurants in Thamel mean that you can pretty much get any meal you want at any time of the day, which was luxury for us after months in China and Tibet surviving on cheap rice and noodles! The first night I ate a fat bolognaise pizza... so yummy! Each morning we ate at the same place, which serves the best breakfast in town - eggs, toast, hash browns, tomatoes, tea, muesli with fruit and yoghurt... all for about 60p!!! Crazy.

Thamel street


We stayed in Ktm for almost 10 days and out of those 10, we probably only spent 2 days actually doing anything constructive. Otherwise all we did was sleep, relax and eat! We had pizza, Japanese food (Emiko introduced us to all kinds of delights!), steak, curry, chips and countless cups of milk tea! Of the two days where we got off our lazy bums to do something, we spent one day sightseeing and the other meeting a very interesting couple.

Our sightseeing day included visiting Durbar ("palace") Square, Indra Chowk and around. Durbar square is the heart of the old city - its no longer full of royals but it is still considered important.

Durbar Square


I thought the most interesting building there was the Kumari Baha, an 18th century Newari palace which houses the living human goddes of Kathmandu - the Kumari (literally means 'virgin' in Nepali). The Kumari is a Newari Buddhist girl considered to be the living incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga - the girl who is chosen remains in this palace and lives the privaledged life of a goddess until she reaches puberty. After that, the goddess-spirit leaves her and she has to return to her family. The current Royal Kumari, Preeti Shakya, was installed on July 10, 2001 at the age of four.

The Kumari


On another day we went to Jawala Khel, an area renound for its expat residents. There we met up with Rob and Naomi, a couple who've been living in Ktm for about 3 years. We met up with them mainly to talk about Naomi's job. She works as a fundraiser for a local organisation working against women trafficking in Nepal, Serve Nepal . Serve Nepal is a Christian charitable organization founded in 2001 that works to fight and prevent sexual exploitation and trafficking in and from Nepal.

It was so interesting to talk to her as she's been volunteering/working in Nepal for 10 years now. She does a lot of fundraising locally and in Canada and is so passionate about her work that she got Martin and I all fired up too! It inspired me in terms of what I want to do with my life and what kind of jobs I'll be looking for when I get home.

After a few days in Kathmandu we said goodbye to our German friend Nils - he's in Thailand now enjoying the sun, sea and sand. Emiko and Chris are still travelling with us... they just can't seem to leave :)

We've actually been travelling around Nepal for about 3 weeks and arrived back in Ktm yesterday. We went to Chitwan National Park, Gorkha, Bandipur, Pokhara and Lumbini - I'll blog about them soon!