Nepal 2013

We land in Kathmandu around noon. The air is hot and hazy.

The driver, taking us to Dolphin Guesthouse in Thamel, stops on the way to buy a "new" spare tire for his van.

View from our room in Dolphin.

Narrow and colorful streets of Thamel. Unlike most Asian cities we've been, we notice that smoking is absolutely non-existent here. Later we find out that it is by law: smoking is not allowed in public spaces, only in restaurants and homes. On the other hand, a number of people, usually young men, offer us all other sorts of smokes.

With so many wires, we wonder why power is out so often.

We stop at Nepalese Kitchen for lunch (and Everest beer)

We continue our stroll to Basantapur Durbar Square. This white building, by the way, is the old royal palace.

Other building are temples. There are a lot of local people, and some tourists around.

It is Labor Day, so there is also some sort of demonstration going on.

The sun goes down early, and the air cools down.

We have early dinner at Green Organic Cafe and Farmers Bar.

We have a vegetarian and a buffalo curry set, and an awesome tomato salad. All veggies are locally grown.

Next morning, we are up together with the sun.

It is still nice and cool, and quiet.

When we return from breakfast, the driver is waiting for us to take us to Nagarkot.

The ride in the morning traffic is slow and dusty.

After Bhaktapur the traffic eases.

We start a long and curvy climb to Nagarkot, which is at about 2 kilometers above the sea level. (Kathmandu is at about 1500 meters.)

The driver drops us at a central location in this little town. We check several hotels by the main road. All of them have abundant vacancy. The rooms range from 600 to 3500 rupees per night, but some are rather untidy or run down. It is clearly off season.

Finally, a local guy leads us to Hotel at the End of the World on the top of a hill. The hotel manager shows us around, and we take our time checking all their room and suite options. We choose the largest and the most expensive room that easily would accommodate a whole family. It also provides a direct view over the Himalayan range, only it weren't that hazy.

After settling in, we walk back to the town for lunch.

Himalayan Guesthouse restaurant does not carry Everest, so we opt for Nepal Ice (not too good and a bit too strong for lunch) with our lunch sets: chicken khana and chicken noodles.

School kids on recess.

Then we head out for a nature walk. Sadly, trash is everywhere.

Nice view down to the Kathmandu Valley.

New resorts are rising on the hills of Nagarkot.

First we get some water.

Then we are on our way to the trail paved by pine needles.

Kattike Village.

Terraced fields.

Rough road.

Unkai Resort is located at the end of the paved road.

Tuborg beer is widely advertized and sold in Nepal, at least in the Kathmandu Valley.

Sunset at the end of the world.

The power also goes out.

We have candlelight dinner: chicken BBQ and chicken biryani with Nepalese bread.

Next morning we get up before the sun to see the Himalayan range light up with it. This is the only morning when it is not too hazy to see the mountains.

Ganesh Himal range is one of the first peaks to see the sunlight.

Viewers on the top of the neighboring guesthouse. Every hotel in this region has built their own view tower on the top of the building, even if they don't have a very good view to the mountains.

Breakfast view at the end of the world.

The manager at the end of the world draws us a map of the route to hike through local rural villages. He is local so he knows the area quite well.

It is Friday morning and kids are going to school.

When we saw the bus approaching from far away, we thought there is no way it can go up this slope, but it does, very slowly.

The scenery is simply astounding. And also very peaceful; there is no traffic or construction work noise. Just the wind and few birds. We also see many tiny lizards, but they don't make sound.

This man's best friend follows us for four hours, and keeps marking the territory.

Besides the dog, a couple of older working villagers, and two small kids begging for chocolate, we don't see anyone.

It has been mostly downhill so far.

Imformation?

At 1pm. we are back in Nagarkot, and Green Land restaurant for lunch: a non-vegetarian (chicken) and a buffalo meal set with Tuborg.

This map proved very useful today.

We were planning to do some laundry, but have to resort to handwashing because of the power outage.

Next morning we wake up early again in hope of seeing the Himalayas, but it is too hazy to see any of the peaks. We have another hand-drawn map that tells us how to get to Changunarayan temple. It is going to be a 18-kilometer hike one way, and it's expected to take 8 hours there and back. The altitude difference between the places is 500 meters, and the route goes down and up, so there is about 1000 meters of climbing ahead of us too.

Today we see more people and farm animals, as we walk past many small villages.

Some idyllic abandoned buildings. too.

Once we are past the villages, we enter a pine tree forest.

We don't see many locals any more but some tourists (mostly Japanese) who have the same destination as we do.

At around noon we reach the Changunarayan temple.

After checking the temple, we have beers and light snacks in Viewpoint Rooftop Restaurant.

Pakodas.

A retro bottle opener.

Our map today.

Chicken momos.

After light lunch we start our hike back.

There is an option to take a local bus from the halfway point (pictured here) to Nagarkot, but we decide to walk the whole way, even if it requires us to climb some strenuous steps.

We buy some more water for the rest of the hike.

It is getting hazier and hazier.

It is harder to navigate back, since the map was drawn one direction in mind. We take one wrong turn that takes us to the road too early, so we need to walk some extra switchbacks. When back in the villages, we also need to ask the way a couple of times.

We are back in Nagarkot at 4:30pm., and in Berg House Cafe for some very well earned cold beers. They actually go their way to find us chilled beer from somewhere else (Since the power goes out quite frequently, it is not very easy to get the beers chilled in the first place)

A spider in our bathroom. Later when we have dinner at the hotel restaurant, we hear that an enormous wild fire is approaching us from the valley (we actually saw some smoke earlier), and there may be a need for evacuation. We only get slightly concerned, since we are in the end of the road, but some hotel guest demand that they must be taken to Kathmandu immediately.

Just to play safe, we go to our room to pack all our stuff. Later we learn that the fire has been taken care of, but the manager is quite upset that he lost some guests. On our last morning in Nagarkot we have banana porridge for breakfast.

And tomato cheese toast.

We have a couple of hours before the driver takes us back to Kathmandu. We do some souvenir shopping and have coffee at Sherpa Cottage Cafe.

Streets of Bhaktapur.

It is Sunday, and we hit the heavy midday traffic.

We return to Dolphin Guesthouse in Kathmandu. The first thing is to have lunch. Following the guesthouse host's suggestion we find ourselves to Garden of Dreams, and Kaiser Cafe. We have a Mediterranean salad and vegetable thal with Ghorka beer. This place is significantly pricier than any of the places we have dined so far.

After lunch we stroll around the garden a bit. There we see people, mostly westerners, reading, relaxing, and doing yoga.

Before taking a taxi to Swayambhu temple, we have coffee at Revolution Cafe.

We face quite a climb on the crumbling steps up to the temple.

View from Swayambhu over Kathmandu.

The last morning in Nepal. We have breakfast in Himalayan Java, a coffee shop that roasts its own coffee.

Before returning to the guesthouse and packing, we accidentally find another gem, The Coffee, a small coffee shop run by a Korean. We have best cappuccinos ever.

In order to use the soon expiring Krisflyer frequent flyer miles, we have booked our return flight in the business class. Before the flight we are entitled to have drinks and snacks in the airport lounge.

View over the Kathmandu Valley. It is still hazy and we can't see the Himalayas.

Lunch in Silkair business class. Besides one single passenger, we are the only ones in the business class, so we receive relatively attentive service.