R & R (Rest and Rafting) in Kathmandu

Kathmandu, Nepal.
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Kathmandu is a barrage of sights, scents and sounds. Stepping out onto the streets of Thamel, we were constantly dodging cars, monster bulls and cyclos (people being transported around by man on bike). You would not believe the animals that pretty much run the city of Kathmandu. Huge bulls would plop themselves down smack dab in the middle of the street, and nobody, I mean nobody, was going to try to move that bull. Once the sun is down, dogs go renegade. They run around in huge flea-ridden packs on a mission I never quite figured out. You hear the barking, no matter where you are. Even in the comforts of the Hotel Encounter, which is known for being, oh, so quiet... :) Oh, and the smells!! Walking around Kathmandu, you walk through enormous wafts of incense mixed with some sort of yummy street vendor while a cyclo jingles past at a dangerously close proximity. Kevin and I knew we were going to like Kathmandu as soon as we arrived.

A little look at reality... a small girl playing in the trash of her yard.
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All of the restaurants in Thamel (the tourist district of Kathmandu) are rooftop, so you have a great vantage point of the bustling world going on below. We made the mistake of ordering our first dishes in Kathmandu covered in cheese (I had some sort of an enchilada and he had a pizza or something). You see, we love cheese, huge fans actually, but the cheese here is not your standard cheddar or mozzarella. Not even gouda, which I'm not the biggest fan of. It's ALLLLL yak cheese, and it tastes as good as it sounds. Yak! They put this stuff on everything here, and it made us very wary of ordering pretty much anything else the whole time in Nepal.

Kathmandu is a barrage of sights, scents and sounds.

The view from our balcony at Hotel Encounter in Thamel.
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We spent about a week in Kathmandu, waiting for Kevin's brother, Chris, to arrive. Once he got here, we were going to take the first ticket out to Lukla, where we would start our 15-day hike through the Himalayas to Everest Basecamp. Well, Chris had a small little passport mishap (hey, it happens, we know from experience, thanks to the good ol Indian Embassy), so he misplaced his passport in a cab and had to spend a few more days partying it up in Madrid, Spain (where he's been studying the past few months). Poor, poor boy. Haha. So, Kevin and I had to veg out the next few days in Kathmandu. Some of the highlghts: Full Moon Bar (a great late-night place in Thamel), Rum Doodle (a bar where all of the serious Everest climbers frequent - its walls are covered with pictures and home-made plaques of climbers and trekkers and their expeditions), Frosty's Ice Cream (where we got 3 cones a day (each) of coffee toffee and chocolate chip - and made friends with the owner), the DVD shop on the corner where we bought all our ripped-off copies (I don't condone it! It's all they had! Haha.) and this great little live music place where the bands were always great and played a lot of The Doors. Good times in Kathmandu while waiting for Chris.

A stupa in Thamel.
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So, Chris finally arrived! Yeah!!! The thing is, I had been dying to go white water rafting the whole time we were in Kathmandu, but the white water rafting place kept changing their trip dates. So, all of us, including our new jet lagged companion, headed early the next morning to the Drift Nepal office, where we would be starting our 3 hour journey to the Bhote Koshi River, one of the best in Nepal and the world. It was one day of rafting and then an overnight before one more day of rafting. Kevin and Chris were making fun of it the whole time, as they are like "expert rafters" and have gone countless times in North Carolina. I have not gone 30 times, so it was pretty fun for me, and even if the rapids weren't as strong as they said in the brochure (all 4's and 5's - they were more like 3's and 4's), the sights you took in along the river were amazing. Too bad I couldn't bring the camera! At one point, there were about 40 people sitting along the river's edge next to this huge burning (what looked like piece of wood), which happened to be a body being cremated. So, here we were, floating through the smoke and ashes of the funeral of a dead person. Thanks, Drift Nepal. No, but really, it was quite a sight to see. It's not every day that you float through a cremation ceremony on one of the best rivers in the world in Nepal.

The bustling streets of Thamel in Kathmandu, Nepal.
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But by the end of the first day, it started absolutely pouring!!!! Chris, Kevin, and the guides were struggling to heft the raft up onto the roof of the van while it was pouring buckets. It looked a little heavy - but what would I know... I was in the dry van taking pictures. Hey, someone's gotta document it! And let me just draw out for you that this wasn't a little rain shower. We were driving to our campsite picking up huge hordes of children on their way back from school along the way. I realized how dangerous it was for them to be walking along these cliff roads, when our driver slammed on the brakes in order to avoid a huge mudslide starting right in front of us, breaking out all onto the road. A person definitely could be swept away by that. We ended up at our campsite safely, after playing schoolbus for about an hour, where we had to get little dorm-like rooms instead of pitching tents out in the yard. Oh, darn... we'd have to stay dry. :)

I liked how the wax dripped down this figure.
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Our guide, Babboo, wasn't sure if we would be able to raft the stronger part of the river because of all the rain but, luckily, it turned out we could. So we got geared up and back into the cold water. They actually made us get out at some points and walk along the river's edge where we would then get back into the raft, to avoid the dangerous parts. We couldn't believe it! We were missing the fun parts of the river. It was really hilarious because none of us ever heard what our guide was commanding us to do, he was so quiet. It didn't matter, though, because we really just wanted to end up in the water anyway. The most exciting part was the end of the trip, was when Babboo brought the raft up to a big waterfall. I was just beginning to wonder where he was going with this, when I was sucked out of the boat into the waterfall. Chris went next and ended up separated from his shoe - which he and Kevin found floating along the river a few minutes later.

Kevin's brother, Chris, arrives in Kathmandu!
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It was back to Kathmandu, the boys were hardly satisfied with the rafting trip, and I have to admit, it could have been a little more exciting, but the sites along the Bhote Koshi were very beautiful. Now, it was time for us to start entering all of those trekking gear shops lining the streets of Thamel and get ready for our hike to Everest Base Camp.