Nepal: Kathmandu

We arrived at 6 am at the bus station. A tout offered us a free ride to a hotel. If we didn't want to stay there then we would have to pay for the ride. It was the hotel Encounter Nepal. It was very nice with a big peaceful garden and friendly staff but they didn't have any rooms. They wouldn't have anything until checkout time when people had left.  Stuart K and I stayed with the bags while Lynne and Kathryn  went to look at some other hotels in the area.  Most places wouldn't have rooms until after checkout time. When the girls got back they decided that where we started was the nicest place they had seen so we stayed there.

After getting cleaned up we headed out into the Thamel area. On the bus ride the night before I had begun to regain my appetite. I had shared a bowl of noodles with Kathryn and actually enjoyed them. We went for lunch and I shared half a sandwich and was actually starting to get hungry.

We were amazed by how much cleaner Katmandu was than any city we had been to in India. There were no piles of rubbish on the street, the pavements were clear, there was less pollution and although Nepali drivers also like to use their horns it was also a lot less noisy. Thamel is a notorious for being a bit of tourist ghetto but we all really liked it. It is full of shops and stalls so Lynne loved it. The Nepali people seemed a lot more laid back than those in India and the hawkers and touts were a lot less aggressive in their sales strategy.

We wandered around, changed some money and then went for dinner. We went for a great Korean meal. The restaurant took some finding thanks to a very poor lonely planet map but the food was really good.