Nepal: Kathmandu & Boudha

We arrived back in Kathmandu and found ourselves in the middle of a crazy Hindu festival- Holi Festival. It is a colorful festival (literally), celebrated in March or April according to the Hindu calendar, and is meant to welcome the spring.   Upon first impression, it  looked more like paintball chaos in the streets. Tovah and I foolishly decided to grab our packs and walk to find accommodation rather than taking a rickshaw.  We learned we made a mistake not even a minute into our walk when we became forced to take part in the festival as plastic bags with water dyed different colors were thrown at us soaking us and turning us and our stuff red, orange, purple, etc.  In addition, as we tried dodging these attacks, groups of locals would swarm us saying 'Happy Holi' and smearing red dye all over our faces and hair.  As a side note, for the first 15 or so minutes of this chaos I was finding it a lot more fun than Tovah, and was thoroughly enjoying watching the moves she was busting out- the backward spin move, with her massive pack on, to avoid a crowd of kids surrounding her was my favorite.  Anyway, as soon as buckets of water began to fall on us from the rooftops with every step we took, I was not having fun anymore. While I would have liked to have engaged in the festivities, we were carrying everything we currently owned on us, and aside from our clothes and bags getting wet and permanently stained red, I was worried about my camera since it was not in a waterproof case.  Anyway, if we could do it all over again, I would have: 1) made sure we got to Kathmandu the day before the festival; 2) left all valuables in the room; 3) made sure we had a few drinks before hitting the streets (most locals, even those who do not typically drink or smoke marijuana, do so on this day with an intoxicating concoction commonly called bhang, as the festival is one meant for people to let loose and have fun and thus this aids in the escalation of the enthusiasm in the streets); and then 4) got my hands on some of those water paintballs and kicked some butt....just kidding, but I would have liked to have played along so long as 1-3 occurred!

The next few days consisted of lots of market shopping and bargaining as well as sightseeing.  We stayed once again in Thamel and so were just a 15 or so minute walk from Hanuman-dhoka Durbar Square.  Durbar Square is full of beautiful, interesting, and old temples.  We explored the area including Freak Street which is a popular area for backpackers and known for its hippie crowd.

We left Thamel to head to Boudha (also in Kathmandu but a drive away) for our last night.  It is home to the Boudhanath Stupa, the largest Stupa in the world.  Therefore, the town is full of monasteries and monks and buddhists from all over the world often make the trip here to stay for a while.  We spent the afternoon enjoying the chilled out atmosphere and walking around the Stupa and the square surrounding it. 

The next morning we packed our bags said goodbye to Nepal and headed to the airport.  The departure tax was more than we were told it would be and we didn't have enough rupees on us to cover it.  After going to the ATM that was out of service we had to exchange some US dollars and we were on our way.  The security was quite extensive.  Not only were we thoroughly searched and our bags x-rayed, but we then had to take our bags to one of the many guards who went through our carry on luggage by hand.  We were very excited about this flight as we heard such great things about Thai Airlines, however the flight was under three hours and so all the luxuries we were told about were not included on our flight.  Needless to say, we didn't care as we were really looking forward to our next destination- Thailand.