The Ins and Outs of Kathmandu Cuisine

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So, we are back in Kathmandu, and it's time to get up to date on the travel blog. We've had a rather eventful last week of the trip, but I'm going to try and keep this brief for reasons that will become obvious later on. When last we spoke, we had just disembarked from our private plane and headed back to our hotel. A full day to relax and stay in the same place! Excellent, and rare, as our loyal readers (few though you may be) know. Of course, we don't know how to sit still, so we planned a full day for our "free" day, but after setting a few matters before our trip to Chitwan National Park, we had a nice dinner and a chance to get fully cleaned up. We ate at Fire and Ice Pizza, which was a favorite of the Nepali prince who assassinated the entire royal family back in 2001. Pretty sure it wasn't the cause, and it was tasty to boot. Always nice to have a good meal away from home.

The following day we awoke early to scratch Sara's itch for bird watching and head to Nagarjun Forest Reserve on the outskirts of Kathmandu. It was easy enough to find a cab, but Sara's bartering skills are less than refined and she almost always goes with the first offer. Perhaps I should take over in this department. A tourist was killed at this park a few years ago, but that makes it safer, right? That's kind of what our book indicated, and from the looks of things, probably accurate, as there were armed guards at all gates and roaming the grounds. We decided it looks safe enough and payed our 250 Rs per person to enter. The guard wanted to hold my passport, but I decided to refuse and instead he got my driver's license. Don't need it here anyway. Once inside the gates, it was a completely different scene than the grim of Kathmandu, which I will go into in some detail later, will dozens of species of birds flitting this way and that. Our skills are not too refined on Asian birds, so after hiking the trails for 3-4 hours, we probably only picked up 15-20 species. At least we had a little peace and quite out of it.

Our taxi driver had agreed to pick us up at 11:30 and was waiting when we got back (of course he was for the rate he was getting!), so we got to see a bit more of the city as we headed to the Monkey Temple, or Swayambhunath. This sits on a hill overlooking the city, and, true to it's name, has monkeys all over the grounds. Before I delve too deeply into this, a little about Kathmandu. The Nepali government has been in shambles for some time, and it shows. The rivers in town are filled with trash as are any gutters, the water comes out of the tap brownish and smelling of iron (and the in runs a bit too close to out, if you know what I mean), and the roads and traffic are horrible. As best I can tell, the steering wheel is mostly used to hold the horn, which some drivers keep depressed for all practical purposes for the entire drive, and pedestrians are encouraged to get out of the way as there are no sidewalks anywhere in town. When someone parks, that street become one lane narrower, or about 3/4 of a lane. Really, any opportunity to not be in the street is a pleasant relief. Our driver managed to get to the temple without plastering anyone to the windshield, so we considered it a successful trip.

Once there, there's a gauntlet of peddlers to content with, and the slate carvings drew us in. We found one that we both liked, so I attempted to talk down the price, while Sara insisted I pay more. Hmm, this is going to be more difficult than I thought, it's two against one! I'm not sure who was better at raising the price, Sara or our carver, but they eventually agreed on a price that I happily paid. We don't really buy that many souvenirs, so it'll be nice to have, and what's $20 among friends. Eventually we made it through and paid our entrance fee. The monkeys were amusing and there were a few religions ceremonies that we watched, looked around a bit, had lunch, and went back for our hostel for a nap.

Since our Italian experience was so successful the previous night, we decided to try La Dolce Vita for our second dinner in Kathmandu. They had a lovely rooftop eating area and we had a bruschetta and a ravioli for Sara and pizza for me. Kathmandu has a great live music scene, and the next rooftop over had 70s and 80s music throughout dinner. It was a great meal, at the time...

Unfortunately, the memories did not remain so fond. The outs of Kathmandu cuisine are that, even at the so called "safe" restaurant, food poisoning is still a concern. Whatever the cause, it struck, and struck hard. From about 12:30am til our private car arrived at 7am, we both worked on becoming as dehydrated as we possibly could. I even saved one for the road! Needless to say, the next leg of the trip was not off to a rousing start. Until next time (yes, I'm going to write it right now).

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