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Published: December 9th 2009
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Our grand plans for our third day in Kathmandu were slightly interrupted by a nationwide strike ordered by the Maoists as protest against the governments ‘excessive use of force’. Basically there were about 15,000 people squatting illegally in a forest so the government sent the police in to clear them out. Only the squatters didn’t like this so much so they grabbed their knives and sticks and retaliated so the police used some more force and ended up killing 4 of the squatters. So the Maoists declared a strike. Our taxi driver from the previous day had warned us about the strike, but we thought it was just the taxis and maybe some businesses…so when we ventured out we were quite shocked. Everything was closed; ATM’s were locked up, shops and restaurants were shut, there were no taxi’s or rickshaws and even the temples were padlocked closed. The city had a very different feel without all the hustle and bustle and there wasn’t really that much to see so we ended up spending the day reading books on our hotels roof top and eating excessive amounts of food from the hotel restaurant. It seems as if strikes happen pretty frequently here
as there really hasn’t been much written about it in the international news - also lonely planet says “buses run, except when there is a strike”.
Day four; our final day in Kathmandu began nice and early (we heard horns honking as soon as we woke up so knew the strike was over!). We met our taxi driver from day two out the front of our hotel and set off for Bhaktapur which is a temple filled town about 10kms from Kathmandu. It was a slow trip out as they are upgrading the road between the two cities from a one to three lane road in either direction and until it is finished it slightly resembles the surface of the moon. Bhaktapur has three major squares full of well preserved temples from the 1400’s linked by narrow winding streets lined with interesting houses and shops either side. We spent about two hours walking around and admiring the architecture and people watching. Our stomachs eventually got the better of us so we stopped to have a snack and some drinks. We ordered ‘fresh lemon soda’ which turned out to be fresh lemon squeezed into soda water…yuck. Luckily we could chase
gulps of this ‘delicious’ drink with pakora.
From Bhaktapur we headed to Patan which is on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Patan also has a Durbar square filled with temples. We evaded buying tickets (it is a public square after all - its like charging only tourists to walk into Federation Square in Melbourne) and wandered through the square for about half an hour before we had someone approach us and ask to check out tickets…which was our cue to leave!
Once back in Kathmandu our stomachs lead us to the Yangling Tibetan Restaurant which is reviewed in Lonely Planet as having the best momos in Kathmandu. The food was absolutely delicious and we were complete pigs once again - we gobbled down two huge plates of momos and a large fried rice…for about 4.50AUD yum! We then waddled through the streets of Thamel looking for souvenirs to buy…however as it was late afternoon none of the shop keepers were budging from their original price much so we decided to wait until we got to Pokhara instead. After buying supplies for our 8hr bus ride to Pokhara (mmm cinnamon rolls, biscuits, cakes, nuts, lollies..) we headed back home to
Empty streets
No shops or transportation due to the strike pack.
We had a great time in Kathmandu, it’s a very interesting city and there is heaps to see. We probably could have spent another few days there however there’s still heaps left to do and see in the next 7 weeks so we’ll just have to come back some other time!
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