Advertisement
Published: December 12th 2008
Once we arrived back in Kathmandu, the chaos hit us the minute we stepped off the bus. Instantly we were surrounded by sellers and taxi drivers shouting at us to pick them. It was the strangest thing - we had kind of been in a cocoon for the previous few days and it took us a few minutes to process it all and get our groove back. Thankfully we had had the foresight to book somewhere reasonably nice for the two nights we had in Kathmandu. Bliss. The first thing we had to do was drop all our laundry to be done - we did pity whoever got that job!! And for the rest of our time there, we just soaked it all up. Kathmandu is a city that you could just wander around forever. It’s divided into several areas and we were staying in one of the central areas, Thamel. Thamel is full of the narrow streets and all the shops spill out onto the street almost. This doesn’t mean that any of the streets are one way of course or even pedestrianised! So you really have to take care and you certainly could not be in a hurry to
go anywhere or your nerves would be shot. By the time it came to leave, we were ready to go, although we both agreed we would definitely be back at some stage.
On the morning we flew to Bangkok, we left the hotel at 5.30am and headed for the airport. The main airport in Kathmandu is the most bizarre place, with minimal security and minimal facilities. Unfortunately our flight was delayed so we didn’t reach Bangkok until that evening and we just went straight to our hotel. Bangkok was a total surprise to us - full of high rise buildings and really good roads. I’m not sure what we expected in our ignorance but it certainly wasn’t this! Driving from the airport we felt we could have been in any city in America. The next day we had a stroll around to get our bearings and then we went and bought ourselves a laptop. This may seem like we were being very good to ourselves (and we were really!) but electronics in Bangkok are such good value and there is such choice - Joe could barely contain himself!! One of the highlights of the shopping was the Siam Paragon shopping
centre. Incidentally the flag ship store (Brown Thomas/House of Fraser type place) had a massive sale on (for me!) and a huge aquarium in the basement (for Joe!). On the streets, Joe had gone from being offered drugs on the streets in Kathmandu to being offered blue movies every few steps in Bangkok. He’s obviously giving off some sort of vibe!! Ha Ha Ha. We spent the next couple of days re-stocking on essentials, carrying out some essential maintenance (we’re talking hair and nails here) and we started organizing the next leg of our trip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 48; dbt: 0.057s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
IRENE - CHUMMY CLUB
non-member comment
Merry Christmas
Enjoying your travels - wish it was all available when I was young. Hope you both have a happy and adventurous Christmas. Had a Christmas lunch with your mum [Chummy Club]