http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Nepal , Kathmandu en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:49:17 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:49:17 BST Nepal I am in the stages of planning this little excursion. On the agenda is Chitwan Park to see elephants and rhinos. Then a flight to see Everest....I ain't gonna climb it and since I am going to be in the neighbourhood I feel I should at least see it. I am looking forward to Divali in Kathmandu. Then Tibet. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-303227.html Hello Wow been a while since I updated this. Still better late than never I guess So Nepalhelliphellipmmmm. Bit disappointing in the end to be truthful. Had high hopes when I got there but was pretty glad to leave a couple of months later.I went trekking for a couple of weeks at the end of Mayhellip..up to Llangtang which is just north east of Kathmandu West of Everest in the Hi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamal/blog-303205.html Again abit lengthy but stick with it Your soon see why.So as Dave left me to go back to Delhi to get flight to England i decided to head to Nepal only a day bus ride away and by this point 4 weeks into India i need a change of country. So jumped on the bus at 7am to be greeted by 2 Koreans and Japanese dude and a Finn although i thought he was from Russia. Finnins dude is in his 50's quit http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamal/blog-303009.html Adrian has now flown home to the UK. It was very strange to say goodbye to him yesterday at the airport. Especially as they would not let me inside security. It was pouring with rain and the taxi was waiting for me. Plus there were a lot of Nepalis looking on. Not very romantic or maybeI am now in Godawari where I will be staying for the next 8 weeks. It is about half an hour outside Kath http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-301817.html Well my time out in the village has almost come to an end. Irsquom taking Esther and Sarah to my favorite place the leprosy hospital on Sunday and then Esther and I are heading into Kathmandu on Monday. This leaves me just enough time to do my laundry and have it dry it sometimes takes days because wersquore constantly battling the monsoon. Irsquove also only got three days to get my f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-301680.html Because I am so behind on my blog I decided to summarise my experience in Kathmandu. I hope that it gives you a sense of what it was like for me and what I got up to during my time there.Arriving back in Kathmandu after trekking for 2 weeks was like returning to normality. I stayed in one guesthouse for the rest of the time I was in Nepal. After moving about I just needed a bit of stability. I http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-301647.html Finally a computer But it's really slow and hotmail doesn't work... Now back in time to Lamatar... July 12 we went to Lamatar a village about an hour outside of Kathmandu. It's a farming village especially for rice so there were tons of fields and everything was green. In Lamatar the women usually work in the fields and the men go into Kathmandu to work. We went on a walk in the afternoon. Th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-301305.html Kathmandu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-300059.html So we have visited some old places and some new. Yesterday Swayambunath which is the really famous stupa Buddhist prayer mound that appears on all the pictures that you have ever seen of Nepal. It is still quite a place and does not really seem to have changed. The walk there was great as well as we passed through really interesting streets with no tourists and no tourist shops. We also at http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamal/blog-300024.html Hi to all we are now in Kathmandu. Sorry that there has been a lack of BLOG but we have not seen an internet cafe on the whole of our pilgrimage route.What I will do is fill in the gap with installments as if we were on the pilgrimage but not now. First here in Kathmandu after 20 years it is a great shock. Its so set up for tourists now I knew it would have changed but this is beyond be http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-299443.html I loved the atmosphere created by the extremely busy and narrow streets of Kathmandu. They were filled with vendors selling fake north face trekking gear wool hats books or bootleg DVDs. From all directions someone is trying to lure you into their store or rickshaw by using their great conversation starter hey friend where you from I learned to ignore them because if I didn't I would not http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-299207.html Finally some pictures Aren't you excited These go through PatanDurbar Square July 69. I'm not loading that many for each day because it took an hour to load just these 19 So now I'm out of time At least you get a glimpse. I'll load the rest later. No time to write about our village stay at Lamatar right now so you'll have to wait for that too. Lets just say it was amazing with a bunch of m http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-298641.html So yesterday afternoon those of us who were healthy enough went to Chobaar. It was a really pretty with a river and some caves but the caves were all blocked off so we couldn't go in. There were some nice views of Kathmandu though. Then we walked up to the Chobaar Buddhist Monastery. They were doing some sort of a ritualchanting so we got to hear that. We couldn't go in we got to see the outsid http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-298289.html Yesterday we started language classes We have them from 84512 for the next 3 days. Just like any other language you can't learn much in just a couple days but we're mainly learning phrases that we might need to use so I think it will definitely be helpful. Today we were able to have a short conversation with a shopkeeper with hardly any English After 2 days of classes Nepali is nice because http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-297876.html Today we moved to the RCDP hostel. RCDP is the Rural Community Development Program and they are the organization that we are doing our volunteer work through. Their hostel is basic but not bad at all. It's still in Kathmandu just more on the outskirts out of the main city area. We'll be here for the rest of the week taking language classes before leaving on Saturday to go to a village for the we http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-296927.html Today we had a tour of Kathmandu mainly focusing on temples. We went to a Hindu temple and 2 Buddhist temples one of which is the oldest temple in Nepal. I don't have the names with me so I will have to add them in later. The Hindu temple was first. We didn't get to actually go in but we got to wander around the outside. The temple had a river flowing from it eventually connecting with the Gan http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-296918.html Hello there yes you are Bombed with photos now who knows when the next ones will be coming though All is good and still thinking of were to go next but think It will be back up north to were I couldent get last time things keep changing as trouble starts in some places have to change planes so you all know that I am safe and well .Life is grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat though HAPPY soooo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Everest-flight/blog-296412.html Well after 2 days of travel I finally made it to Nepal The flights actually weren't too bad because once you leave the US they have movies in the back of every seat and they actually feed you. We even got icecream sandwiches Too long though... but now I'm in Kathmandu. I've met 3 people from my group and the group leader and some more people are supposedly coming tonight. We walked around a litt http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-296007.html During our time in Pokhara we got much and little accomplished. After our 43 days of camping through Africa we agreed we deserved time to sleep in sit in cafes all day and enjoy the beauty of air conditioningPokhara is a beautiful part of Nepal and although the lake was in full bloom while we were there it was still a relaxing spot after coming from Kathmandu where car horns fill the narrow stre http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-295657.html Voici quelques photos de Kathmandu ainsi que de la vallee qui l entoure. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-294735.html After a very long 24 hour journey from Cape Town 3 flight changes and 7 hours in Abu Dhabi airport very small we arrived in Kathmandu Nepal. Relieved from being off the smelliest planes of our lives evidently some cultures don't know how to flush airplane toliets we headed through immigration. Got our visas on arrival which beats standing in the line at the Nepalese Embassy before we came. He http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-293168.html Hello all well I am back from 2 trips I took .1 was at Bardia national park Amazing and even though I did not get to see a Tiger I did see Rihno and Elephants and the lodge was wonderful I did a rafting trip which was not white water for a change but was all day and the raft was so old the poor guys had to pump it up so many times while I just looked around LOL I decided to go to Lumba http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamal/blog-290222.html 5.4.2008KATHMANDU VALLEYPo navratu z Chitwanu jsme hned dalsi den vyrazili na dvoudenni trek aby jsme si taky trochu protahli kosti. Radi bysme podnikli i neco delsiho ale bohuzel nebylo tolik casu. Dojeli jsme do vesnicky Nala asi 14km od Kathmandu odkud jsme pak dloouho stoupali strme vzhuru az jsme se dostali na hreben ktery se vine kolem celeho kathmandskeho udoli. Pak uz jsme jen chodi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-288765.html I slept fairly well that night. I tend to wake up early but I stayed in bed and was brought a cup of Nepalese tea at about 6am. The son who is 5 years old came in and started chatting then his mother and his cousin. They can all speak and understand some English which was handy for me since I only knew two Nepali words hello and thank you. After chatting for a while I got up and had a showe http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-288302.html Information Blackout Belies Return to NormalityNew York June 17 2008 The Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee IOC risk tarnishing the Olympic movement by holding the torch relay in Lhasa the capital of Tibet Human Rights Watch said today. Lhasa where the torch is due to arrive on June 21 has remained offlimits to foreign media and independent observers since prot http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-288299.html Part I AccessThree days I stayed in Kathmandu and I saw a city neither completely Indian nor fully Himalay.Streets bustled with traffic anarchic taxis buses rickshaws bicycles tractors motorcycles stray dogs and lowly humans swarmed apparently without law or reason through dusty lanes past colorful wares displayed from dawn to dusk but entreaties of touts were polite almost docile and b http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-286882.html Hello Nous revoil sur les ondes aprs un mois d absence.... et oui on ne peut pas dire que le Nepal et l'Inde soit les champions de la bande passante suffisamment grande.... et donc impossibilit de charger des photos. Mais miracle oh Miracle nous venons d en trouver un a Manali assez rapide....Pour ceux qui pensaient que nous avions DIS PA RUUUE et bien rassurez nous sommes toujours l http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-286499.html So there was a slight delay in departure from India as a dear friend put it seems a bacteria decided to start a livefree colony in my intestines. We ended up leaving India a day later than planned and after 32 hours of travel arrived in Kathmandu for a long awaited breath of fresh air. Disclaimer India was wonderful and can not wait to go back and explorelearn some more but there is s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-285774.html After our trek we returned to Kathmandu to soak in the mountain city and the sites it had to offer.Nepal was similar to India in many ways but much more relaxed. The touts weren't as vicious the weather was not so intensely hot and the roads despite being equally crazy were not so dirty. Much of our time in Kathmandu was spent in an area called Thamel. Thamel consists of an area of small inte http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-285345.html