1st day in Kathmandu

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Our first day in Kathmandu, after a lovely 13 hours sleep in the Manang Hotel in Thamel, was a trip with many impressions, scents and noises.

Before sightseeing we wanted to collect our ticket to Bangkok at the Thai Airlines Office. An advice for everyone: Don't book in Germany e.g. Opodo, if you have some days in the country before you continue your trip to another country. Booking in the country of departure is cheaper. In our case we saved 500 Euro each.

In the following hours we walked through Kathmandu with the target Durbar Square. We started in a lovely Cafe, called New Orleans, in Thamel with a Cafe Latte and a Brownie (typical for Nepal :-) ). After having this short brake we saw a lot of shrines and temples. Walking through the narrow streets, we stopped here and then taking pictures, having a look at the many, many small an tiny stores of trekking equipment, scarfes, buddhas, bracelets, shoes, cleaning stuff etc. We were amazed by the amount of Nepalese on the streets, sitting on the dirty ground, looking around and doing nothing. What are the Nepalese doing the whole day? Buying? Because there are only a few tourists here in Thamel, besides us :-) .

On the way to Durbar Square there was something that penetrated us. First of all the thousands of cars and motorcycle honking continuously at the crowd of people and then all the people snuffling and spitting around. Nasty but the right way to get all that pollution out of your throat and nostrils…yak! We were something different not only because we were using handkerchief but also because Thomas is actually two Nepalese person tall.

The Durbar Square is a place of many different impressions; guys selling living chickens, Nepalese kids flying self-made kites, others selling ice-cream out of an ugly wooden box and then the royal temple with moneys on the roof. We were impressed by the many different aromas in the air, e.g perfumed sticks, curry, spoiled fish and urine like the Garden of Eden!
In the end of the day we walked back to Thamel and had dinner. The grilled spiced tandoori chicken, we saw before at Durbar Square alive, vegetables and RICE - this will be in many cases our favorite side.

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