Departing India...so soon?

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After a hard nights sleep and an extremely early awakening (3:30am) due to jetlag...we weren't feeling our freshest. Doesn't make for a prepared state of mind to take on the gruelling streets of Delhi.
Thankfully all we had to do was grab a quick breakfast and check out of the hotel in order to catch our flight to Kathmandu, Nepal.
So, we sat ourselves at a restaurant down the street and dug into some masala dosas and chai.
Then it hit...the BRIEF moment of panic and stress...
I had realized that our flight was in fact 1 hour and 45 minutes EARLIER than I had originally thought.
So we had to BOLT out of the restaurant, down the street, dodging the snake charmers along the way, and finally catching our lift to the airport and we ended up being...just fine.
Phew.
The flight was great, with spectacular views of the himalayas and Kathmandu valley on descent.
Kathmandu is a fine city with cool (and cleaner than Delhi) air. And with less chaos than Delhi also. I felt instantly relaxed.
The tourist center, Thamel, is PACKED with shops, cafes, restaurants and well...tourists. Which is just fine with me.
Our hotel is great, not very quiet though. I'm not sure that I can fully blame the hotel for that though, mostly just the neighbors dog who's got detachment issues or something of the sort. And the cat suffers as well. As do we.
The next day....
Today we spent the morning wandering through the old lively parts of town. Dodging motorbikes, admiring the old spectacular shop houses, photographing the many temples and shrines that seem to pop up around every corner and stopping randomly for freshly pressed POMGRANATE juice (!).
After all the morning excitement we thought that we would take it down a notch and pay a visit to the Annapurna Conservation Office, in order to sort out the permits and fees we needed to pay for our trekking adventures.
As I had predicted, it was an unorganized yet hilarious affair of being shown to many offices (alot of back and forth going on), paying hefty fees and handing over more passport photos than you could ever dream of being neccessary.
But now its settled;we got permits, TIMS cards and we are almost ready to go.
In the afternoon we explored the old Durbar Square (Palace square) which holds dozens of incredible temples, shrines, bells, statues and even the old wooden home where the living goddess of Nepal, the Kumari Devi, lives to this day!
It's a wonderful place, protected and supported by UNESCO, but also sad. There are alot of homeless people, young street kids, garbage everywhere and also feces near and ON the temples. It's truly a place where great beauty meets great sadness.
Moving on from Durbar Square, we stumbled upon the incredible Kathesimbhu stupa. A gorgeous white stupa (a bell shaped Buddhist structure) surrounded by colorful statues, paintings and hundreds of prayer flags blowing in the breeze.
That night we decided to ditch the crowds at the travellers restaurants and dive right into the world of Nepalese food.
We each ordered the set meal and waiting anxiously for it to arrive, as we had NO idea what to expect.
When the food finally came...well...we gave it a go.
There were many small items on the plate, a potato curry, a fried spinach dish, yogurt, pickles...all of which were encircling our "filler" of choice.
Of course since we know what rice IS we most certainly couldn't have chosen it,
so I chose the DHIDO...which ended up being a huge, brownish doughy ball of millet flour.
Guillaumes choice, the "mez" rice, well...wasn't nice at all. It was sort of yellowish porridge-ish thing thats made of some sort of grain and still remains a mystery to us.
All in all, simply put, we weren't impressed and were reluctant to ever try it again.
But after all...we didnt' come to Nepal for the food.

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Photos

How sweet it is
First beer on a rooftop in Nepal. Wont be the last.

New found love
Freshly squeezed Pomgranate juice.
Horray!

Colorful Streets
The colorful people and shops of Old Kathmandu

Hungry, anyone?
Um...one of the many butchers (who leave their meat out on display in the sun)

Sandal Shopping?
Turns out, Guillaume is MUCH pickier than I would have thought when it comes to buying sandals.
You learn something new every day.

Durbar things
One of the many intricately designed buildings of Durbar square

Colorful rickshaw
Infact, everything seems colorful in the subcontinent

Posing
With one of the dozens of great temples in the Durbar square

Stupa stuff
the stuff that hangs around the stupa

really beautiful
stupas are already great, then they put all these colorful flags that blow in the breeze and it just brings it over the top.

jen and the stupa
i had to pull a tourist pose. just had to

way too relaxed
for a tourist.

Um...I dont know
I dont do well under pressure

I tried it out
Got some henna in the market...it was alright

First and worst
daal bhat...thank god it got better after the first one

Of course
we just went back for more and more and more pomgranate juices.