Blogs from Kathmandu, Nepal, Asia - page 3

Even though we arrived in Kathmandu this evening, I am going start with the significance of the boda boda in Uganda. The boda boda is between a 50 and 300 cc motorcycle and is typical means of public transport in Uganda. There are buses, but they only go city to city and taxis and private cars are expensive. There are boda stages on almost every corner or you stand by the road side and one will pull over. Prices are negotiable depending on what you are transporting, how many you are transporting and how far you are going. There is now even a trend of Safe Boda where the driver is vetted by a company, you can contact them using an app and they must provide the passenger a helmet and obey all traffic laws. Sounds ... read more

We had another early hours alarm to be ready for collection by Ransinga and our driver at 7.20 am. I can't say I leapt out of bed raring to go! Still, we didn't have to travel far to the airport - five minutes and we were there. I was really sad to be leaving this wonderful country and its people behind. I had grown especially fond of Ransinga, who had a brilliant self-deprecating sense of humour. He described himself as tall, dark and handsome - I could grant him the dark and handsome bits but he was smaller than me! He said he felt sure we would meet again, in either this life or another one. And of course I never got to meet King Jimmy 5. He has said his only wife is the only ... read more

The last day. Nothing planned. We tried to sleep in a little, despite the bell-ringing, that happens every day from 6:00 onward. It's to announce oneself to the hindu gods when entering a shrine. Took some time to properly stash our bags for the way back. Had breakfast, printed tickets, went out to buy the last few things we wanted .In my case, without much luck: The things I wanted most were: some new/extra packing cubes, a sleeping mask and maybe one well-fitting goretex / fishermanspants. No luck on any of those. Shop in, shop out. They're all the same here. There's your prototype 'the north fake' trekking shop, with all kinds of trekking clothes and accessoires. A hemp shop, with mostly backpacks. A Nepali/festival-kind of clothing store and shops for fabrics (yak, cashmere, pashima).rinse, repeat. ... read more

First of all: Kathmandu is in lonely planet's top-10 cities to see, for the newest edition, that came out, today... Which meant the pizza place, 'ice and fire' we had planned to go to tonight was way too crowded.. Back to Fren's kitchen, where we started our vacation. Yesterday, we walked the streets of Kathmandu again. Had an apple pie somewhere, but it was more like a complete meal than I thought the light snack we planned. Therefore we ended up eating late at a place we found to gave boardgames, the electric pagoda. We played Jenga a lot see this photo of my final creation :) During the day, we did something different: got a mountainbike and cycled trough all the little streets if Kathmandu and it's surroundings. Ended with a swim at the 'police ... read more

Did you know that the Nepalese flag is the only one in the world that isn't square or rectangular? Me neither. It's like two pennants stuck together and is all the more interesting because of that. We initially decided to stay in Kathmandu because our future plans included trips to two nearby countries both at reasonably high altitudes. Kathmandu was the closest we could get and acted as a 'hub' for both countries. It would also mean we could acclimatise in the slightly elevated altitude of Kathmandu before moving higher. It is, however, also incredibly difficult to get all the visas and other documentation in place independently so we started to investigate using a 'facilitator' many months before leaving home. It was all a bit of a lottery ... How did we know that the names ... read more