First Impressions Kathmandu presents the traveller with a very special kind of culture shock. Our previous travels have given me the opportunity to use the phrase 'sensory overload' quite liberally: walking the streets of Hanoi, boarding an inter-island ferry in the Spice Islands, getting hopelessly lost in the winding alleys of the medina of Fez...The capital city of Nepal, however, operates on an altogether different level. Arriving in Kathmandu by air in April does not offer the heartstopping views of the Himalayas one might expect. Delhi, which we left barely an hour ago, is baking in forty degree heat. Kathmandu, at an altitude of a kilometre or so, is a little cooler, but sitting in a broad, high-sided valley, it is almost invisible from the air - concealed behind a thick veil of haze. It is
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