For our final few days left in Nepal we spent the majority of our time recuperating after the trek. Once we had our Indian visas in hand there was little else for us to arrange and so we took advantage of a pleasant room at Pilgrims and decided to do a spot of sightseeing.

On our first full day back in Kathmandu we opted to take some of our trekking gear to The Porter’s donation charity based at KEEP, where we also wrote an account of our trekking experience in their 2012 Everest Region journal. We felt good about doing this as we enjoyed reading through the notes when we first arrived.

We spent a lazy afternoon in The Garden of Dreams where we enjoyed great food and a chance to sit and relax away from the busyness of the city. We vowed to come back before leaving Nepal. The only things that got in the way of our recovery and sight-seeing time were Helen’s sore throat and Dave’s lightening bolt effect food poisoning from the falafel stand in Thamel. Eek! We were however comforted when Joshua and Amata returned and decided to stay in our guesthouse too. We were also relieved to have access to over the counter antibiotics, we know this isn’t something that should be taken for granted but it was handy in this situation.

Helen enjoyed a fantastic Paneer-Dosa with friends at Pilgrim’s Bookshop cafe, they have a nice space out the back of the bookshop. Dave opted to stay in and recover and we arranged to sight-see later on.

We took a rickshaw out to Swayambhunath, the ‘monkey-temple’ as it’s also known at around 4pm to get the low light effect. It was packed with locals going up to say their prayers and turn the hundreds of prayer wheels, the site looks down on Kathmandu and is home to shrines, prayer flags, large Buddhas and a tall crowning stupa. There are some 365 stone steps to reach the stupa lined with trees and monkeys and hawkers trying to feel tat. There is a 100rs fee for tourist entry.

The following day Dave was still ill and so Helen ventured off with Joshua and Amata to Pashupatinah, Nepal’s largest Hindu shrine.

We couldn’t access much of the site but what you do witness are hindi’s on their deathbed’s, wrapped in orange cloth on stone slabs with their feet dipped in the water (this is to drain out the remainder of their life). From there they get taken to stone Ghat’s used for cremation and there is quite a stench in the air whist bodies’ are cremated on piles of wood for all eyes to see. It was an interesting and slightly voyeuristic experience, but it was equally intense and in some ways upsetting to watch people’s emotions being played out right in front of us. Dotted around the complex are fancily dressed male Saddhu’s who wait for tourists so that they can charge for a photograph, Helen managed to get a sneaky one without them noticing.

We walked from Pashupatinah to Bodhnath northeast of Kathmandu city centre. We could see the temple as we made our way down the hill and into the urban area. It was a really nice walk ambling through village-like areas with dwelling’s surrounded by some greenery, something you don’t see in Thamel. Bodhnath is 40m in height and is the largest Buddhist stupa in Nepal, marking the centre of the country’s Tibetan culture. Always circling stupas and mani-walls on the left here a few hundred people were walking around the base of the stupa surrounded by gompas and pilgrim rest-houses and tea lodges. We walked around the top of base of the stupa also before enjoying some tea and momo’s at Dew Drops Cafe looking out directly over the site.

We enjoyed good pizza’s at The Roadhouse along with some decent Thai food on the other side of the street, and on our last day in Kathmandu we returned to the very relaxing Garden of Dreams visiting the nice Patan Durbar Square.

Patan is around a half hour south of Thamel by taxi which was the first time we’d actually left the Thamel area since we’d been staying in Kathmandu. It’s hyped to be much nicer than the Thamel Durbar Square we didn’t visit, but those guys said it was way nicer and well kept in comparison. There are 3 main courtyards in the square open to public and in one of the old palace building’s is a very good Nepalise historical museum. Many people are drawn to the square to meet with friends or to sketch the wonderful Newari-crafted architecture. It was also nice to roam the backstreets of Patan and get a feel for the place, there are many temples and shrines dotted around and more locals are simply living there rather being constantly surrounded by people trying to sell you stuff as it often seems to be the case in Thamel.

Kathmandu is a mixture of several things, there is rubbish literally everywhere, the place is extremely polluted and it’s busy all the time. Having said this though it was exciting to be thrown back into a culture like this. We’ve really loved our time in Nepal and hope that the photographs and blog entries give you a glimpse of what it meant for us to be there exploring their rich culture and amazing country. Yes there is a huge problem with rubbish and infrastructure but we couldn’t help but feel a close connection to the people who really welcomed us into their beautiful country.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 processed in Lightroom 3)

There was some misunderstanding between us and Pilgrim’s Guesthouse in Kathmandu; we’d tried to book a room but didn’t have any response and so when we arrived at the airport we decided we would head there first of all to see if they had any rooms. When we arrived they said they had a taxi waiting for us at the airport with our names written on a sign! We were none the wiser, it would have been a free pick up but their forms are way out of date, and we didn’t get an email to confirm this.

Anyway it all worked out okay, we were excited when we first arrived. The streets were busy, full of bikes, pedestrians, cars and buses, and we were back in the land of horn honking! In this part of the world it’s okay to beep your horn at a person, a car, a truck whomever it may be to let them know you’re there. Makes sense in some ways. It’s really polluted in Kathmandu and we noticed this straight away, a soft haze is around all the time with only a 4km point of visibility.

So we checked into Pilgrims and agreed a price for 3 nights with the owner, a frank Nepalese man. We were happy with our room although failed to notice the schedule for electricity and hot water. Every place has a schedule we later learned. It was much cooler than where we had come from and so had our winter clothes at the ready.

For our first 3 days in Nepal we did little but focus on the trek. We were hoping to fit in some sight-seeing but we couldn’t quite fit this into our days of planning. Our plan was to start the Everest region trek from Jiri, the original route from which all Everest treks began before the days of the Lukla airstrip. We were aiming for a 20 day-ish trek taking in the heights of Gokyo-Ri and flying back out of Lukla.

First on our agenda though was to organise our Indian visas for the next month. We were ready for the queuing and thought we would need about a week to arrange this, but as we looked into it and with our time-frame we opted to pay for someone to organise our visas for us. This was obviously the more costly option but it did mean we would be able to start our trek by the end of the week, safe in the knowledge that our visas were being dealt with. It also meant we had to leave our passports behind in Kathmandu with our agent Deepak at Mount Fuji Adventure and Laxmi from the Indian embassy. We were very reassured though that we could put our trust in them and we felt that the steep $90 fee each was enough to confirm this.

So with the visa in hand we had to organise our TIMS trekking permits and find ourselves some gear as well as try to arrange for a one way open flight ticket from Lukla to Kathmandu. Although we were happy to do the Jiri walk in, we most certainly didn’t want to have to walk it out too!

TIMS is straight forward enough, just make sure you know the opening times of their office at the Tourism Board building, 10-4pm we think. It’s (1200rs) for the TIMS permit which is what you need if you’re not trekking with a group or guided tour. There is the 1000 rupee fee for entering the Everest Solukhumbu National Park and we were also told we would need to pay 1500 rupee each for a permit to trek in parts of the Jiri region. We didn’t have any knowledge otherwise and so paid for all 3, perhaps the Jiri one can be avoided, but hopefully it all goes to preservation and conservation of the local areas so for a small fee its worth it.

We rented some down jackets from Guide Himalaya Trekking Shop in Thamel and were happy with the standard of the jackets. We also bought some thicker gloves, a snood each and splashed out on a steri-pen, something we’d been advised to buy if budget could stretch to it. Little did we know how good the steri-pen was until we started using it and so it was well worth the $45 splurge.

Lastly our bus tickets to Jiri and the open flight ticket was bought through another agent who was working at Pilgrims. They don’t work for the hotels’ they’re just agents who pop in to see who they can sell their services to. Most of them are ex-guides and so have extensive knowledge of the system. We thought we would get our tickets through one of these men, he had a fairly decent deal on the table and it was easier for us to organise the tickets in one go. We were booked onto the 6am Super Express Bus from Kathmandu leaving on the 1st to Jiri, and we were told it would only take 6 hours! Hmmm we had our reservations about that one. We also paid $135 each for the open flight ticket from Lukla to Kathmandu, if you arrange a fixed ticket the price should be around $116 if bought in Kathmandu.

Our photographs from our first time in Kathmandu are a handful of street photography images, as we were gathering information, ideas and equipment for the trek. This was for either of us the biggest trek we had done in one go and we decided sight-seeing in Kathmandu would come at the end. We mainly enjoyed food at Pilgrim’s and during the day at other restaurants around Thamel. Very soon we would be venturing out into the mid-hills to start the trek of a lifetime.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)