Kathmandu

Saturday 30th May- Wednesday 3rd June
Our first full day in Kathmandu we met up with a friend of a friend from home, Newcastle in fact, to get the low down on Kathmandu. We changed hotels and basically hung out in Thamel for the day exploring and window shopping (as much as possible with everyone trying to usher you into their shop). Our new hotel was called Red planet, very big room and very helpful front desk guy. For Friday night we'd stayed in the quintessential Kathmandu traveller hang out, the Kathmandu Guest House. Great place but not good value. We had dinner with Leslie (Newcastle lady) at a great Japanese restaurant just round the block from our hotel.




The next day I headed up to see the massive Swambhunath Stupa overlooking all of Kathmandu, its also known as 'Monkey Temple' and yes there were Monkey's and they were wrecking havoc in their usual way, attacking tourists and eating the food left out on statues. As usual because I was at a picturesque place, the camera battery died :( but I got as many pictures as I could. That night I had dinner with a lovely Nepalese family who live above their shawl shop.

The next day I was sick (Nick had been sick the day before hence me going to the stupa alone. So we had a day in. By dinner time I was feeling better so we headed out to a popular traveller hangout Maya Cocktail bar for some delicious (cheap) cocktails and some mexican food. Mojito!

Tuesday we rushed out to see Durbar Square and hit the shopping malls of Kathmandu (the latter was a little disappointing, everything was a bit old and dirty- the male fashions were similar to home but the female fashions were something of an eighties throw back, a patterned, psycho, colourful mess)
Durbar square and the surrounding streets were interesting, the 'old' part of Kathmandu where the kings used to be crowned, most of the square dates back to the 17th Century.

Wednesday was our flight back to Mumbai via Delhi, and pretty unexciting except chatting to people on Facebook at Kathmandu airport, and getting to see the fancy new Domestic airports at Delhi and Mumbai (Mumbai domestic was (in the words of a Mumbai business man) akin to a dirty old bus station... not anymore :) They're both shiny and marble and very pleasant to spend a couple of hours waiting for a transfer in.

Look closely, as we were flying out of Kathmandu those elusive mountains were peeking out above the clouds.
At Dehli Domestic airport waiting for our connection to Mumbai (had my first 'real' cappuccino since leaving Sydney) on Wednesday, crazy smog blots out the sun so much you could look right at it.
Another Stupa in the back streets of Kathmandu, so much more quiet and relaxed the the hindu temples in Durbar Square.
This is how things get delivered in India and Nepal
The streets of Kathmandu
Durbar Square
Durbar Square
Durbar Square
Durbar Square
Swambhunath Stupa
Another mini Swambhunath Stupa
swimming pool for Monkeys at Swambhunath Stupa ewwwwwww....

Stay tuned for Fabulous Vienna!!!!!!!!!!!!