Arrivals: Atlanta to Kathmandu.
Obviously everything started in Kathmandu. It’s the only place to fly into Nepal, so nearly everyone comes in through there. (A few people travel overland from India.)
We left Greenville in the morning on Wednesday, April 23. We drove to my sister's house in Atlanta, Georgia, in the Morningside neighborhood, where we would leave the car for the month. We had a fun lunch outing with at [Farmburger](https://www.farmburger.com) in Virginia Highland and got rained on!
Around 5:00, we grabbed an Uber to the airport (super great time to drive through Atlanta, haha) and checked in at the Turkish Airlines desk in the International Terminal. Our flight left at about 10:00 pm.
Turkish Airlines FTW!
Our flights were extraordinarily easy. We flew Atlanta to Istanbul and thence to Kathmandu. Both flights left late in the evening, which meant we were mostly just asleep/sleepy the whole time.
It’s never easy to sleep on planes, of course, but flying late does make it easier. This strap was a game-changer; it holds your head against the headrest, preventing the sudden head drop that always startles me back awake when I happen to drop off. I also used this footrest. It was a little tricky to get it set up right in the dark, but it also made a big difference in comfort. Being able to relax completely is evidently the key to long-term dozing.
We had about four hours in Istanbul airport. We made the most of our brief visit to Turkey by having lunch (dinner?) at the nice restaurant in the Cuisine Anatolia section.
We were given another dinner and another breakfast on our flight to Nepal, but neither one of us much wanted to eat more meals at strange times. The flight from Istanbul to Kathmandu took about six hours, which felt downright quick compared with the first 12-hour flight.
Friday, April 25: Arrival in Kathmandu
We landed around 6:00 a.m. Nepal time. (Nepal is nine hours and 45 minutes ahead of EDT. It makes conversions among time zones a little tricky.) At the airport, we were immediately greeted by Pankaj, our local representative who was to become a mainstay of our entire trip. He’d already put together the documentation for our visa applications, so we just had to hand over the $50 fee for each of us to get a 30-day visa. Chris had packed the cash in a ready envelope days earlier.
Pan raced over to the visa desk, got in the one line with no one in it, and returned with our visas in about 30 seconds. He then walked us over to the employee/handicapped line in Immigration. We passed that in another minute or two. Pankaj then raced us to the security line we had to pass through to get into the baggage claim (Nepali airports have security checkpoints in many unexpected places) and left us to await our bags while he ran off to deal with some other arrangement; Pankaj greets lots of travelers, which means his days are full of coming and going at the airport.
It took maybe 10 or 15 minutes for our suitcases to arrive; certainly it was faster than the Athens airport. We wheeled them out toward the parking lot, where Pankaj reappeared along with a driver.
Our first short ride through Kathmandu was a treat. The traffic wasn’t bad so early in the morning, so we could enjoy the women walking in their colorful kurtas and saris and notice the tumble-down brick buildings that still hadn’t been repaired after the 2015 earthquake.
The Hotel Shanker is old and elegant and hidden deep inside a compound enclosed in a solid wall. Pankaj left us there with a promise to return the next morning with our guide, Bala, for our full briefing.
Our room was fortunately ready, so a porter led us up. The Shanker’s elevators don’t go all the way up to the top. To reach our room, we had to walk down a hall to the corner of the building and go up a narrow flight of stairs.
The room was comfortable, albeit on the smaller side; this is to be expected in older buildings. We amazingly weren’t tired, so we went downstairs to have breakfast in the spacious, sunny, and beautifully decorated dining room.
Then we ventured forth.
Oh my!
What a shock that was! Pankaj had pointed out the signs toward Thamel and told us it was just a short walk from the Shanker. Off we walked, full of confidence, only to discover that Kathmandu is not exactly a walkable city. People walk everywhere, to be sure, but that’s because they don’t have much choice. There are almost no sidewalks. There are no crosswalks. There aren’t even any traffic lights. People just … go.
Pedestrians cross streets willy-nilly. In front of all the cars and motorcycles.
Cars and motorbikes turning right (they drive on the left) just turn. In front of all the other cars and motorcycles.
Somehow it works. Everyone seems to be watching for everyone else, and makes accommodations. No one seems to get angry at being cut off. Everyone gets where they need to go.
But this first day, my heavens! The heat, the sun, the pollution, the noise, and the cars all over the place felt a bit much.
Thamel is one of the main tourist centers of Kathmandu, where lots of backpackers stay before and after the mountains. I’d expected Thamel to resemble Khao San Road in Bangkok as I remembered it from the early 1990s (I know, that was a very long time ago, but it was my closest analog!). In other words, I thought there would be considerable foot and motor traffic but that there would be sidewalks or at least obvious places to walk.
Thamel today is not a very hospitable place.
Don’t get me wrong, the people are charming and friendly, and no one is actively trying to run anyone down. But the roads are narrow, and there’s a lot going on there. Cars and motorcycles share the narrow roads with pedestrians. Walkers do well to keep their feet out from under the tires passing by inches away. Walkers also do well to avoid tripping on rocks or falling into holes. The noise, oh it was stressful, and it wasn’t even 10 a.m.!
We doggedly strolled the streets, looking at shops selling trekking gear and Nepali souvenirs. Touts tried to entice us into establishments. We accidentally wandered into the open-air butcher shop section, where we stepped over one half rat and one flat rat lying in the road.
An hour of this was enough. Unable to face the prospect of walking back the short distance to the Shanker, we caught a cab–it’s easy to catch one anywhere, because the streets of Thamel are full of all types of vehicles–and had him drive us the five minutes to the hotel. It was totally worth the three dollars or so we paid.
After a restorative nap, we decided to head out in the other direction, down the sidewalk leading past the French Embassy. The sidewalk was great, though it disappeared for about 50 yards at one point–there is no avoiding the need to walk in traffic. Chris had found us a lovely restaurant with tables in the garden, where we had a civilized dinner.
It was good to sleep that night!
Saturday, April 26: Meetings and Shopping
After another wonderful breakfast in the Shanker’s sunny and spacious dining room, we met Pankaj and our guide Bala in the lobby. Bala gave us an efficient briefing, full of essential details. He insisted on the importance of our (A) following his slow walking pace, and (B) hydrating all the time. He was pleased with the somewhat stretched-out itinerary I’d designed; he thought this would make it highly unlikely that we’d have any trouble with altitude.
Briefing done, Pankaj asked what we planned to do with the rest of the day. I said I needed to buy a lehenga for an upcoming party, but was a little worried because the shops were mostly closed on Saturday. Never present a problem to a guide if you don’t want them to solve it! Pankaj phoned a friend who owned a dress shop, and half an hour later we were in Krishna Boutique, opened just for us.
Clothes shopping in Nepal is very different from shopping in the U.S. Many things are made to order. The shop shelves were full of partially made lehengas in the full spectrum of colors, with fabrics ranging from light silks and cottons to heavy brocades that would’ve made fine dresses for Queen Elizabeth. The FIRST Queen Elizabeth.
Many of the tops were just notional. The shop assistant fixed those on me with clothespins.
It is hard to shop for garments when you can’t see them on hangers. The owner and assistant pulled out lehenga after lehenga, piling them on the floor. I had done lots of online investigation of lehengas and other South Asian garments on websites like Lashkaraa and Kalki, and I’d followed the Ambani wedding avidly, but without photos, I couldn’t even indicate designs I thought would work. Some of the fabrics were extremely stiff and heavy.
Finally, the assistant brought out the perfect lehenga. It had long sleeves, which were suitable for my mature status. The skirt was a lighter weight cotton. It was comfortable, easy to wear, and elegant enough.
The owner called in his tailor to make the necessary adjustments: shortening the skirt and adjusting the top with a lower neckline and higher waistline. He promised to deliver the finished product to our hotel the next morning at 11.
And that was more than enough activity for a day! We returned to the hotel for naps. We woke up ready for dinner and bed, but alas, it was only 3 pm. I sat out by the pool for a couple of hours playing bridge by myself. It felt like evening would never arrive.
The sun sets early in Kathmandu; it seems they don’t do daylight savings time. In early evening, we walked out of the hotel and in the other direction from the previous night, hoping we could reach the restaurants around the Radisson through back roads. The good news was that we could. The sidewalks turned out not to be paved, and there were giant holes in the dirt that were best avoided, but at least we didn’t have to walk in literal traffic.
The Lazimpat neighborhood in Kathmandu has some great restaurants with very reasonable prices. ATMs are plentiful, and we never had much difficulty in acquiring cash. Many places will take credit cards, but you can’t always count on that.
Sunday, April 27: Thamel again!
Today we ventured back into Thamel. We needed nalgene bottles, and it had dawned on me that our luggage would be moving around the Khumbu region on a man’s or donkey’s back, rain or shine. We’d brought big duffel bags from the U.S., but they weren’t waterproof. It seemed that this might be worth addressing.
Thamel wasn’t nearly as intimidating this time. We were starting to get the hang of crossing Nepali streets. The technique is simple: you just cross. Ideally, you watch for a break in the traffic, and it’s never wise to step directly in front of a moving car, but if people waited for traffic to stop completely, they’d never cross at all. Or turn across traffic. We also added our own spin on the process by looking for human shields. We figured the crossing along with confident Nepalis would dramatically increase our chances of survival.
Thamel is full of gear shops selling North Face and North Fake products. It was the North Fake that we wanted. You can find waterproof duffels in a range of bright colors and sizes, so it wasn’t difficult to get a couple of bags; that set us back about $30. Nalgene bottles are also widely available in genuine and copycat models. We bought knockoffs for a few dollars each, and then we were set.
We were back to the hotel in plenty of time for our meetup with Krishna Boutique, but he didn’t show. After sitting around for a good hour, Chris What’s Apped Pankaj. Pan, bless him, was on it. He went over to the shop, learned that the tailor hadn’t returned the lehenga, and waited around until the work was done. Then he came with the owner of the boutique to deliver the item.
We’d also agreed to buy the hot pink dress I’d tried on the previous day for my sister to wear when she arrived for the wedding. I paid for it then, and Pankaj promised to hand the dress to her (altered to her measurements, which she emailed) when he met her at the Kathmandu airport two weeks in the future. This actually happened!
That afternoon, we packed. We were flying to the mountains early the next morning, so we had to have our gear duffels and daypacks ready to go. We were also staying at a different hotel when we returned from the mountains, so we had to move our suitcases to the next location.
It’s not easy getting total luggage down to 15 kg! Chris kept running downstairs with duffels and backpacks to weigh them on the hotel’s scale. In the end, he had to leave behind his largest battery.
Duffels packed, we packed up our other suitcases. Our laptops and nice clothes, new lehenga included, all had to stay behind in Kathmandu while we trekked.
It had started raining. We enjoyed the drive through Lazimpat up to the Ring Road, though the Ring Road itself was intimidating. The entrance to the Ramada Dhumbarahi was beyond a dirt road and massive market, but the hotel itself was modern and well-appointed. The desk agent was happy to store our bags for us to await our return. Then it was back into the cab to reverse the drive back to the Shanker.
The rain had stopped, so we ventured back out to our favored restaurant area in Lazimpat. It’s really quite a nice walk through what appear to be wealthy residential neighborhoods. That evening, we dined at Piano Piano, an Italian restaurant in the Nomad Hotel.
They made a great pizza and pan-seared trout along with a lovely artichoke salad, and I enjoyed a Nepali white. Nepal’s wine industry is still in its infancy, but its geography should lend itself to decent viticulture.
Back at the Shanker for our last night, we went to bed early. We were headed to the mountains in the morning!