It was our first full day in Kathmandu today and it promised to be a sunny and busy one! For some of the keener members of the team, the day began with a yoga session by the pool, to help adjust with the jet lag and a merry evening had by all the night before.
Mike had us meeting at 8.30am to head off to a great little breakfast garden bar, conveniently called 'Mike's Breakfast' - we're pretty sure he gets a cut - where we feasted on eggs and coffee before heading into Thamel (town) to complete our trekking gear lists with a visit to 'Shonas' - a shop set up by an Aussie mountaineer called Andy and his Nepalese wife Shona. After shopping up large, the team headed off in several different directions - mostly because keeping this team together is like herding cats - could also be due to the lack of any traffic light crossings, car vs bike vs dog vs cow vs monkey arrangement, all orchestrated to the dulcet tones of several hundred homemade horns - these are the roads around Kathmandu.
Some of us headed off to Pilgrim Books, an incredible bookstore filled with titles on climbing, mountaineering biographies and books on Nepal and Everest, as well as a significant section on the Kama Sutra where some members of the team, who shall remain nameless, may have spent some time and learnt a thing or two (or three or four...). The rest headed off to explore The Durbar Square, with the hope of seeing the Kamari, a local Hindu goddess. They saw some of the sadder sights there are to see in Kathmandu, many dirty, ragged children, beggars, animals and rubbish everywhere. It was a sensory overload.
This evening the team had the last supper at a fantastic pizzeria called Fire and Ice, which served pizzas the size of a rickshaw tyre, speaking of which, we tested the rickshaws around town out with a hard fought rickshaw race, complete with cheating (cause we're not competitive or anything), screaming and near misses. Early night tonight and some last-minute packing before a 4am wake-up call and 5am departure to Lukla, which marks the beginning of our trek and from where we'll be walking all day on to Monjo where we'll spend the night.
Its' been a crazy, colourful and comical couple of days so far and it is awesome to think that the best is yet to come.
Much love to everyone at home, Haley x
Hi Haley... neat post. Took me there! Nice pics too. Pls add captions so we get a better idea of what/ who we're looking at? (For eg. what was that monkey's name?)
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