Kathmandus and Don’ts

Step one of our world tour – Kathmandu. It was clear from the moment we arrived at the airport that Nepal is a country with a lot of character. Unlike the clinical halls of most modern international airports, Kathmandu’s narrow wooden corridors, dark brick construction and creaky ceiling fans gave it a warm, rustic charm. The VISA on arrival process was a strange marriage of high-tech and ancient; once you entered your details on an iPad screen, it was time to hand your cash at suspiciously rounded exchange rates to a beaming clerk behind a battered, turd-brown desk. Here we received our first of countless friendly ‘namastes’.

First Impressions

Rubbing the tired from our eyes, we were driven through the city in a tiny white Suzuki taxi sent by our hotel. Most of its body panels were falling off, but it was in much better condition than the thousands of others on the road. First impressions of Kathmandu? Not as bad as we imagined. Yes, it’s the typical maelstrom of cow shit, tangles of electricity cables and whole families balanced on mopeds that you would expect from the Indian sub-continent. However, while the roads are largely unmade and liberally scattered with rubbish of all kinds, you’re not slapped in the face with obvious abject poverty in the way you are when you step out into Delhi. In the suburbs, most houses seem to be large, attractive multi-level constructions with roof terraces gleaming with coloured tiles, arranged in a highly haphazard fashion across the gently rolling landscape. This was exactly the style of our first hotel of our grand tour, the Shangri-La Boutique Hotel. Located in slap bang in the middle of bustling backpacker neighbourhood of Thamel, the rooms are clean and the place has lots of character. For £20, we got a basic en suite double, seemingly the going rate in Nepal. At first, we were enchanted by the paintings of local tribes people and mountain scenes throughout the hotel, before we realised that these were ubiquitous to every tourist orientated establishment in the country.

Get lost
Thamel is packed with restaurants, tour companies, hotels, hostels and bars – it is a must visit for new arrivals in Nepal as it serves as both an information hub for treks and tours, but also eases the transition to full on backpacker travel, with its familiar variety of eating and drinking places. Exploring Thamel by night, the streets are narrow, winding and claustrophobic and we quickly got lost. This area is a veritable Ali Baba’s bazaar of shops selling singing bowls, Buddha statues, Himalayan wool products, knock-off North Face mountaineering gear and the aforementioned paintings of tribes people and mountain scenes. You feel like you could get lost for days here, but really the area is very small. On our first day in Kathmandu, we took the Lonely Planet walking tour down from Thamel to Durbar square via various fascinating temples tucked away in hidden squares and niches. Watch out for the mopeds hurtling down the streets with no apparent regard for human life.

Regal Rubble
As we explored deeper into the city towards the famous Durbar Square, we began to notice signs of the earthquake which devastated the city in 2015: the odd gap between the houses filled with rubble, the odd roof covered over with a scrappy tarpaulin. Nonetheless, daylight revealed the beauty of the city’s historic architecture with its irregular brick walls and wooden windows and doors curved intricately with Hindu deities and ornate patterns. Both the beauty of the city and the extent of the damage is fully revealed when you finally reach Durbar Square, which you can enter after paying the 1500npr entry fee at one of the various kiosks. Sadly, the stunning buildings of the old royal palace and temples are propped up with wooden trusses, huge chasms in their sides opening up to piles of rubble. The most heartbreaking effigy to the loss of life and history are the empty brick pedestals marking the footprints of once magnificent pagoda temples. Only faded photo boards give any clues to what this place once looked like. Despite the damage, the spiritual and historic significance of this area is evident and many of the impressive buildings, shrines and statues survive. We took a tour with a friendly guide who took us on a two-hour tour of the various temples for 2000 npr. Of special interest was the house of the Kumari, the Living Goddess – a girl believed to the incarnation of the Hindu deity Taleju. Traditionally, she is a young girl who lives as a goddess, tended to by priests in the palace until she reaches puberty. To be selected, she must be from the caste of goldsmiths, bare a physical resemblance to the goddess and show fearlessness. This trait is tested (we were told by our guide) by a process which involves a dark room and live snakes. Before you call Childline and/or the NSPCC, we were later told by our Annapurna guide that this was a medieval practice, long since abolished. You can catch a glimpse of her, if you’re willing to fight through the crowds, at 4PM every day, when she appears in public in her full regalia.

After Durbar Square, we took the 45 minute walk to the famous Monkey Temple, or Swayambhunath. This involves a LOT of steps – good practice, it turned out, for our Annapurna Trek. Don’t worry though, you can get a taxi. Perched on a hill with a commanding view of the whole city and the hills surrounding it, we were disappointed that the lingering monsoon clouds obscured the snow-capped peaks which make Nepal famous. Nonetheless, this gold stupa is spectacular and lives up to its name, with tribes of macaque monkeys ruling the roost. Avoid bringing food here – we saw tourists terrorised by mischievous simians for doing so.

Royal Blood
The old royal palace is also definitely worth a visit. Perhaps driven by a morbid curiosity to see the site of the infamous royal palace massacre in 2001, in which the crown prince murdered his entire family including the king of Nepal, we paid the 500npr and surrendered our cameras and phones at the gate. The palace from the outside is a concrete monstrosity which would look more at home in communist Pyongyang or a 1960s Hilton resort. It manages to conceal its revered status as the last seat of a monarchy whose heritage stretches back millennia with ugly pastel coloured arches and tower which looks like it’s made of giant drinking straws. Inside, the kitsch fittings and mismatched interior decoration choices reminded us of homes of our older relatives, with tat accumulated over several lifetimes. We were amused to think that Queen Elizabeth II once slept amongst the turgid floral wallpaper and art deco furniture, and wondered what she must have thought. We were disappointed that the part of the palace where the massacre actually took place has been demolished, no doubt fuelling conspiracy theories about the true events of the murders. Nonetheless, some bullet holes on an outside wall and a few placards remind the visitor that a terrible crime once took place here.

Beatuful Bhaktapur
Patan and Bhaktapur are two stunningly preserved medieval towns on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Less damaged by the earthquake than the main Durbar Square, their centres are full of temples, palaces and squares where craftsmen sell their wares on carpets on the floor and potters leave their clay products out to bake in the sun. Both are a mere 30 minutes in a Tuk-Tuk from Thamel and are, in our opinion, superior to Durbar square. Anthony floated about in ethno-tat buying ecstasy here, while Will stumbled in an equally excited photo-snapping frenzy. Spend some time here – our biggest regret was that we didn’t have a night in one of the many guesthouses tucked away in the ancient, labyrinthine back streets of Bhaktapur. We’ll let these photos speak for themselves.