Adventures in China: On Top of The World

After the absolutely idyllic days I spent in Taiwan it was time to return, briefly, to the considerably less idyllic mainland. Just kidding, I love it here as well, but it's true without a doubt that people in general are less friendly and everything's just a smidge dirtier. Also, there are noticeably more uniformed policemen around, something that I noticed as soon as I arrived at Kunming airport. I only spent one night there so I sadly didn't have enough time to actually see the city. It's definitely on my list of places to visit though.

I arrived at Kathmandu airport on the 6th February. It's the cutest airport I've ever been to, the border officers were all standing off to the side in a little group drinking tea and they just sent two guys to deal with everyone who had been on my plane. I then had my first encounter with Nepalese traffic, which left me in a state of mild shock. First of all, they surprisingly drive on the left side of the road (you can tell I did a great deal of planning on this trip) and also they seem to not really care about things like lanes or traffic lights. Add to that the fact that the roads are sometimes just dirt and always full of potholes and you can imagine my reaction. I got to the hostel safely, if a little shaken up, had my first of many delicious meals and went to bed.

The only decent plane picture I have.

My friend and classmate Fede who travelled through Nepal with me was meant to arrive at noon the following day. Timetable changes and flight delays however led to his arrival being moved to 10 in the evening. So since I had an entire day to spend on my own, I decided to join two German travellers staying in the hostel on a walking tour through Kathmandu. We saw a lot of small temples and shrines and I slowly started getting used to the crazy traffic. The tour ultimately brought us to Durbar square, the plaza in front of the old royal palace. It was really fun walking through the alleys of Kathmandu. A lot of them are filled with small shops selling cloth or spices, the atmosphere is incredibly vibrant and alive. In the evening I went to get a Nepalese SIM card. You'd think that getting a phone card would be pretty easy but nope, think again! In Nepal, you need to give the phone company a passport-sized picture of yourself, your thumb prints (?) and also your grandfather's name (???). It was all very mysterious but the important thing is that I did get my SIM card in the end. After returning back to the hostel, I stayed up waiting for Fede who finally arrived around midnight. He was welcomed with a bottle of delicious Gorkha beer, in my opinion the best beer in Nepal :) maybe even the best beer in Asia.

Random chickens everywhere.

Also pigeons.

I love these little old balconies.

Durbar square. With pigeons.

On the next day we had our first experience with taking public transport in Nepal. We had to take a "micro-bus" to a suburb of Kathmandu because we wanted to meet up with Bharat, one of the friends I made while studying the IB in Hastings. So what exactly is a micro-bus, you might ask. Well, it's essentially a van with space enough for seven people to sit. These drive along fixed routes through the city and can pick up passengers anywhere. To get onto the bus, you just wave at it to stop it and then hope you can still cram in. They usually get very crowded, but at least they always have music playing to make the ride more enjoyable. The most unfortunate person in all of this surely is the ticket boy. He hangs out the door, shouting the destination of the bus at potential passengers. Once a person gets onto the bus, he collects money from them and then returns to his precarious position. I hope that using that description you can envision what a bus ride in Nepal is like, at least a little bit. To me it was kind of fun once you got onto the bus, the problem was finding the correct one. With no knowledge of the language, our only chance was to ask strangers on the street and hope that they would point us to the right bus. For your information by the way, we somehow managed to not get onto a wrong bus during our two weeks in Nepal. Now, back to the show. We met up with Bharat in Kirtipur, the district of Kathmandu where he currently lives and first were treated to a delicious lunch at his home. The traditional food of Nepal is called Dal Bhat, and because I'm too lazy to explain what it consists of right now, you're welcome to read this. It's great food and I really miss it. After lunch, we walked to the Chovar gorge through which the Kathmandu valley's water drains. According to legend, a Bodhisattva whose name I don't remember (don't judge me) divided the rock with his sword to drain the lake that was covering the valley. From there we took a bus to Swayambhunath (a name I miraculously do remember), more simply called the monkey temple. It's a temple complex built on a hill overlooking Kathmandu and it has both Buddhist and Hinduist buildings, the main building though is a big Buddhist stupa. The place is also called monkey temple because, as you might guess, there are monkeys everywhere. They hang around waiting for people to feed them which they do, because apparently it's good karma. The place was beautiful and I'm so thankful for Bharat for showing us around :)

The gorge.

View from Swayambhunath.

The stupa itself.

Sexy group picture. Lesson of the day: Don't ask random Nepalese people to take a picture of you.

The next day we spent at Bodhnath visiting one of the largest stupas in the world. After circling it about five times (always in clockwise direction), we decided to walk to Kopan monastery, located on a mountain with a very nice view. To get back to our hostel we had to catch one last micro-bus and after a very bumpy ride we were back in the relative safety of Kathmandu. We spent the night playing poker with a few people also staying in our hostel. Sadly, it ended in food poisoning for me. Apparently it's just a thing that happens to you in Nepal.