Kathmandu and the Monkey Temple

 My new roomie Rob, from Belgium and a family of Nepalese who wanted a pic with him.

 The first sadhu of the trip.

 The inside of the temple.

 A Nepalese family we got talking to.

 One of the monkey guards.

 Tourists shops in an old building.

  The stupa.

 The view of Kathmandu from the hill.

 The parents.

 She sells coins to throw in the wishing well.

The traffic up the narrow road to the hotel.

Tibet

Sunday, May 6^th.

I woke up earlier than my 6 am alarm, got myself organized, finished reassembling my bags, had the included buffet breakfast and then caught a taxi to the airport. Unfortunately, I am leaving without my debit card, but hopefully that will be sorted by the time I return on the 19^th.

On the way to the airport I was thinking that given the number of flights I have taken this year I have never met up with an interesting seat mate to talk with. You guessed it, I wound up sitting beside a young man from Melbourne, Australia, who was starting a Tibet trip in the next day or two, but with a different company. He is a public transport bus driver and his depot is in Reservoir where Lucy lives. He is my son’s age and loves Nepal. He has done three major hiking trips in Nepal, including base camp and the Annapurna trail. He has also done a music cruise like I did, but it was a heavy metal cruise called 7000 Tons of Metal (the weight of the ship) and he has been to Canada and loves Toronto and ice hockey. We had a great yack for the duration.

Arriving in Kathmandu with my Nepalese visa was easy and I found my GAdventure pickup driver who took me to the Fuji Hotel in the Thamel (old city) district. I checked in and found out we are a group of twelve. I got myself organized in the room. Shortly afterwards my new roommate, Rob from Belgium arrived. We talked for a bit and then I asked if he wanted to do anything before our 6 pm group meeting, and he did. So, we hired a taxi and went to the World Heritage site Swayambhu Mahachaitya, otherwise known as the Monkey Temple. The drive to the temple was crazy navigating the narrow streets of the old city and then up the hill to the temple. Rob and I arranged for the taxi to wait for us and take us back. We spent an hour wandering around this temple/monastery complex checking out the religious sites, the tourist shops and the views of the Kathmandu valley. We got talking to two Nepalese families that were visiting the holy site. One was a lovely older couple in their traditional clothing and their two grown daughters. We talked to them for a bit and took photos of each other.

A couple of helpful definitions:

A sadhu, also spelled saddhu, is a religious holy person in Hinduism and Jainism who has renounced the worldly life, and practises abstention from all forms of indulgence in an attempt to break the endless cycle of reincarnation and reach enlightenment.

A stupa is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics that is used as a place of meditation. 

When we were finished we took the taxi back to the hotel, again through the crazy traffic. It feels like a video game where you are trying to come as close as possible to everything without touching anything. The dust in the city is incredible. Apparently they are repairing and replacing a lot of pipes and sewers underground and this is the cause. But, Kathmandu also sits in a valley and all the pollution and dust lingers in a perpetual haze. The narrow streets of Thamel are in bad shape. They were built before the advent of cars and were met mostly as foot paths. Now they are so narrow and congested it is impossible to repair or pave them because there is simply no room.

At 6 we met up with Baikuntha Simkhada our new GAdventures Chief Experience Officer (CEO), who told us to call him BK. He took us through the Tibet visa four-page application form and then gave us a briefing on the next couple of days. After that we all went to a local restaurant for dinner and got to know each other a little bit. BK took Rob and I to an ATM to get money out to pay for our visas. It cost $150 US for Canadians, $195 for Americans and 115 for everyone else. Luckily my BMO Mastercard allowed me to withdraw money and he took Nepalese currency instead of US$. We were back in our rooms by 9:30. Good start and seems like a nice group of people.