This gave us time to do some laundry, enjoy the warm showers, and just generally recharge.
Kathmandu is chaos. We're staying in Thamel, which is the main tourist region, and there's just noise all the time. It's overwhelming, quite frankly. There are street vendors hawking tiger balm, chess sets, and flutes. You quickly learn to just shake your head "no" at anyone who approaches.
There's one oddity, though. A weather-beaten white guy trying to sell flutes in the crowds of natives. He's got an accent that sounds either Australian or English, and refers to Jen as "madam." I'm half tempted to offer to buy him a drink in exchange for his life's story - I mean how do you end up selling flutes on a street corner in Kathmandu - but decide against it. He's a constant fixture, though.
We spent a disproportionate amount of our time at the New Orleans cafe, home of good cappuccinos and free wi-fi, and where I posted a couple of quick missives.
We also met up with the folks from Malla Treks, who put together our trek to Everest base camp. They're actual part owned by Mountain Travel Sobek, which was our first choice but didn't have any treks available for the dates we wanted to go. You'll hear more over the coming days, but just in case you're curious I highly recommend them.
No comments:
Post a Comment