Nepal – Wonders of Traveling

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Durbar Square

Durbar Square is probably one of the most known highlights of the capital of Nepal. This massive square is located in the heart of Kathmandu. Unfortunately, after the massive earthquake of 2015, a lot of century-old temples and buildings on Durbar Square were left damaged. This became quite clear when I was walking around on Durbar Square since lots of temples hadn’t been rebuilt yet.

However, despite the damage Durbar Square should definitely be high up on your list. You can visit or admire 50 different temples which were built in between the 16^th and the 18^th century. Before entering the square, all foreign citizens will be asked to buy an entrance ticket which costs 1000 rupees, or about €10. Even though the entrance fee is quite expensive (for Nepalese standards), Durbar Square is definitely worth a visit. Here you’ll find temples in which some of the old Nepalese kings resided. The ones I liked the best were: Taleju (the biggest temple), Jagannath, Kal Bhairav, Swet-Bhairav, Kaandasthamp and Nautale Durbar. Luckily, all these temples are within walking distance and you can visit them in just a couple of hours.

7 things to do in Kathmandu

Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple)

Swayambhunath Temple is located on top of a hill, 3 km west of Kathmandu city center. You can reach this hill in two ways: you can either take a cab which will drive you all the way to the top, or you can choose to climb 356 steps. I decided to go for the last option. Once you arrive at the foot of the hill, you will understand why this temple is also called the “Monkey Temple”. While making your way up, you will be accompanied by hundreds of monkeys!

Don’t underestimate the climb to the top. When I visited Swayambhunath, humidity levels were at 90% which caused me to sweat like never before. However, once you arrive at the top you will be rewarded with an amazing view all over Kathmandu. You will see hundreds of thousands of small houses all seemingly attached to each other. You’ll spot the beautiful hills surrounding the capital. It will be so worth the effort!

The Swayambunath Stupa is the oldest one in its kind and was already built in the 5^th century! Take your time to walk around the massive Stupa, stroll on the surrounding square and admire the other small temples which are also located on top of this hill. Definitely one of the highlights of Kathmandu!

7 things to do in Kathmandu

Pashupatinath

The Pashupatinath complex is located on both sides of the Bagmati river and consists of a staggering 518 temples. The Pashupatinath temple is one of the most holy temples of Hinduism. Hindus spend the last weeks of their lives in this temple and are cremated on the river banks. According to Hinduism, people who die in the Pashupatinath temple will be reborn as humans, regardless of their karma or the way they have lived their lives. The last journey Nepalese Hindus make is one that takes them from the Bagmati River to the Ganges, the holy river.

As a tourist, it is basically impossible not to witness these cremations. Before going to Nepal I had heard about the cremations taking place here, and I actually didn’t want to see them. However, since they are taking place on the river banks, it’s hard not to accidentally witness one. Even though I didn’t want to see one, in hindsight I am actually happy I did. It was very impressive to see how Nepali people deal with death. It is so different compared to Europe. A Nepali man also told us that wives used to be cremated alive with their deceased husband! Luckily, that is no longer the case now.

Unfortunately, if you’re not a Hindu, you cannot enter the biggest temple of the complex. However, since you can visit and admire hundreds of other temples at Pashupatinath, this should also be on your to-do list. Tickets also cost 1000 rupees.

7 things to do in Kathmandu

Boudhanath

The temples and stupas of Durbar Square and Swayambhunath are not the only temples worth visiting. Boudhanath temple should also be high on your list. This temple is located 6.5 km from Durbar Square. I would recommend taking a taxi there because we tried to walk there, relying on Google Maps and ended up getting completely lost.

The Stupa is one of the biggest in the whole world and is surrounded by tons of nice souvenir shops and restaurants. For me, visiting Boudhanath was one of the best experiences in all of Kathmandu. At the time, they were still in the process of restoring the Stupa. However, even if I couldn’t see the Stupa in all its glory, it still looked incredibly impressive.

7 things to do in Kathmandu

Thamel

Thamel is a touristy neighborhood about 1.5 km from Durbar Square. A lot of tourists choose to reside in this area because it feels a bit more “Western”. You can find hundreds of shops selling Nepalese clothes, souvenirs and hiking equipment. If you’re a bit scared to try out Nepalese food, you should head to Thamel because several Italian restaurants are located here. Stroll through the windy streets of Thamel and you’ll bump into book shops, cozy bars and cafes where you can enjoy a very tasty continental breakfast. If you want to book activities or excursions, this is also the place to be. Several travel agencies are located in Thamel.

However, you will still notice you’re walking in Nepal, and not in a Western country. Hundreds of cars will constantly pass you by on unpaved roads, while several cows sleep on these same roads. It is a sight you will not see in Europe, but it definitely has its charm!

Garden of Dreams

As I already mentioned earlier, Kathmandu is a very loud and noisy city. However, there are some places you can go to if you feel like you need to flee from the chaos. Garden of Dreams is the perfect spot to go to when you need a little break. This beautiful garden is located in Thamel. Entrance tickets cost 200 rupees (about €2).

The garden will feel like an oasis of peace and quiet. You can sit down on one of the benches, stroll through the garden or have a drink in the cafe which is located within the garden.

Everest Mountain Flight

Another thing you can do in Kathmandu, is taking the Everest Mountain Flight. Spotting the highest mountain of the planet has to be one of the biggest dreams of anyone who decides to go to Nepal. We, however, were very unlucky. We had underestimated the monsoon season. The weather was never good enough for us to take the Everest Mountain Flight.

This flight leaves from the International Airport of Kathmandu and is operated by Buddha Air. The whole flight takes about 1 hour, and will give you the chance to see Mount Everest with your own eyes. This, of course, comes at a price. Tickets for this flight cost about 190 dollars per person.

#nepal #impressies

A post shared by Jolene Follens (@wondersoftraveling) on Sep 5, 2016 at 10:28am PDT

If you have visited Kathmandu and feel like I left out something, please feel free to leave a comment!

]]> https://www.wondersoftraveling.com/2017/09/10/7-things-do-in-kathmandu/feed/ 2 Day 1: exploring the streets of Kathmandu https://www.wondersoftraveling.com/2017/08/24/day-1-exploring-streets-kathmandu/ https://www.wondersoftraveling.com/2017/08/24/day-1-exploring-streets-kathmandu/#comments Thu, 24 Aug 2017 07:00:39 +0000 http://www.wondersoftraveling.com/?p=587 After a smooth flight and a six hour wait in Istanbul, we finally arrived in Kathmandu. Our day couldn’t have started any better… It was raining cats and dogs. That looked promising… After queuing for about an hour we finally received our Nepalese visum. Our adventure was finally going to start! The taxi driver brought us to our hotel in the touristy neighbourhood of Thamel, where we will stay for the next 3 days.

Nice walk-in shower

After casting a first look at the hotel room, we realized the photos online clearly had painted a very romantic picture of our room. It didn’t look as modern in real life, and the pictures didn’t show that the bathroom comes with a walk-in shower. Literally. When you shower, the water basically floods the whole bathroom and goes down the drain next to the toilet. That means that if I have to go to the toilet in the morning after dad has showered, I’m literally standing in his shower water… If you want to read more about 5 things I didn’t expect to encounter in Nepal, you should definitely read this post!

Day 1: exploring the streets of Kathmandu

Kathmandu, an attack on all your senses

After a “short” nap of about 3 hours, we decided to explore the city. From the first minute we were bombarded by mysterious scents and by a crazy amount of noise… Cars were honking constantly, people were shouting at you. Hundreds and hundreds of shopkeepers were trying to sell us things. The city is full of small little shops which sell food, clothes or souvenirs!

You have to watch out constantly. You will feel like you need eyes everywhere, just to make sure none of the many cars or scooters run you over. There is only one rule in Kathmandu: everything on wheels has right of way. Unlike us, the Nepalese people aren’t bothered by all of this, they just stroll through the streets of Kathmandu as if it’s nothing. Thousands of people were making their way towards Durbar Square because the Women’s festival was taking place there. Walking around in Kathmandu almost feels like an attack on all your senses.

Day 1: exploring the streets of Kathmandu

The obligatory rip-off

We had planned to visit Durbar Square and the Monkey Temple. While walking over there, we met a Nepalese student who really wanted to show us around in his city. Dad didn’t entirely trust it and asked him if he wanted to get paid for it. “No no, I don’t want any money for it, I just like to talk and meet new people”.

We decide to take the risk and go for it. We followed our personal guide through the windy and quite dirty streets of Kathmandu until it became clear he did want to receive some kind of compensation for his efforts. He asked us if we could buy him some food. We agreed, expecting him to buy a sandwich or a small meal. He brought us to a tiny supermarket to “buy rice”.

Once we arrived there, rice suddenly turned into milk, eggs, flour, etc. We realized he was trying to make us pay for his monthly groceries! We wanted to give him some money, but were not up for giving him almost a yearly Nepalese salary, so we went on our way and explored the city by ourselves.

Day 1: exploring the streets of Kathmandu

Women’s festival

We arrived at Durbar Square where all the women had gathered for the festival. They were all wearing beautiful red dresses. The married women prayed for their husbands in the temple, while the single ladies prayed in order to find a husband soon. The whole square was filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of people, and it soon became too crowded for us. We decided that we would come back the next day to explore Durbar Square in all peace and quiet.

Since there were thousands of people on Durbar Square we couldn’t quite orient ourselves and it didn’t take long before we were completely lost in the small and crooked streets. Since they don’t seem to have any street signs or signs that lead to major attractions in Nepal, we had no idea how to get back to our hotel. By sheer luck we ended up somewhere we had been before and managed to find our way back to the hotel. On the way there, we spotted the beautiful Kathe Simbu stupa.

Day 1: exploring the streets of Kathmandu

Garden of Dreams

We decided to make a small detour to go to the Garden of Dreams, which is an oasis of quietness and relaxation in the middle of Kathmandu. It was nice to escape the chaos of the city for a little bit. We only paid 200 rupees per person to enter this beautiful garden. Tomorrow we’re going back to Durbar Square and we’ll try to visit the Monkey Temple!

Day 1: exploring the streets of Kathmandu

]]> https://www.wondersoftraveling.com/2017/08/24/day-1-exploring-streets-kathmandu/feed/ 1 5 things I wish I knew before going to Nepal https://www.wondersoftraveling.com/2017/08/21/5-things-wish-knew-going-nepal/ https://www.wondersoftraveling.com/2017/08/21/5-things-wish-knew-going-nepal/#comments Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:08:14 +0000 http://www.wondersoftraveling.com/?p=465 As someone who grew up in a family that is crazy about mountains and mountaineering, it comes as no surprise I wanted to go to the “roof of the world”. In September 2016 I travelled with my dad to Nepal to see the highest mountains of this planet with my own eyes. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect since I had never been to Asia before and I had only travelled to Western countries, like Europe and the US.

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Once I arrived in Nepal it felt like I had just entered a completely new world. In case you’ve been thinking about travelling to this fascinating country yourself, here are some things you might want to know:

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1. SHOWER CABINS/CURTAINS DON’T EXIST

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This might be a common thing in Asia, but since Nepal was the first Asian country I visited, I was very surprised when I opened the bathroom door. I was scanning the room and said to my father: “Why don’t we have a shower?”, until I realized there actually was one. Only there was no shower cabin or curtain to be found.

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You basically flood the whole bathroom if you take a shower, which is a lot of “fun” if you want to go to the toilet. It’s also not ideal if you want to keep your towels and/or clothes in the bathroom because they will inevitably get wet. At first I thought maybe our hotel didn’t want to invest in shower cabins, until we travelled around in Nepal and I realized that every single shower was the same.

5 things I wish I knew before going to Nepal

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2. IT IS STILL MONSOON SEASON IN SEPTEMBER

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We decided to travel to Nepal in September because there are 2 public holidays in Malta during this month, which meant I had to take less days off of work. I only had to take off 11 days to stay in Nepal for 18 days! However, this meant that it was still monsoon season in Nepal. Before I left I thought it wasn’t going to be that bad. I was expecting some small showers which would only last about 15 minutes. The best time to travel to Nepal is from October to December, and silly me thought it wasn’t going to be too bad in early/mid September. I could not have been anymore wrong!

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Our main goal of this trip was to spot the Himalayas, and hopefully do the Everest mountain flight. Did we manage to do that? Not really. The mountains were surrounded by clouds for most of our stay. We only got to see them on the plane from Kathmandu to Pokhara, and while we did the Poon Hill trek. We basically considered ourselves very lucky whenever we could spot one of the highest mountains on earth. Pokhara is known for amazing views on the Himalayas, but to be honest, we never got to see those. The Everest mountain flight also didn’t happen because the weather wasn’t stable enough.

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Lesson learnt, never underestimate monsoon season! If you’re considering travelling to Nepal in September, I highly recommend postponing your trip one month until the dry season has started.

5 things I wish I knew before going to Nepal

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3. KATHMANDU IS LOUD

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I knew I was visiting a city with more than 1 million inhabitants, but I don’t think I ever could’ve been prepared for the amount of noise there is in Kathmandu. One thing I really had to get used to was the endless amount of honking. Living in Malta already taught me that people don’t just honk if there’s an emergency (like in Belgium), but Kathmandu was on a whole other level. It was almost as if Nepalese people don’t know how to drive without honking. Luckily earlier this year the Nepalese government decided to make the city a “no horn zone”. Your ears will be very happy to hear this!

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Visiting this city is not just an attack on your hearing, but also on your other senses. Kathmandu is covered in a big cloud of smog (so much that I got a headache after wandering around the city for more than 30 minutes) and you will feel like you need eyes on your back. I didn’t know where to look first! Cars, motorcycles, bikes, they were coming from all sides and as you might expect, they do not follow any traffic rules!

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As long as you’re prepared for this, I am sure you will enjoy this fascinating city. It’s most likely unlike any other place you’ve ever been!

5 things I wish I knew before going to Nepal

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4. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DRIVE AS A TOURIST

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Doing a road trip in Nepal might sound romantic or adventurous in theory, in practice it is basically a suicide mission. As I mentioned above, there don’t seem to be any traffic rules at all. There is no right of way. It is basically each man for himself.

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So how can you visit the country? For longer distances you can take one of the domestic flights. We took a 30 minute flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara for about €100 pp. Otherwise you could opt to take the bus, but this will most likely take you 6 hours (excluding delays) and the roads aren’t exactly in the best conditions. You can also rent a private chauffeur or choose to make use of taxis.

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You will fear for your life more than once when you’re on the road in Nepal. The taxi drivers overtake other cars without looking. The state of the roads and the behaviour of other drivers will probably make you want to stay inside your hotel. But that would mean you wouldn’t be able to see or do anything, so you just have to go for it and hope nothing will happen. Then again, these drivers have been driving in Nepal all of their lives, so they do know what they’re doing.

5 things I wish I knew before going to Nepal

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5. TOURISTS PAY FOR EVERYTHING

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As two people from Belgium it was quite easy to spot us in a crowd. Everyone immediately knew we were tourists, which meant we were getting different treatment than Nepalese people. During our first and second day we wanted to visit Durbar Square in Kathmandu. There is no official entrance (just a small ticket booth on the square), so it’s basically possible to enter Durbar Square without paying. At least if you’re Nepalese. However, since we can’t pretend to be local inhabitants; guards and police officers immediately stopped us and ordered us to pay or show our entrance ticket. This happened every time we left the area and wanted to walk back in. We were constantly stopped, while all the other people could just casually walk in and out Durbar Square without any problem.

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You should also expect to pay a lot more for entrance tickets than other Nepalese people or people from neighbouring countries. Don’t be surprised if you see that you end up paying at least twice as much as local inhabitants.

5 things I wish I knew before going to Nepal

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These were the 5 things that surprised me the most when visiting this peculiar country. Have you been to Nepal? Did something else surprise you too? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment!

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