Tag: Kathmandu

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Eleven: Kathmandu To Cochin Via Bangalore, Trivandrum & Mr Sharma, 17 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rose 4 o’clock-ish because flight has been brought forward 1 1/2 hours. I get irritated when we see the old flight time still on the board but Mangal gets the obsequious and ubiquitous Mr Sharma to explain that we really do have to leave at 7:15, not 8:45.

Mr Sharma pops up everywhere to make sure we are happy – including, hilariously, even on the plane.

That really is not an exaggeration. Mr Sharma came over to ask if we were OK and if we wanted anything so many times. When he disappeared from the boarding lounge, I said to Daisy, as a joke, “I bet he even pops onto the plane to make sure we are OK”…which he did! We had trouble containing our laughter, while telling him that we were still OK and didn’t need anything else.

We arrived at Bangalore and I sniff a chance of accelerating at arrival in Cochin by switching to the Cochin flight, but I’m 10 minutes too late. Dejected, will retire to the dreariest to business class lounge for Pepsis and waiting.

Arrived [Trivandrum] early (20 minutes) and even set off 10 minutes before we were due to land.

Sharji our driver is a pleasure, but the route seems so hazardous we cannot rest. I invent mosques and cricket matches game. From 3- 3 to 8-3 [in favour of] mosques, to 21-11 [in favour of] cricket matches, when we declared the winner.

Arrive [at Malabar House] late and knackered but switch rooms to a better suite and have dinner in room. I had seerfish in a delightful sauce, Daisy had a chicken dish.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Ten: Lhasa To Kathmandu, 15 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rose early – breakfasted in Hard Yak style, then driven to airport. Met Tse-Ten’s bosses coincidentally during 2 1/2 hour delay our flight.

Also met unfortunate Matt who was sent home home from Everest trek on account of a dog bite!

Got to Yak And Yeti around lunchtime – we have been upgraded to club which is nice. Yak And Yeti all we had hoped for – sunny and hot but not too sunny and not too hot.

Both had a club sandwich and a beer for lunch around the pool.

Enjoyed the afternoon. Briefly saw Sarah and her kids [friend from home, ex wife of Alan Cohen], then had a hard game of tennis.

Enjoyed the cocktail hour in club while observing Danish embassy party.

Excellent product placement on my part in that picture…
Janie also does some product placement – nice toes

Got ready to go out and went to Thamel House restaurant (once taxi driver could find it!) – Amazing mutton, chicken and wild boar – staff very friendly and even more so when we gave them the piece from Traveller through which we had found them.

Back to Yak And Yeti for an earlyish night.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Three: Getting To Lhasa, 9 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rise uncomfortably early (God alone knows why) and dumped at airport circa 6:50, more than an hour before check-in for our flight even opens – Mangal has a bit to answer for here!

Fly to Lhasa…

Mount Everest seen from that flight
Tibetean Plateau as seen from above

Searched on arrival and have my copy of Seven Years In Tibet confiscated by an utterly charming but firm official.

Have no fear, I read the book anyway!

Guide Tse-Ten and driver Chum-day rescue us and take us to the so-called four star Lhasa Hotel.

We enjoyed a snack of yak burger and chips in the Hard Yak Café (very good actually) only to find that the Hard Yak is the only one of the hotel’s five restaurants that is open at present.

This, together with no central heating (broke down 2 1/2 years ago) and no hot water (breaks down at regular hours as an economy measure each day) hacks us off.

We get a new room and eventually hot water and tolerate some nasi goreng in the Hard Yak determined to change our dining arrangements for subsequent meals.

We had expected a relatively low quality of hotel, but we had not expected basic ultilities such as heating and hot water to be inadequate. We were especially frustrated by the hot watre issue, as it became very obvious very quickly that thehotel was deliberately shutting down the hot water for several hours a day to save money, but the staff consistently denied this, claiming that there were daily unfortunate breakdowns.

I even offered them money to keep the hot water service going for us, but to no avail because the staff were insistent that the problem was mechanical not economic!

Altitude makes people tetchy when they are unused to it; his additional and seemingly unfair privation certainly added to our tetchiness; especially as Janie and I are both people who also get tetchy when we are cold!

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Days One & Two: Getting There, 7 & 8 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala, Placeholder & Links, 7 to 27 April 2002

Leave London late in day (7 pm) – hope the non-arrival of LA Cabs is not a bad omen! Park Royal cabs get us to airport with bags of time to spare.

We do our regular airport shopping and then enjoy Qatar Airways business class hospitality before and during flights.

Daisy weiring out in Doha hospitality lounge

All flights on time and event free – arrive Kathmandu late afternoon.

In stunning Dwarika Hotel – beautiful room and grounds…

…take a 12 course Nepalese feast in the Nepalese restaurant. Superb nibbles, mushroom and spinach with the roti, mutton kebabs, shredded chicken and rice pancakes and sticky sauce fish were the highlights. The late Mr Dwarika’s Mrs made an interesting interlude between courses.

Slept very well.

Delhi, Bhutan, Nepal & Dubai Journey Day Eleven: Kathmandu To Pokhara, Including Some Delightful Hiking Around Hill Villages, 30 March 2000

Another splendid Yak and Yeti breakfast before checkout and short flight to Pokhara.

Arrived at Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge well before lunch. Nepali style lunch, then short siesta before taking a 4 km 2 1/2 hour walk through neighbouring village Kandanidada and observing the local flora and fauna.

The village is mainly Brahman and the people very friendly. We are invited into many homes etc. Our guides are Hari and Ming. Hari teaches English to local children so is well known to the villagers.

Either Hari or Ming drew us a map of the walk we had just done:

Home just before dark for showers, spray, change and excellent dinner and learning bagh-chal (tiger and goats). Earlyish night – “Geddo zonked”.

You can see all the pictures from that lovely day on the Flickr album linked here and below.

31 Pokhara - lakeside scenes DBD_I8_Photo15_15A

Delhi, Bhutan, Nepal & Dubai Journey Day Ten: The Second Of Two Intensive Touring Days In & Around Kathmandu, 29 March 2000

The printed itinerary tells you all…indeed probably more than you want to know about the relentless touring we did on the preceding day and on this one. Described as a half day of touring, our second day around these parts felt even more intensive than the day of touring the day before…perhaps because they were trying to cram it all in to half a day.

Bhaktapur, Pashupatinath and Boudhanath were the three areas involved.

We took loads and loads of photos – about 120 of them ended up in our Kathmandu album, which is, in itself, a pretty good diary of our touring, as I labelled the photos well on our return and transposed those labels onto Flickr. You can review those through the Flickr link here or the picture link below.

062 Patan courtyard from top floor balcony DBD_J10_Photo28_27

Here are the words from my log for 29 March, with some sample pictures, to give you a taster.

1st stop: Bounhanath – huge Buddhist stupa. Saw beautiful Buddhist temple by side. Quiet and peaceful. On next to Pashupatinath, sacred Hindu temple on the banks of stagnant but holy by Bagmati River. Amazing monkeys and sadhus (mostly fake I think) but no actual cremations to be seen

On next to Changunarayan – stunning Hindu site not far from Bhaktapur. Achuote irritated Jamie beyond even yesterday’s heights with long-winded explanations on all of Vishnu’s manifestations.

I had forgotten about our Kathmandu guide, Achuote, and his “attention to detail”. Janie tends to give guides lots of clues, to the fact that she is not interested in ALL THAT MUCH detail and that I tend to mug up in advance, from the guide books. That we like to tour at our own pace and that we prefer to ask questions rather than have everything explained in depth. The best guides get it straight away, most guides get it with just a little prompting, but occasionally we’d get a guide like Achuote who was determined to spew out every detail he had learned about everything on our itinerary.

On to Bhaktapur – went to Peacocks for lunch – on through our town old town – saw Peacock window – more temples and stupas. Durbar Square then back to car.

Got pulled over on the way home as the king was going to pass (this is becoming a habit!).

Quick stop in Thamel to get bearings and booking of Kilroy’s – back to Yak & Yeti for R&R, plus repacking. Dinner at Kilroy’s. Momos, daal baht [thali], chicken supreme with yak cheese, amazing bread and butter pudding and a chocolate thingy.

At the time, we voted Kilroy’s the best meal of the holiday.

All the pictures from that intensive Kathmandu touring are in the Flickr album linked here and below:

062 Patan courtyard from top floor balcony DBD_J10_Photo28_27

Delhi, Bhutan, Nepal & Dubai Journey Day Nine: The First Of Two Intensive Touring Days In & Around Kathmandu, 28 March 2000

The printed itinerary tells you all…indeed probably more than you want to know about the relentless touring we did on this day and the next.

We took loads and loads of photos – about 120 of them ended up in our Kathmandu album, which is, in itself, a pretty good diary of our touring, as I labelled the photos well on our return and transposed those labels onto Flickr. You can review those through the Flickr link here or the picture link below.

062 Patan courtyard from top floor balcony DBD_J10_Photo28_27

Here are the words from my log for 28 March, with some sample pictures, to give you a taster.

Touring today. First stop, Monkey Temple (Swayambhunath) and it’s amazing surroundings. Lots of mini temples (stupas) with shops and houses in between.

Then on to the House of the Living Goddess, but Kumari was out at a ceremony. Saw the 12th century Kasthamandap all made from one tree – then onto Durbar Square, Teleju Temple, Royal Palace, Statue of Hanuman and saw sadhus galore.

Strolled through old city to modern part – then drove to see Tibetan refugees weaving, a handicraft centre and then a temple. before lunch at Taleju with stunning views of Patan’s Durbar Square.

On to tour Patan – slaughtering courtyard, stunning museum – loads more temples including the Thousand Buddhas Golden Temple etc.

I snapped this scene of a pop video being made, which i noted in my photo album although I had clean forgotten to note it in my log.

On through shopping street (I got a pair of tongs and a monkey and two CDs)…

On of those CDs, Chautari by Pancha and Shanti, became a favourite of Janie’s for the rest of that holiday and indeed since. It is available on YouTube music and you can hear it through this link.

Then home for rest and dinner at Chimney (founded by Boris Lisanevich).

All the pictures from that intensive Kathmandu touring are in the Flickr album linked here and below:

062 Patan courtyard from top floor balcony DBD_J10_Photo28_27

Delhi, Bhutan, Nepal & Dubai Journey Day Eight: From Paro To Kathmandu, 27 March 2000

Rose at 4 am to catch early flight to Kathmandu. Bid a fond farewell to Pema.

Arrived in Kathmandu to discover that there was a general strike going on. After a false start (being sent back to the airport by the police) we had a police escort through the streets to the Yak and Yeti.

On arrival, we were handed our “Tiger Mountain” itinerary for our five night stay in Nepal. Fortunately, there was nothing on our itinerary for the arrival day anyway.

Warned that nothing was open, we settled down to our fate within the Yak and Yeti [hoping to relax by the pool], only for it to start pouring down. Anyway, we got our bearings, snacked on momos and tuna melt, relaxed in our room, [then] ate at the Naachghar [within the Yak & Yeti]. Thali in my case and duck tandoori for Daisy.

We tucked in…

The musicians were playing it large

Naachgar was doing good business that night!

Went to the [in house] casino which I found truly foul – I was delighted part with my £9.50 and get out quick!

I had never visited a casino before. 25 years later, I can report that I have never visited one since. Not for me. The light-suited gentleman did not want to be photographed, we were loudly and repeatedly informed by the supervisor, but the request came after Janie had taken the above photograph of me.

All the photographs from the Kathmandu leg of our trip are in the following Flickr album. All the pictures from this day are shown in the article above:

062 Patan courtyard from top floor balcony DBD_J10_Photo28_27

Delhi, Bhutan, Nepal & Dubai Journey Day Two: From Delhi To Thimpu Via Kathmandu, 20 March 2000

We arrived in Bhutan on half the air fleet

Crack of dawn start – brought toast and bacon to our room – off at 5:30 for airport. After excess baggage debacle, said goodbye temporarily to Delhi and flew off to Paro via Kathmandu.

A neurotic American woman got off at Kathmandu and then returned flustered and apologetic. She turned out to be the tour guide from American group!

Bhutan’s sole airport

Drove from Paro to Thimpu – not an especially spectacular drive. We were driven by our guide Pema, as our driver is ill.

Pema Gyalpo was a wonderful guide for our week in Bhutan. I have a feeling he ended up being our driver and guide throughout the week. We’re still in touch, 25 years later (as I write) and I’ll write more on him as the story of our journey unfolds.

Had lunch at Plums (pork, noodles, potato cheese, rice) then checked into hotel before heading off to shops.

Farce at handicraft emporium where our chosen goods got lost between the ticketing and the payment booth!

Found a small shop with a wacky lady, Tsering Dolkar, who will hopefully make Janie a Toego.

Back to hotel for rest, supper and early night.

The re are other pictures from this day, within the Flickr album below – Nos 21 to 32:

01 9 March 2000 Delhi Imperial Hotel - Ian with the doorman and our guide Harmahindra Singh and driver G Singh DBD_J1_Photo01_0