To say that we hadn’t shared a
double bed since Melbourne it wasn’t the worst nights sleep in the world. In
fact it was pretty good, and with the offer of a slap-up breakfast before
11:00am we hit the restaurant nice and early. When I say “restaurant” I obviously
mean the small room next to reception that had a couple of tables and chairs
in, but it functioned as exactly that. We both plumped for the American
breakfast once again and it was clear that most people have a big breakfast so
that they get the energy for a big hike later in the day as it was too much for
me. Toast, eggs, potatoes, cereal and coffee, it was just one step too far. But
it set us up nicely for the day ahead.
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| Peak Point Hotel... |
We had spoken with the manager
of the hotel about doing a day trek into the mountains at some point and we
furthered that discussion after brekkie. He laid out a good proposition for us
and we accepted – after we had done a little bit of research on the matter, but
it seemed like it was a good enough deal all round. I also enquired as to the
availability of phone boxes nearby and he said there were plenty. Barclays had
frozen my account as they think there is suspicious activity on my account,
even though they know that I am in Asia until December 20th. Somehow
I would need to reverse-call them to explain it all. Gnnnnnng!
Oh, and then there was the
matter of changing rooms. After breakfast and the trek discussion we were
pleased to learn that our new room was ready so we switched all our belongings
into the twin deluxe room we should have had from the start. And then we were
ready to go and explore Kathmandu.
The first place on our list was
the Swoyambhu temple, just west of our hotel and about a half hours walk. It
gave us plenty of time to see the city in the daylight and get our bearings
with the local area.
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| Ummmm.......a normal day in Kathmandu? |
The temple itself was pretty
incredible. Not just because it was set on top of the hill overlooking the
city, but there were hundreds of monkeys everywhere. We were witness to
numerous monkey fights, dogs sleeping around in the sunshine and a great number
of tourists and locals all mingling about the place spinning prayer wheels and
such-like. There was (of course) a number of people selling all manner of
items, but they weren’t forcing anything on us, which was a nice change. The
view of the city was spectacular and I won’t have enough space to put all the
pictures on here but it was a great start to our sight-seeing in Kathmandu that’s
for sure.
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| Monkey business! |
After we had been “monkeyed-out”
we walked back to the hotel to have a cheapo lunch (a Bowl Noodles of some
sort) and so that I could quickly sort out my Barclays problem. As we entered
the room we felt that something wasn’t quite right. Another power cut. Great.
So no kettle to boil the water and no power to check my emails form Barclays. This
was getting ridiculous.
After lunch (we got the hotel
to boil up a pot of water for us…somehow) we wandered around the streets trying
to find Durbar Square. We managed to find it, by walking very slowly down a
packed road for a long time, and when we got there we weren’t allowed in. Well,
we were, but it would cost us £5 to get into the square and also the museum. We
hadn’t counted on this so we turned round and headed for the Narayanhti Museum
where the fruit bats swarm out from the trees at sunset, and is supposedly
quite a sight.
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| Near to the Durbar Square |
When we found it it was long
shut, and didn’t even look like a museum. Or that there were any fruit bats. So
we called time on our exploring and made for the Peak Point Hotel to get ready
for going out for dinner. According to Tripadvisor (now a readily-used bookmark
on Google Chrome) the Cosy Café & Restaurant was a decent place to go eat
so we set off to try and find it. The directions were less than great, but we
managed to find it amongst the thousands of signs above our heads and walked
into a dark “restaurant” on the first floor. As we were staying in the tourist
area of Kathmandu we were expecting to pay over-the-odds for food and drink,
but this place seemed good value and the manager/cook/waiters seemed very
friendly and cheerful. After a slap-up meal, including another power cut, we made our way back to the hotel via the
supermarket. We would need one more beer, just to take the edge off.
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