kathmandu- fall 97 peter r bullen
travelogues

next photo... next photo... This is a travelogue of our visit to Nepal in the fall of 1997, written soon after our return. I added the pictures much later, but have made almost no changes to the text. -- p.r.bullen , April, 1999

Aingeal had to go up to Nepal for several days work, just before the 4-day Gandhi's Birthday weekend, so I was able to join her for a few days "in the hills".

I couldn't catch the late flight Wednesday, so I flew out first thing Thursday morning, getting in mid-morning. I had a seat on the left side of the plane, with a great view of the clouds hiding the Himalayas. Oh well, maybe on the flight back in a few days, I thought to myself.

Coming in, as we approached Kathmandu, I could really see the terrain, though. It seemed as if people lived on hilltops and, rarely, in the little valleys in between; each crest had a lone house, surrounded by terraced fields until the land was too steep to terrace and plunged away into the narrow valleys. Gradually, the hills became lower and softer until the Kathmandu valley spread out below us, and the houses more frequent until some hills were entirely terraced into fields and paddies.

The airport was quite nice; I caught a taxi from the Pre-Paid booth in to the Kathmandu Guest House, where we were staying in the heart of Tamel, the tourist district. The drive in seemed a lot like India in many ways -- chaotic driving, pedestrians, bicycles, cars, trucks all together, etc -- but very different, too, though the only thing I could put my finger on was the absence of the ubiquitous (in India) Ambassador car. And, as we got near the hotel, the number of foreigners. After Delhi, it seemed like hundreds of them, all dressed for trekking, swarming in and out of countless shops selling crafts, souvenirs, trekking gear, etc etc. As I was to discover, you can actually shop in Nepal (well, in Tamel anyway), just pop out to a corner shop for a few cold beers or a bottle of wine and some decent potatoe chips. Brilliant idea, and something I'd missed doing for months.
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