Resting in Kathmandu

After the last couple of days in Oman I was quite happy to spend my first day in Nepal very slow. I got up late, relaxed at the rooftop for a bit, talked to people and finally made the decision to have a peek outside and go for some food. A spanish (sounding) guy suggested to walk around the royal palace to get to an area that was less touristy for some more authentic food. Good Idea I thought, until I made the first step on the main road in Thamel (the touristy area in Kathmandu). The little taxis were racing around between the scooters and people crossing the street. Another UN Jeep with huge antennas on the roof passed by and I was happy to successfully cross the street.

Looking at some of the dusty shops and the overall condition of the whole place I wasn't sure if I should start my culinary adventure of Nepal with a real local place any more. There were cows walking (and shitting) along the street and at some point I did find a nice looking place (not necessary touristy but probably a nicer local place) and ordered something (which I wasn't sure what it exactly was) from the menu. It turned out to be a very tasty and spicy chicken dumpling soup. - With an Ice cold Coca Cola from a glass bottle - lovely!

Speaking of Ice cold... the weather was not bad at all. 28 degrees and sunshine, dry and a lot of dust. Next item on the to do list was getting a SIM card. I wandered around the place a bit and asked in a couple of NCELL (Nepali Mobile Phone Provider) for a SIM card but they couldn't help me.
I arranged with some of the people to go to the Monkey Temple (Swayambhunath - Unesco World Heritage) in the western part of Kathmandu. We wanted to meet up at the hostel at 4:30 to be able to catch the sunset from the top of the mountain where the temple is. So it was time to head back to the hostel.

We arranged a taxi to bring us to the temple over even more adventurous roads and had to climb a good few steps past a lot of naughty monkeys to the Stupa on top. One of the monkeys tried to steal my phone while I tried to take a picture of him but at the same time the smaller baby monkeys were quite cute :-).

The Sunset was hiding a little bit behind the clouds but it still brought a very nice light over the buildings down in Kathmandu Valley (which still had barely any lights on and still looked deserted).
When we were back at the hostel it was time for some more detailed planning and I talked to a few people who also were looking for some treks. Still I wasn't sure how long I wanted to go for and where and how difficult it should be. So I just decided to drink beer with them and exchange stories of past adventures.

It really is a much different (I think more exciting and social) way to travel, by staying in hostels. I did miss this a bit in Oman (aside from the couch surfer nights), especially since I was all on my own. Now the backpacking life started (that were my thoughts at least)