This place is just a couple of minutes walk south of us, so a few fellow travellers from the Hostel set out to walk through the touristy and picturesque area of Thamel. Many shops with souvenirs and trekking gear lined the streets but in between we could see little local shops, butcheries and small temples. It was just the right way to take in this busy place.
After a good bit of zig zagging through the streets we got to the square where we had to pay 750 NRP to walk across. To be honest it was not that impressive (partly because some of the temples were closed due to the Dashain Festival - largest festival of the Hindu calendar).
It was certainly very busy though and we enjoyed the few side streets.
Just south of Kathmandu Durbar Square was Freak street, which was in the 60ties and 70ties the place where all the hippies would hang out. Not much left of it now, only a few coffee shops and restaurants now line this street.
Since all of us were not really prepared of what to explore in this city we decided to follow the road down to the river and see what we can find off the beaten track. It turned out that the river was quite dirty and littered with rubbish, which made us turn around and sneak through some smaller streets back towards the hostel.
By doing this we passed through a very poor looking neighbour hood, with little huts built from corrugated iron and by the looks of it only water from wells between these huts. Despite the fact that there were probably not many Playstations or iPads in these shacks the kids in the muddy streets seem to really enjoy playing with whatever they could find, Sticks, cans or sometimes a halfway inflated foot ball.
I think this little walk back to the Hostel was a good chance to see that Nepal, away from the Trekking shops and nice Cafes (of which there are not many even in Thamel), is still a very poor country.
Our Evening program consisted of finding some food. After meeting some Belgium guys this task was made more challenging by the task to eat at the sketchiest restaurant we could find. On the way we passed by Durbar Square again which now was free of charge. It was of course much quieter and had also a nice feel to it. The restaurant experience was quite fun as well. We were maybe 8 or 10 people which the restaurant was not prepared for.
Generally speaking you should bring a lot of time if you want to eat in Nepal. Most of the food is prepared entirely in the kitchen, all vegetables are freshly cut, dumplings (Mo:Mos) are being made fresh and all this takes time. One of the orders included an egg (which the girl specially asked for) so the chef left the kitchen, went outside and a few minutes later came back with an egg.
It took about 90 minutes until our food arrived, but it was well worth the wait.
On the way back to the Hostel we couldn't pass on the chance of visiting a Nepalese Club to enjoy some fancy dancing. Thing was that only the men were dancing and the girls were sitting at their tables. We all got encouraged to join and wave our arms like snakes in good Nepali and Indian tradition. I was quite glad when I was out of the place again :-). But it was an experience.
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