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Expedition Diary Kathmandu  We arrived in Kathmandu after a fabulous drive from Daman and enter the
labryinth of small streets and market places that is the capital city of
Nepal. We failed miserably in garrotting Guy, who was asleep on the roof
of Pinky, on passing telegraph wires, and quite by accident found ourselves
in the car park of the Blue Diamond Hotel. This was to be our home for the
next 5 nights.
We all headed off to sample the numerous shopping opportunities in the Thamel area of town where we are staying, an activity that we will indulged in with varying degrees of commitment. However there are plenty of jobs to be distributed around the team, ranging from organising excess Expedition equipment to be freighted home, arranging shipping of the land rovers from Singapore to Darwin to supplying soft furnishings for the back of Mutley! Of paramount importance to us all however was to ensure that we had a few days break away from the Land Rovers in the course of our 2 week stay in Nepal. We have been away now for two and a half months and there have been very few days when we have not been either driving, repairing, maintaining or at various stages of war with the wagons. This may sound unbelievable to those of you who are still convinced that we are purely on an extended holiday, but 10,000 miles in 2 1/2 months at an average of 35-40 mph is exhausting. Besides that, we all wanted to go white water rafting! So what does Kathmandu have to offer? The answer is a tremendous amount varying from delicious fresh bakeries and restaurats, serving a good variety of Western, Nepalese, Indian and Chinese food, to good bars serving draught beer, most notably the infamous Tom & Jerry's. Night life finishes early in Kathmandu but we did manage to find one local night spot which, on our only visit, turned out to be a little too hot for us....  What also adds to the enjoyment of Kathmandu are the great buildings. The
most famous landmark is Durbar Square. Historiclly the seat of the Royal
Family, the Square sits in the centre of town. There are a large number of
Temples in addition to the Royal Palace, and it is a great place to sit and
watch the world pass by.
On the clothes side, we were able to buy cold weather clothing in preparation for our entry into Tibet. We have been warned that we can expect night time temperatures of -15 C. Everything from thermal fleeces, gore-tex jackets, climbing rope and rucksacs are produced locally. Outdoor shops selling replica North Face, Berghaus and shortly Tiso clothing are ten a penny. There are record shops, woolly pully shops and the inevitable tourist stalls as well as a huge number of shops offering tailor made embroidery of any item of clothing or patches. We all indulged but some got a little carred away in the latter. Kathmandu has a very similar atmosphere to a ski resort, lots of energetic people having a good time in a relaxed environment. It was all great fun. In between eating and shopping we did manage to get all the jobs done and so were able to justify 4 days rafting on the Kali Ghandazi river. Will and Jax decided on a less energetic break and so did not join the rest of us. However we all headed off to Pokhara, about 6 hours drive west of the capital. This is the centre of outdoor adventure for the majority of visitors to Nepal who want to trek, raft or just chill out. Noel also joined up with us here having had a quick 2 day visit to Chitwan National Park. Unfortunately there were no tigers brave enough to show themselves, but he did enjoy a walking and elephant safari. We said goodbye to Will and Jax and joined 20 other punters for 4 days on the Kali Ghandazi River with Equator Expeditions, an American outfit.. We were to be looked after by a team of 6 Nepalese guides, ably led by Manu who at the age of 22 already had 6 years experience in Nepal, Norway and Iceland.  I have to say that the rest of the group turned out to be great fun. We
enjoyed the company of South Africans, Dutch, Finnish, Danish, Norweigians,
Canadians, Australians, a Kiwi, Swiss and English people. Typically we got
up at 8am to a good brakfast of toast and eggs, set off at 10am having
packed up camp. Rafted until a 1pm lunch and finished off with 2 or 3 more
hours rafting in the afternoon. Then it was time to set up camp again,
sleeping under upturned rafts, some well earned rum punch and a good
supper. Everyone chipped in during the course of the day to help cook,
wash up and pack.
The rafting was excellent. The Kali Ghandazi is one of the most popular rafting experiences in the world, a grade III - IV river which would take us about 180 km down river. Rafting rivers are graded 1-6, ranging from normal river flow to prohibitively dangerous rapids in the aftermath of seasonal monsoon rains. We therefore enjoyed some moments of high excitement through both fast and technical rapids. Without exception we all got very wet. Sam, Anna and Becca being lucky enough to sit in the "swimmers" raft due to their guide's uncanny knack of approaching rapids side-on and flipping the raft. The night times were equally fun. We all joined in a number of games around the fire and inevitably told stories and jokes from around the world. The last night was particularly "large". It was a truely memorable experience and I hope that we can keep in touch with as many of our new friends as possible in the future. But all good things come to an end and we were all too quickly back in Pokhara, meeting up with Will and Jax, and then back to Kathmandu where we tidied up all the loose ends, ready to enter Tibet. |