Nepal 2014: Starting the Journey in Kathmandu

This is part of a series of posts about Kathmandu and trekking to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar in the summer of 2014.

Welcome to Nepal! Ever since I came to Nepal with my family in 2001, I have wanted to go trekking in the Himalayas. I didn't really have much of an idea of what that meant or what it would entail, but I was determined to go. Finally 13 years later, I happened mention the idea to my engineering friend Ben, who thought it was a great idea!  The more we started to plan, the more we realized it would be possible. I knew a lot about the culture and the language and he knew a lot about outdoors trips.  Teamwork!

View of Kathmandu

We first met in Kathmandu to start our journey and stayed at Hotel Nepalaya in Thamel, the tourist district of the city. Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, is a medium sized city in a valley with about 700,000 people, beautiful Buddhist temples, and a pollution problem.

We had a great time sightseeing in the city before our trekking began!  Here are some of the hot spots:

Swayambhunath

(Monkey Temple)

Stupa - a temple-type structure in the Buddhism

Spin the prayer wheels clockwise for good luck!  We saw these EVERYWHERE in Nepal, small and large.  I religiously spun every prayer wheel I saw (pun intended)

Boudnath

(Largest stupa in Nepal and holiest Tibetian Buddhist temple outside of Tibet)

I went here when I was 10! 

Inside the monastery near the stupa.  The ornate work and paintings were stunning.

Patan Durbar Square

(UNESCO-protected ancient royal city)

Fun fact - I showed my Indian dual citizenship passport and got the lower entrance rate!

There was a lot of Japanese influence in this town square.

Fun facts

Language: Nepali, but most people know Hindi (which made my life easy)

Government: Democratic Republic (used to be a monarchy.  Actually here is a freaky story - I was in Kathmandu with my family in 2001 and only a month or so after we were there, a massacre in the royal palace occurred, very close to where we lived. Crazy!)

Currency: Nepali Rupee (96 NPR = 1 USD)