After an excruciating (but almost completely trouble-free) full day of travel (i.e. 24 hours!) I arrive in Kathmandu. Exhausting trips on completely-full China Airlines flights from San Francisco to Taipei to Bangkok were followed by a much more pleasant final leg on a three-quarters-empty Thai Airways flight to Kathmandu. The task of getting a visa was painful and chaotic as expected, but it was quick, and soon enough, I had my bags, located the Mountain Monarch guy, and was on my way in to Kathmandu city center.
The city is warm and dusty (though not unpleasantly hot, at this time of year.) Traffic is noisy and seemingly without much order or reason to it. (There is a perpetual din of honking horns and the screeching brakes of motorcycles and taxis.) Nevertheless, we reached our hotel, the Hotel Shakti without incident! The place was impressive-seeming from the outside but really fairly basic. However, my room was a bright corner-room next to a pleasant balcony. Not bad! I was hit with a feeling of relief at having navigated this fairly stressful first leg of the trip, and I promptly crashed out for an emergency nap!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We are coming out there Mar 19 w/ MM. Found your blog looking for other peeps experiences. What are the tea houses like? Do you generally have internet connectivity? We have no idea what to expect, enjoy your adventure and share all you can on your blog! Rock on..
ReplyDeleteMarty
Tea houses vary between quite look (at Lukla & Namche) to very, very basic (as you get to the higher elevations.) They can be very cold in the evenings, and the menu gets tired very quickly! (But - better than sleeping in a tent...) There is internet access fairly generally, but it tends to be quite expensive.
ReplyDelete