Exploring and Rambling in Nepal

[Flashback]

Having had a good night's sleep and a shower to freshen up, we were ready to start our day. One thing I did like about Hotel Encounter was that it was right on the edge of Thamel, so felt like it was a bit quieter and a bit of a reprieve from the chaos in there. The setting for breakfast with the open air restaurant felt pleasant and the air didn't seem too bad there. Around the corner though as you cross the road into the main part of Thamel......... you'd pickup a layer of dirt just crossing the road! As usual, to cross the road you just walk out, use your hand to stop/slow down cars and just push on. If you stand there waiting you would never get across

Some shots of the view from breakfast as well as what we ate.






And no...... we didn't eat the cat

 

[Flashback]

On the cards for today was a cooking lesson at Seven Women whose goal is to help train less fortunate and disabled women to equip them with skills to help better their lives. One of the ways to support them is by taking a cooking class which at $USD 35 we thought was pretty good value. We walked from our hotel, it was just under a mile but easily walkable and with Google Maps easy enough to do. When we were nearly there the road leading to it was completely dug up and a no go....... just as well we gave ourselves a few extra minutes and had Google Maps offline! We walked around the block and accessed from the other side, so no worries in the end.




Some of the ladies working in the complex.


Our menu for the day, the items we'd be learning to cook.


The ingredients.......


Mrs Flashback in action.


The finished product!



We were very lucky to have the cooking lesson entirely to ourselves, normally they will take up to 20 students. The food was delicious and we sat down to eat lunch, as you can see there was a lot of food....... we did not get even close to making a dent in it. We had a few people from the centre join us and had a great time chatting over the meal.

Quality experience and we would definitely recommend doing it if you have a few hours spare in Kathmandu.

 

[craven morehead]

On the cards for today was a cooking lesson at Seven Women whose goal is to help train less fortunate and disabled women to equip them with skills to help better their lives. One of the ways to support them is by taking a cooking class which at $USD 35 we thought was pretty good value. We walked from our hotel, it was just under a mile but easily walkable and with Google Maps easy enough to do. When we were nearly there the road leading to it was completely dug up and a no go....... just as well we gave ourselves a few extra minutes and had Google Maps offline! We walked around the block and accessed from the other side, so no worries in the end.

View attachment 162090
View attachment 162091

Some of the ladies working in the complex.
View attachment 162092

Our menu for the day, the items we'd be learning to cook.
View attachment 162094

The ingredients.......
View attachment 162093

Mrs Flashback in action.
View attachment 162095

The finished product!
View attachment 162096
View attachment 162097

We were very lucky to have the cooking lesson entirely to ourselves, normally they will take up to 20 students. The food was delicious and we sat down to eat lunch, as you can see there was a lot of food....... we did not get even close to making a dent in it. We had a few people from the centre join us and had a great time chatting over the meal.

Quality experience and we would definitely recommend doing it if you have a few hours spare in Kathmandu.

What a fantastic opportunity and great experience.

 

[Flashback]

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Thamel, fortunately it was warm and sunny but not too hot. It was about 25 degrees which for us poor Brits (Aussie and Irish Brits... of course) was about as much as we would happily handle

Do you fancy having that couch you just bought delivered? No worries at all.


A view out over the city.


How about a ride in our top class transport back to your hotel?


Kaathe Swyambhu Shree: Gha: Chaitya


There's some great souvenirs, we really loved these masks - we have masks from all over the world hung on our living room wall back at home in London. Yes I ended up going into 20 different stores on my last day in Kathmandu to bargain HARD and get one! I was successful eventually at a price point I was happy with Mine is pretty much the same as the scary looking blue one on the left, second from the bottom above the elephant. It depicts Bhairava and is meant to protect you from dreadful enemies, fear, greed, lust and anger. I made sure to hang this one up right over our couch when we got home, I think it'll help me greatly


Some nice flower arrangements, this really reminded me of Mysore in India which is well known for their flowers. There's those wonderfully constructed power lines again!


We made our way out to the Durbar Square as well, but entry was 1000 NPR (roughly $10 USD) and as we had planned to goto Bhaktapur when we arrived back in Kathmandu at the end of the trip, we decided to just have a look from the sidelines. Unfortunately that ended up to be a bad choice as we ended up sick in hospital and had to cancel all our plans for our last 3 days in town. Oh well, next time...... You can still see a lot of damage from the earthquakes in April 2015 however repair work continues and hopefully in the next year or two it'll be back to its former glory.


We wandered past a stall selling lassie and it was really popular, so at 30p a cup we thought why not! It was, hands down, the best lassie we've ever had. Delicious!


Did you end up buying too many things? @drron I'm sure you could use this guy's services when you bring @mrs.dr.ron here


After a pretty full on day with about 5 miles of walking the streets of Kathmandu, we settled on a place that was a stone's throw from our hotel and therefore slightly away from the touristy bit of Thamel. It turned out to be a great choice even if the name left a lot to be desired....... Himalayan Fast Food Restaurant and Mo Mo Center. You'll quickly realise that all the restaurant names here are really quite literal and very descriptive! The food was delicious yet again and we finally got to try Mo Mo dumplings and even our first sample of a Nepalese beer (Gurkha beer). It was pretty good, I enjoyed it. @love_the_life and @mrs.dr.ron you'll see Mrs Flashback's BA F liberty kit here, she used it all trip - it came in really handy as it was the perfect size!

 

[Flashback]

Our evening meal consisted of Mo Mo (I went for chicken, Mrs Flashback went for Vegetable), some Thukpa (Tibetan noodles) and a veg fried rice for Mrs FB. Again, a very local looking place and it didn't look like much..... but the food was great and very cheap. All up including the beer I think we spent about £5.





With dinner finished it was back to the hotel to repack and get ready for our next part of the journey. Our next stop was Chitwan National Park where we'd spend 3D/2N on a bit of a Nepalese style safari.

 

[Flashback]

One thing to note about the Mo Mo actually, you can have them steamed or fried. We went fried the first night and tried steamed a few times too. I don't have much preference either way but Mrs FB preferred fried.

Interesting fact on Nepalese beers.... it's actually a fairly recent thing, most of the breweries seem to have popped up since the year 2000, I guess largely catering to the thirsty tourist market.

A sample of beers from our 2 week journey. Predominantly lager and ranging from 5-7%!!

Probably? Ha! A bit like the Carlsberg slogan 'probably the best beer in the world'.


Everest was a favourite for Mrs Flashback.


We also tried a Tibetan speciality, Tungba. It was....... odd, but tasted OK!

 

[lovetravellingoz]

We wandered past a stall selling lassie and it was really popular, so at 30p a cup we thought why not! It was, hands down, the best lassie we've ever had. Delicious!
View attachment 162105

Was this why you ended up in hospital, or was it another reason?

On the first of our 3 trips to Nepal we went out to dinner and my wife (gf then) and I were the only ones apart from the locals that we were with that did not have the lassie. The rest of the meal was identical.

All the others, including a very for RAAF Helicopter Pilot, all got very serious stomach problems. Probably Giardia. All went home to Oz for treatment and so I do not know exactly what they had. The RAAF guy had pushed on despite his problems and when I bumped into him at the airport some 3 weeks later he was skeletal in appearance.

 

[VPS]

No comments from the peanut gallery thanks!

Settle petal - who are you calling a peanut - surely not moi

 

[Flashback]

Was this why you ended up in hospital, or was it another reason?

On the first of our 3 trips to Nepal we went out to dinner and my wife (gf then) and I were the only ones apart from the locals that we were with that did not have the lassie. The rest of the meal was identical.

All the others, including a very for RAAF Helicopter Pilot, all got very serious stomach problems. Probably Giardia. All went home to Oz for treatment and so I do not know exactly what they had. The RAAF guy had pushed on despite his problems and when I bumped into him at the airport some 3 weeks later he was skeletal in appearance.

We ended up in hospital about a week later, so doubt it! All the locals were tucking in too, it was a very busy street corner. I liked that they used plastic disposable cups as in India when they sell chai they often use small glasses and that's a no go for me.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

All the locals were tucking in too, i

Alas locals eating various foods is no protection from the various bugs.

Indeed with some as the locals have been exposed to them over time they have a resistance that the new visitor does not have.

That trip we travelled for 10 weeks through Nepal and India without a problem till on our last day my wife (gf then) indulged in an iceream milkshake at Connaught Place at a busy store. That was her undoing.

 

[Flashback]

I don't disagree with that at all. Fortunately in many trips to India I've never been sick there, but considering I'm back off to DEL on Monday I'm probably jinxing myself now......

 

[lovetravellingoz]

We ended up in hospital about a week later, so doubt it!

If Giardia....it does take 1-3 weeks to show symptoms.

Food poisoning is quicker.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I don't disagree with that at all. Fortunately in many trips to India I've never been sick there, but considering I'm back off to DEL on Monday I'm probably jinxing myself now......

Yes, touch wood, the worst I personally have had in Asia is the ring of fire


Did get some one day bug in Tanzania once though.

 

[Flashback]

Yes, touch wood, the worst I personally have had in Asia is the ring of fire


Did get some one day bug in Tanzania once though.

I picked something up in Peru once. When it hit that was the worst 6 hours of my life, although Nepal came close. At least for that one the sink was next to the toilet so I had coverage in both directions......

 

[love_the_life]

Were you on on a a quest to try as many beers as you could in the time available?

 

[Flashback]

Were you on on a a quest to try as many beers as you could in the time available?

We only ever shared one between us every few days! Apart from in Pokhara where Mrs FB stole my Everest... so I ordered the Arna

 

[Flashback]

We only ever shared one between us every few days! Apart from in Pokhara where Mrs FB stole my Everest... so I ordered the Arna

But to answer your question, I suppose we wanted to try all the ones they had

 

[Flashback]

Now that work has finally gotten a little more under control, the TR continues.

When originally piecing together the itinerary we looked at accommodation in Sauraha (the edge of the Chitwan National Park) and researched the various things to do there, elephant or jeep safari, guided safari walks, canoe trip down the river etc. So we booked our accommodation first via Hotels.com and started looking at that later. It then seemed like a lot of the places there offered packages doing that, which also included your accommodation. There didn't seem to be a way to book the activities without the accommodation either, so, lesson learned - 2 nights accommodation booked that we didn't really need. At least we got 2x nights in the Hotels.com Welcome Rewards programme to tick over another free night, I suppose!

In the end we liaised with the company we booked our hiking trip through and the accommodation plus the activities etc. worked out less than the original 2 nights we booked plus what it would have cost to book activities etc. with them so in the end not so bad and the accommodation standard was the same anyway.

We had a very early start to the day to get our bus to Chitwan National Park (6am), which fortunately was a few minutes walk from our hotel - armed with our packed breakfast which I suppose you could say did the job but left a lot to be desired...! On arriving at the 'bus station', essentially a long, long line of buses along the side of the road we got on and settled in for the journey. We booked the 'deluxe' option on Mountain Overland which was described as having aircon as we knew it would warm up the closer we got to Sauraha and on arrival seeing the aircon we were a bit worried. In the end not a problem as on top of the high class fans you can see (which weren't actually used) it did actually have some vents. Phew!

 

[Flashback]

The bus ride itself was fairly uneventful, albeit long enough. It took 3 hours just to get out of the Kathmandu area, for a good chunk of it we sat there stationary. Once past that it was pretty smooth sailing with some very scenic views and the odd comfort break stop as well to allow people to stretch their legs and get some food. There was fresh fruit on offer and a massive plate was only $1.50. I had to chuckle at the roadworks we saw on the way...... nothing like you'd get back at home!



Even the chap walking past seems to be smacking his head in shame at the sight of these roadworks






Before we knew it, we had arrived in Sauraha and were ready to settle in at our accommodation.


The area is known for Rhinos so you see a lot of references to them around the place.


Plenty of options for lodging.

 

[Flashback]

For $155 USD/person we received the following:

• Bus transfer from Kathmandu to Chitwan
• Bus transfer from Chitwan to Pokhara
• 3D/2N accommodation including all meals (they were quite decent, too)
• Entry to the national park
• Several guided jungle walks (including animal spotting, bird watching, etc.)
• Visiting a local Tharu village
• Elephant safari or jeep safari (everyone opted for jeep as sitting on top of elephants with big wooden seats was felt to be rather cruel)
• Canoe trip down the Rapti river
• Watching a Tharu stick dance

I should note that pricing all of the above up separately, even if you don't want to do all of the above activities I couldn't do for less than $200 so all considered it was a pretty good deal.

We used Chitwan Jungle Safari, Chitwan jungle safari,Chitwan National Park tour| who were good to deal with, e-mail responses were always quick and were always happy to customise things as needed.

A few shots of the hotel, always good to have battery backup power as reliability is not something that Nepal is known for when it comes to power generation....