Kathmandu

After 45 days in India...a little more than we had originally planned, it was time for us to leave not only for another country but also our 2 fellow travellers who we had spent the last 3 weeks with!
It was definately one of our best decisions to keep moving south...if not just for the houseboat, but also Hampi, the train adventures further south as well as Kochi.
While we had booked our plane journey to Kathmandu, Katrina and Rachel had their flights back to Canada ready, so the last few days we spent relaxing and preparing for our flights - both of which had a long stopover before the next flight.

By relaxing and preparing, we mean doing things such as catching a local bus to the nearby beach, hunting down the nearest liquor store to get some honey bee or some beer...which turned out it was walking distance from our hotel!
We bought beer then decided we should get some more so walked up to find a MASSIVE queue. Me and Sarah tried the tactic that 'we're foreign, maybe if we walk straight to the front, they will serve us'. This wasn't so! Luckily an Indian man tapped me on the shoulder, asked what I wanted and bought the bottles for us...even ran across the road to change up some money so he could give us the correct change!
Whilst this was happening we were amused by the fact a rather large lady had walzed up to the front, using the same 'I'm foreign' tactic we tried and after being told to queue like the rest of them, she replied 'I'm a white western lady, I'm not queuing' to which she was ignored as she looked upon the Indian who was then passing our alcohol to us...HAH! unlucky chubs!

We got the local bus to the airport after saying our goodbyes to our Canadian friends and plan to see them later on in our trip with Ceasers waiting in Earls!!
Although we had had a great time in India, we were all ready to leave India whether it to go back home or to move onto the next country on our trip.
Our first flight went really well, we slept the whole way pretty much...1 thing which was a bit scary was the fact there was no limit to what liquids you could take through security for the plane as well as the security guy being more concerned with why I had used paper to put in my ears rather than what could potentially be in my pockets etc!...Nevertheless the first flight was over and now was the bad part...We had arrived in Delhi and had a 16hour wait in the airport for our next flight to Kathmandu...which meant a comfortable and peaceful sleep on the airport floor...if only! Using a flip flop to rest my hip on and the other to rest my knee on so it didn't hurt so I could maybe get a bit of shut-eye....it worked for an hour!...Whilst Sarah went for the sleeping upright in a chair, making a pillow out of the camera case and her Sarong...I don't think it even worked for half an hour!..12 hours later we were back up and counting down til 9am so we could check-in, so we could get a new boarding pass (in Kochi the security staff had stamped the wrong ticket, so security in Delhi wouldn't let us through until we had a new one!).




We managed to scrape enough of our last rupees to get a subway each before catching our flight to Kathmandu...woohooo...16hours ago this seemed like an ice age away! We got all seated and ready for an hours sleep before we heard some BIG, important and not so good news...There was a pretty big strike/protest going on...by pretty big we only mean the odd 700,000 people!! apparently the Maoists' were calling for the president to step down because they were promised that a constitution was going to be made for their party but this never happened...'ah well, a strike...when we were in Thailand there was one and it didn't affect us' so we thought everything would still be just dandy....Then we arrived at the airport in Kathmandu....we found out that because the strike was on, there was no public transport running apart from a tourist shuttle bus to and from Thamel to the airport. 2 hours later that bus arrived and we caught it to the city centre where we found a cheap guesthouse to stay. We then found out that this stirke was a BIG deal!!...not only was there no public transport but all the shops closed during the day apart from between 6pm-8pm, and restaurants stay pretty much closed 24/7.
So we had no way of getting out of Kathmandu (unless we flew domestically or internationally), no way of getting food (apart from at our hotel, and the fact there was a tiny little cafe opposite which kept open on the down-low!...very handy) and the only time we could shop was between 6 and 8pm!....hahah!! what else could we do but laugh!

As there was no traffic it made walking round a Capital city so easy! everyone walked through the little backstreets as well as along the main roads. There was also the fact that there was hardly any traffic pollution making the city very green (of which we care about very passionately!). There was however quite a few ambulances heading towards the strike where people had been injured and this seemed to become more frequent by the day.




Everywhere we walked, we seemed to find the strike...People wrapped in red flags, chanting and waving big sticks and signs...Quite intimidating, especially when they suddenly decide to run around the city and down the backstreets. On the other hand, it was strange; we would walk right through the heart of the strike and it seemed harmless, instead of finding guys being all violent and hitting everything in sight...we were greeted with "Namaste" or "hello how are you?"....very strange.
Police were everywhere, in full body armour, and with either a stick, a shotgun or a shield (I guess the lucky ones got the shotgun! and the very unlucky ones got just a stick...still better than nothing though!)
As we continued to walk round the city and see the sights, including climbing a million steps to a huge temple on the top of a hill, we managed to get away from it all. From the temple we could see the whole of Kathmandu as well as the valley in which it is situated. Unfortunately though it wasn't the clearest of days so we couldn't see the mountains very well.
We decided we would walk everywhere (not by choice) and decided one day to go a little out of the city to a little village. We got halfway there and then seemed to get sandwiched between the strike...it seemed to be a bit more violent now, so in the backstreets they came running through. Sarah's tactic was to stand next to a policeman with a shotgun and I thought climbing up a temple would be best so I could get a good view as well as be safe.

Now the strike has been going on for 5 days...3 of which we have been here for and seriously need to think of a plan. It seems that things are slowly getting sorted on the political issue but the strike seems to be getting worse, so to be honest we really have no clue what's going on!! We are hoping that we wake up and the strike has stopped so we can continue our trip in Nepal and move onto another city, or to a village just outside Kathmandu and continue what we had planned, but at the same time we have to have a plan in case the strike goes on for weeks!...which would mean we would need to book a way out of Nepal :-(

Although all this is going on we would still be in Kathmandu today regardless of the strike, but it has halted our way of getting around...making us become fitter and greener...so when you think about it we are saving the polar bears!...It has not just halted our ways of getting about but, a big blow for Sarah - it has halted her shopping to a maximum of 2 hours a day!haha...so maybe I should thank my lucky stars!...So far we have bought slippers and a book....I feel like we have aged about 40years where our priorities lie on keeping Sarah's feet warm while I read my book...it sounds very sad!
But to defend ourselves the book is a cracker! we have been recommended it since arriving in India and Sarah's slippers are awesome! typical Nepali style.

P.S Oh and how could I forget - we have bought incense sticks to keep our room smelling of coconuts.