Day 1: Exploring Kathmandu

Spent the day getting a taste of Nepal by walking around Kathmandu and meeting the other very jet lagged participants.

I awoke this morning around 6:30am to the sounds of hoking horns and hammering. I took a shower and washed my socks and underwear from the plane ride. In order to fit everything in my pack I could only bring a couple articles of each type of clothing. This means I will have to wash my clothes almost every day.

I went downstairs for breakfast and met three other participants. There are two boys that are friends from Boston and New York. They are post grad school. I also met my new roommate, Katy. She is from New Jersey and is on a gap semester and will start college in February. For breakfast we enjoyed beans, sausage, eggs, potatoes, and toast. I also had coffee, which tasted more like milk tea. We had some conversation over breakfast and talked about some of our favorite travels. I added a few more places to my already very long list.

After I gobbled up breakfast Katy and I went back to our room. She took a quick shower and we set out to explore the bustling city. We dodged cars and scooters as we walked around and looked at the different shops. We opted not to buy anything today as we don't want to lug it up to Everest Base Camp. I enjoyed seeing the prayer flags and looking at the famous Nepalese wiring. I learned that all the electrical is run under ground so the wires are just for televisions.

After we took a quick five minute walk to the Garden of Dreams. Admission cost 200 rupee, about $1.5 USD, and it was totally worth it to see the stunning garden.

After the Garden of Dreams we walked back to the hotel and met up with a few more people that had arrived and went out for a much needed lunch. For my meal I gobbled up pork momo, which is the Nepalese version of a dumpling. They are a staple food throughout Nepal which is good because they are delicious. Momo typically come with two different sauces. I have no idea what they are, but the yellow one is very tasty. I also washed down my meal with some Masala Chai Tea that followed the delicious theme.

After lunch a group of us set off to the Monkey Temple. It was about a 25 minute walk from where we are staying, so it was the perfect time to get to know some more of my fellow participants. So far the ratio of high school grads to college grads is about equal. Once we arrived at the temple we faced with a lot of stairs. And I mean a LOT of stairs. 365 to be exact, one for every day of the year. This climb made me wish the year was a lot shorter, but it was a good little workout before the hike to base camp.

Only a few steps up we learned why it is

named the Monkey Temple as we were greeted with a lot of adorable monkeys. My favorite was the little baby monkey that I captured in the first photo. Most of them seemed friendly and unbothered by us, but a few got aggressive and protective of their babies when we walked past.

After a grueling climb up the stairs we were greeted with a beautiful view of the city and the temple. The temple had lots of prayer flags and prayer wheels, which I learned you can only spin clockwise and are supposed to bring those who spin them good fortune. They are very popular throughout Nepal and I expect to encounter a lot more throughout the rest of my trip.

We walked around the temple for about an hour and prepared for our hike down the stairs and walk home. The journey back to our hotel felt a lot longer than the way there, but that might be because we ventured down the wrong streets a few times. We saw a few dark clouds but luckily did not get rained on. Once we made it back safe and sound Katy and I quickly climbed up the five flights of stairs to our room and rested before dinner.

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After resting in the room for an hour or two, which was very necessary, we went down to the lobby of our hotel for dinner. They had a buffet set up with lots of different foods that all smelled delicious. I went for the rice, chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and naan. We were all very hungry after a long day and scarfed down our food. Even though our plates were empty in about five minutes we spent another hour sitting around the table and talking. Some people got beers to wash down their food, which were all Everest themed.

Once Katy and I could barely pay attention to the conversation because we were so tired we decided to go back to out room to shower and relax before bed. All in all a pretty great first day in Nepal.