Trip to Nepal Part 1 - Kathmandu

I started writing this blog entry in Kathmandu and didn’t get very far. Weeks passed and now I'm in London, with a trip to Somalia in between. Life comes at you fast. Who has time to write about it.

Nepal was a busy trip so I'll break it up into two or three entries.

amazing faces...

The trip itself was in danger of not happening. Just days before we were to leave, Mogadishu experienced the largest single attack in its history. We lost a staff and people were very shaken as over 400 people were killed. In the end we decided to go but that I would When I was at the keyboard I was generally going through work emails and keeping tabs with what was going on in Mogadishu after the attack.

I’d never been to Nepal before so when the idea came up to visit my sister-in-law (who works there doing basically the same job I do) the question was simply a matter of when. In fact I’d discussed traveling there many years ago with my brother to do some trekking. It was around the time that began work with Harvard in Tanzania and so the planning stopped. It’s been in the back of my head from time to time since then but the opportunity never really presented itself until now.

adding color to the stupa

It’s a bit tricky to travel with small children sometimes, all the more going to a place like Nepal. It’s not that it’s not kid friendly. It’s probably similar to Nairobi in that regard. The challenge is that one of the main reasons to travel to Nepal is the Himalayas. It’s costly and complicated. There are certainly people that do remote trekking with children but it’s not easy.

We obviously had the advantage of at least staying with someone who lives there which helps tourism immensely. In addition to the great fun of hanging out with Liz, we could also take advantage of her knowledge of Nepal, particularly Kathmandu. In fact it ended up sealing the deal that we wouldn’t go on a trek due to limited time and the numerous other great options. The trekking will be for another time. It needs to happen though.

zipping around town; girls obviously not wearing seatbelts

There isn’t really a straight forward way to get to Kathmandu from Nairobi. We ended up with a lengthy layover in Dubai but not really long enough to leave the airport. As a result we were a bit tired on arrival. Interestingly there’s a 2 ½ hour time difference. I’m told the half-hour thing is due to Nepal’s desire to be different from India. In any case, it’s weird. But manageable.

Kathmandu

Our time in Kathmandu was spent in a variety of ways. As I mentioned it’s not a destination for families with small children, for the most part, so the things to do that accommodate children are not that obvious. To be clear, there is no shortage of children in the city. Locals and expat residents do just fine. It’s just that tourism and kids tagging along don’t always go hand in hand. Given that we were hanging out with a “local” (albeit one who is not a parenting “insider”), we ended up having no problem combining the interests of everyone.

We visited historic areas of the city (about 4 separate outings), lots of yummy restaurants, the zoo (more impressive than I might of thought), swimming, some shopping (not much) and hanging out with Liz and friends. Also, we arrived just prior to Diwali (aka Tihar in Nepali) and were able to benefit from the lights and festivities that go along with the holiday.

eating bone marrow stuffed in intestine, among other things

The air in the city is pretty bad and I’ve never seen so many people wearing masks. Even for me I felt it in my eyes and throat. Our air in Nairobi isn’t that clean but it’s far better than this. It definitely would be a downside to living there. Traffic is bad but I don’t think it compares to what we deal with where we live. Nairobi is pretty insane when it comes to traffic.

Otherwise, I think I could get attached to the place. The people seem to be very friendly.

Granted, having a couple of cute girls in tow generally makes people warmer – unless they’re being annoying. Then all bets are off.

The proximity to activities would be fantastic. In addition to trekking, there is endless mountain biking, paragliding, running in the hills, etc. that would suit me. I thought it was going to be a fun place and it turned out that I was right.

high five if you like chicken