Kathmandu - an Indian like chaos of diversity, colours, boldness, bargaining,.....Interesting :D

We're in a local bus on the way to Syabrubesi, at the border of the Langtang. A local bus, meaning 25 seats, but 40 people on board. That includes the 6 next to the driver, and the 17 on top of the bus. The co-driver just jumped out of the driving bus to climb up, while we're taking another sharp turn. He knocks 7 times to say we have enough space to pass the other bus, and whistles to demonstrate we can move even further to the left. What the sign of "stop" is, became clear when some luggage fell of the bus after 10 minutes: shouting loud!! Great start... we didn't know until the lunch break whether everything was there. Accompanied by Indian music, we will drive this road for 7-10 hours, no one knows exactly (its just a 120 km ride!!!) The winding road (Norwegian mountain roads are a piece of cake!),combined with the craters in the road already caused one of our fellow travellers to donate breakfast to a plastic bag. I'm risking the same while writing this :) 

Our arrival in Kathmandu was a tough one. It's interesting to see how fast you adapt to the circumstances. Japan spoilt us with it's quietness, clean and civilised environment. When we arrived in Kathmandu, the first thing we both thought was "why the ** did we take a flight here?" Full of people, EVERYTHING on the street, chaos in traffic... Power cut off for almost 12 hours a day..we couldn't believe our eyes. We imagined Himalaya, we got India. We're glad we are skipping India, it is said to be way worse and we think we've seen enough of it.

Entering the country wasn't so easy, as we didn't have enough dollars. 40 US dollar per person (not 30!), in cash, with nothing on us but 20 Rmb (about 2,5 euro), a non functioning ATM and our dollars in the backpacks, to be collected áfter immigration. Luckily I had some hidden in the small backpack and Jan in his belt! The four guys behind the counter smiling - one to take the money, one to paste your photo onto the application form, one to paste the visum, and one to sign it. None to check or read the application form though! Just ridiculous and sponsoring corruption....:(

We found or sign among the 80 other airport pickups, and managed to find his car: a really rusty Tata/toyota something with 780.000 km on the meter. "Broken" was the simple explanation :D. Like almost anything else. Our bags fitted júst in the trunk. Our seats felt more like air cushions, moving 30 cm up and down while driving. But we managed to get to our hostel in Thamel safely. We didn't have rupees yet, and as the driver would only accept "paper" tips of Chinese money, that meant no tip. What a place!!

We stopped around 10 for lunch, but decided rather to eat our own danish pastries then the dal bhat (which you by the way eat with your hands! And means nothing else but lentiles and rice and we are supposed to get for the next twelve days hiking) The bus stops around every 10 minutes, to offload luggage (ricesacks, water cans, goats!!! You name it!) or to load passengers that climb upon the roof. Now and then we are stopped by the military, that inspect some bags. You notice it first by all the people that climb from the roof, which is not allowed. I keep thinking "this would be something for my mother (sorry!): the road conditions are sometimes good, but mostly really bad. There are places where we look 2000 m straight down, with no roadside protection at all! The mountains are beautiful, and there are hundreds of rice terraces, all the way down. It's impressive, but scary. Not all of us feel comfortable in the bus; the stories about tourist busses going downhill suddenly don't seem so unplausible. Our fellow travellers want to take a private jeep on the way back, it might safer, although we are not sure.

We stayed 4 days in Kathmandu, trying to sort our stuff and see some sights. Durban square is where the wooden temple/house stands that the city is named after "kath-man-du" meaning old wooden house. It's also where you will find the hippie temple, where in the 60's and later people (and tourists) would come to smoke hash. Hash is by the way being sold on every corner of the street in Thamel; you cannot walk there in the evening without it being offered 5 times at least. Annoying! Anyway, the hippie temple and the erotic temple are full of wooden Kama sutra carvings, and if you look closely, many of the symbols or shapes of the temples represent a fallus-symbol like a Sutra(which is nothing else but penis, kama means vagina - so brought together its a simple term for sex!! The whole mix of Buddhism/Hinduism that goes hand in hand here gets a different perspective.

At Durban Square, tourists now need to pay 750!! Rupees. People from SAARC countries only 150. Discrimination like in Russia. (it was 150 half a year ago!!!!) We are being talked into having a guided tour for the same price, but via the backpassage; meaning without a ticket. We agree, the guide is soso, we don't get change and when we exit the square the military guy makes an issue. It's a game they play every day; when we look back we see that our guide is laughing with the soldier. It's just corrupt and we are really angry. Our first day, and we are probably too much trusting people again! We hate putting up a defense shield that high... But it is another good learning experience. These guys are nasty, they would sell you your own shoes and you'd still think you made a good deal. The tour operator that told us we would need at least 800 rupee for the bus was (luckily we knew it!) wrong, it's 315. The map we bought for 385 costs actually 250. The tibetflags we wanted and should cost around 75, cost 400 in one store, or 250 in the next. You've got to be so careful here! And it just takes away the fun of a lot of things. You don't trust the people, and those who mean it well,we might be too harsh to. 

Some of it we already tried to ship home. Unfortunately, the post office has 17 counters. Nr. 11 was the only one open, until4 o'clock. Little did we know that only counter 17 is for surface mail (via land), and that it closes at 14:00. The airmail is too expensive, we decided to wait until the end of our trip. In the end getting there the second time new info was that no surface mail available and no packages more than two kgs!?!?! After an hour talking surface mail was available but for almost the same price as airmail!?!?....when we have finished packing our parcel after weighting, inspecting etc we all of a sudden had a parcel weighing 2005 g!!! No joke we had to unpack to get rid of the 5 g!!! We are pissed but simultaneously indifferent and send it by airmail.... Took us two hours, lot of nerves, energy and probalby also a few years of our lives :D. So expensive day just to get stuff home but hopefully it arrives.

We took a detour via the computer bazaar (after being led into stores-of-a-friend by helpful Nepalese) to check out netbooks. With 1,5x times the price as back home, and pirated software we decided against it, again. We will have to keep writing blogs on the iPhone and sorting pictures in an internetcafe :-S The frustration-KFC-burger was well deserved, even though we startled by the price. ANYTHING you eat in a restaurant automatically gets a 10% service charge (whether good or bad!!) and on top of all (also on the tip!) comes another 13% tax. Its corrupt, and we sometimes refuse, as often you wait for 2 hours on your food. Ridiculous!!!!

As for the trip: we hooked up with 2 Dutch couples: Bas and Vera (we knew from Yangshuo, the scooter trip) and Jolanda and Noud. We decided for the Langtang trek, with a guide. The Everest basecamp trek is soooo tempting!! But it is really a lot of money (need to fly), really full (>100 people a day) ánd it would be raining (snowing?) for the next 10 days. All for a picture next to the basecamp sign... Sigh... Annapurna circuit trek would be another option, not too difficult and easy to find. But: parts of it are paved road, the magic of a lonesome trek is gone! It's getting so crowded! With 100.000 people trekking over the pass, all in the 4 months where it is possible... Imagine a traffic jam of tourists. As all other unspoilt areas are either with min. 500 dollar permits or simply over 600-700 dollar for two weeks,  similar goes for manaslu where a guide is mandatory.... the idea of splitting the guide-costs over 6 people was quite tempting. Besides, it can be fun, it was so on the Gobi desert trip!

So Langtang it is for about 12 days!! Mixture of tibetian culture, mountain views and a lot of meters to climb!!:)