Day 11: Kathmandu, Nepal

Chinese Version / 中文版本

Because of that manic Shanghai guy, I was super mad for the whole night and it even lasted until today morning. In fact, we agreed to leave the guesthouse at 11 a.m. today, however, that SH guy talked so inconsiderately loud outside of our rooms at 8 in the morning, as if there were only him and his girlfriend in the guesthouse. Fortunately I had my earplugs on, poor Eason got woken by him and couldn't fall back to sleep afterwards. Nonetheless, Chloe and I couldn't escape from him easily. He started to knock on our door at around 9 a.m.. I really wanted to know if he didn't know what 11 a.m. stood for or he deliberately wanted to torture us?

Nepalese people carried many big bags on the back

After getting woken by him, we went to have breakfast in a lousy mood. Then we went to exchange some Nepalese Rupee for later use. Since I had met a girl who just came back from Nepal in Snow XX guesthouse in Lhasa, she told me there would be many people providing currency exchange in Zhangmu and the exchange rate was better. We then really saw many women carrying a big bag and it was full of Nepalese Rupee. We just picked one randomly in the end after comparing their similar exchange rates. But the SH guy kept on being the pain in the ass and insisted to find the cheapest one. He almost got into a fight with one of the exchange women on the street. How come he could never treat people calmly?

Initially we had planned to leave at 11 a.m., yet our departure was delayed to noon time as that SH guy took an unexpectedly long time to exchange money! In Zhangmu, all the houses were built along the hills. And the border was at the foot of the hill and we needed either to walk or take taxi to get down there. We chose to walk in the end. Before heading to the border, we first had to go to a small house, which was located 50 meters from the border, in order to register for departure. Then we could officially go to the border custom, it was simple and fast! 

When we finished crossing the Chinese border, we were approached immediately by a fully prepared Nepalese guy. He was actually selling us the jeep to go to Kathmandu with his calculator. We finally reached a deal after few minutes and he took us to the border of Nepal. It was also very easy to cross the Nepalese border, all we needed to do was to fill in the form and line up. However, be cautious that some of the greedy staff might collect unnecessary fee. As I met one, but he gave up eventually because I showed my visa page in his face.

The bustling Nepalese border

After the smooth border crossing, we hopped on our jeep and directly drove to the capital city of Nepal - Kathmandu. The "highway" of Nepal is also built along the hills and they are one-lane working. If there was traffic jam, it would be a disaster. Unluckily, we happened to have our first experience of strike in Nepal just one hour later. It was dated back to yesterday, a Nepalese guy was killed in the nearby town. The local gangs then demonstrated to the police and needed them to handle this incidence fairly. They blocked the highway with 2 big tree trunks and countless huge rocks. We couldn't help but was forced to stop on the road following a long line of cars. 

While we were stuck in the middle of no where, that SH guy mentioned his soaking wet incidence of last night again. He then decided to air dry his clothing outside of the jeep. We did not want to give any shit to him anymore, so we walked straight to the source of the demonstration to find out what was happening. Both the local gangs and the local police refused to budge, and seemed like no negotiation was going to happen. Poor us had to walk back to the jeep and played poker cards on the highway to kill time.

When we were stuck in the highway

Nepalese liked to carry big stuff by their heads

Around 3 hours later, all the people who were stuck on the road went back to their cars, as the highway was finally reopened. We did not give a damn to the negotiation result, all we wanted to do was to rush to Kathmandu in no time. 

After 2 hours, we arrived at Kathmandu. The scenery we saw on the street was completely different from my expectation. There were no tall building; besides motorcycles and private cars, there were many cows walking on the street. 

Our driver accomplished his mission and drove us to Thamel successfully. Before we got off from the car, there was a little sad story. Because we three had so much free space in the back and we put our belongings everywhere in the backseats, we needed to tidy up and repack our stuff before getting off. Meanwhile, our jeep was parked in the middle of the busy street in Thamel and many hotel promoters surrounded our car to give us leaflets. But we had already had plan and did not care much of their recommendations. However, one impulsive promoter opened our door without permission. When Eason's 70-300mm camera lens was put along the car door, the lens touched down the Kathmandu's ground when the door was opened. The lousy promoter was scared and ran off quickly. The poor lens was injured severly though, the filter was completely broken. Luckily, it was still functioning and the surface of the lens wasn't scratched by the glasses. But our mood was totally struck by this careless bastard.

There's no lousiest mood, only lousier mood when you saw this

Afterwards, we walked to the "hotel" (Although many hotels are called Hotel in Nepal, the interior and the environment are 10 times worse than a hostel, it is just cheaper) we had planned to stay. However, that SH guy's prince syndrome broke out. He rejected to stay in that hotel as he said it was expensive and stuff and stuff. 

Therefore, we went to another one nearby. The environment was no different from the first one; the wall peeled off, no air condition, funny smell and super unstable WiFi. It's only slightly cheaper, so it's become one of the lucky chosen few by our almighty prince for tonight (Pffffff). Also, there's one common failure of the Nepalese "hotel", which is no elevator but the rooms are all located on 4th or 5th floor. It's so not friendly for people with disability nor utter exhausted travelers.

Nepalese could sleep anytime, anywhere

Our jeep

At night, we went to a roof top restaurant for dinner, after all we didn't have a proper meal for the whole day. Despite the fact that I abhorred that SH guy to the max, I still promised to treat him dinner for thanking him to get back the iPod for me. And I even asked him to pick as many as he wanted (if only he could read English menu......*evil smile*). Out of all my expectation, as always, he changed the rules from treating him only to treating the whole table. What the _ _ _ _! Give him an inch and he'll take a mile! So I went: "I just thought of buying you dinner only. Now you want me to buy for the whole table, I am afraid I don't have enough (redundant) money!" He then said: "Oh, then you don't have to buy me either!" I was like: "No no no, I have to keep my promise!" In the end, he still kept his insistence and of course I accepted his offer. Wanted to play with me? Study more until you can get to my level, huh!!!

When we went back to our room at night, we discussed our strategy for tomorrow: move out and ditch the SH couple after visiting the Indian embassy. I can't wait!

The first Nepalese dinner was not good