Kathmandu

As you may have guessed we are now in Kathmandu, Nepal....We caught a tourist bus on Friday 5th March from Pokhara which took about 6 hours with a few stops. The journey was pretty good considering that we saw 1 overturned lorry, 1 burnt out coach, 2 broken down trucks and 2 other trucks that had gone off the side of the mountain roads en route!!!!!!!!! The driver did a great job of not letting us succumb to the same fate, although at times it was best not to actually watch what was happening on the road ahead or to the side of us lol..

Some people had told us that there was not much to do in Kathmandu, and they were right. Its not a bad place, it just seems limited. There's 2 main Buddhist temples here and a couple of squares; we visited swayambhunath which is more commonly known as "monkey temple" and is set atop a hill overlooking Kathmandu. Just as we had almost reached the top we were collared to pay 200 Rupees each (20 Rupees for south-east Asian citizens) although no-one else seemed to be made to pay anything. The temple could have been a really nice place but unfortunately there was scaffolding around the main temple and the place was more like a circus with traders selling everything from miniature Buddha statues to fake dvd's of avatar!!!! What in gods name all this junk had to do with a place of worship I will never know!!! It was a nice place though, just could have been a much better experience imo. There is also another large temple about 10 kms away called Boudhanath, although we have decided that we are not visiting it. We have seen one temple and are going to see plenty more during the rest of our travels.. Plus we are trying to cut back on our expenses as we have overspent whilst here in Nepal what with the trekking and equipment we bought and shipped homeWe are stopping in Thamel, which is slap bang in the middle of the tourist area and has all the usual shops you need and plently of shops that you dont. There also seems to be plenty of drug dealers here too.. I must get asked " You want hash???" about 8 times a day....And if you were wondering, the answer is NO......

So that is pretty much Kathmandu!!!!!

Tomorrow morning we fly with Nepal airlines to Bangkok. We will probably head straight into Cambodia from the airport. Due to the visa situation in Thailand we are altering our route around and now plan to visit Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and possibly add a quick visit to Singapore at the end (depending on funds!!)