Kathmandu Nepal - first taste of the third world

Trip Start Apr 26, 2008
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Trip End Ongoing


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Thursday, October 2, 2008

And so it was time to go off on my 'side trip' to Nepal. Dad dropped me off at the airport at Bari and I took an aeroplane to Athens were I stayed for 14 hours and went into the city while I was waiting to see the Acropolis. Very nice, but my heart wasn't into sightseeing because I was so scared of what I was getting myself into going far away from anyone I knew to find I don't know what. Anyway, after Athens and my last taste of Europe for the next few months, I jetted off to the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu. I arrived at 7pm and applied for a visa at the airport which took awhile to process. I had prebooked the first night in a hotel with a pickup but the aeroplane had arrived late and by the time I walked out of the airport it was 3 hours later than I said I'd arrived so I didn't expect anyone to be there waiting for me. I purchased a taxi to take me into the city, but then as I walked out I saw hoards of Nepalis waiting for freshly arrived tourists - they were ready to extract as much money as possible from everyone and knew that most new arrivals had no idea what to expect. I was one of them (fortunately not anymore!). Luckily amongst these hoards I saw a sign with my name on it and was releived for about 10 seconds until I realised that I had to get into an old van with 3 men who were taking me to the hotel. It took a great deal of trust on my part and furthermore there was a guy at the airport who asked me for money because he had shown me to the taxi so I gave him 4 euros to get rid of him (an absolute fortune for them as I realised later, but hey they're only trying to make a living and if someones dumb enough to give away money like that so be it).

When we arrived at the hotel I was told that it was full and that I'd have to stay in another hotel (unfortunately not an upgrade) but a mega downgrade. The room was filthy, the toilet didn't work and it was all incredibly depressing. My first night was spent awake until about 2am when I finally managed to sleep, but before I fell asleep all I could imagine is that I wanted to take the next plane back to Italy and why on earth had I chosen to go to Nepal, above all on my own everything was intensified as I felt completely alone in the world.

Fortunately the next day the sun was out and everything seemed brighter and sunnier, and then everything fell into place when I arrived at the very nice hotel which I was staying at for the first few nights of my 2 week tour to the Annapurna Basecamp. The first person I met was Victoria, a German woman the same age as me who lives in Sweden. I was so happy to meet her and be sharing a room with her and we continued to share a room through the whole tour and I couldn't have had a better companion. Then I met the rest of the group - all in all there were 3 Australians, a Swiss, a German, a Frenchman, an American, and an Irish. What a fantastic group we made! We all clicked and got along really well, and the first few days we spent seeing the sights around Kathmandu before heading off to Pokhara (the next biggest city in Nepal) and trekking for 11 days to the Annapurna Base Camp.
Kathmandu hotels Slideshow

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