Day 60 - Kathmandu, Nepal

Day 60 – Hers.

I woke around 7 and went to breakfast, leaving Rob to sleep.  Joyce regaled me with tales of her visit to an orphanage the day before – and encouraged me to do some treks in the UK.  She said that the Coast to Coast walk is particularly nice...isn’t it odd that we always go so far from home to do our walking!

I woke Rob at 10; we finished our packing, checked out and took a taxi to our ‘chill out’ hotel.  The Hotel Shanker is in a former royal palace – ornate carvings, crystal chandeliers, a beautiful garden, swimming pool, spa, restaurant, bar, Lavazza cafe, shops and uniformed guards at the entrance to the driveway and hotel lobby.  It’s fabulous.  We had our welcome drink and were presented with a fruit basket: bananas, apples, grapefruit and some odd apple/pear combination.  We swam, read, wrote and generally relaxed all day.  A massage sorted out the last remaining aches and pains from trekking – and a delicious meal followed by coffee in the bar rounded off a lovely day.

Day 60 – His.

It is amazing how tired I am. Our hotel had a weigh scale so a sudden impulse made me weigh myself – I have lost over a stone in weight. No wonder I am tired. All I really wanted to do was sleep and catch up on the blog – which is pretty much all I did. The only other thing I did was collect my washing. That doesn’t sound like much – and indeed it isn’t – but it did involve a walk to Thamel along the highways of Kathmandu in the dark. There are no street lights here to speak of and the locals use torches to find their way, even in the midst of a city. The car headlights show up the clouds of dust clearly and the whole width of the road is covered in a smear of dirt two meters high. It’s like a dust storm and the locals struggle through. I am no longer surprised I have a cold. The filth is incredible – truly. The minute you get off the hotel complex taxi drivers pop up – out of the dark and ask if you want a taxi to Thamel.

One of the advantages of being here for a while is I know where things are. So, I reply – In this traffic i can walk quicker. The guy I said this to just laughed and nodded then left me alone. It’s curious how quickly you fit in. Even our laundry guy asked me and Patti if we wanted to go to dinner with him and his wife – how odd the world can be.

Ah well – not so many adventures today but not everything can be so – if it were you would go crazy – and it is nice to have a day or so doing nothing at all and sleeping late.