Kathmandu, with Gortex and pollution… the himalayas over there somewhere…
Even though the guidebook made the truth about Kathmandu reasonably clear, for some reason I expected the town to be more like a village, quiet and quaint with small shops selling trekking gear by old men with long beards, all of whom had scaled Everest at one point or another. Kathmandu, whilst in places retains some sort of Nepali charm is well and truly a capital city. It oozes pollution, traffic, poverty, with very little sign of the impeding Himalayas just a few kilometres away. It does however have a lot of people. Outside the tourist areas, we found a city bursting at the seams with Diwali celebrating families on every street corner, dancing, singing, drinking, and having fun. And it was a great time to see festivities, and despite staying there only a couple of days, most of which was recovering from a very long bus and train trip, we still didn’t manage to completely avoid the saddest part of the city. The fact that competing on every street corner with the locals, were Gore-Tex clad mature tourists inflating the prices on two week breaks to do base camp and get the hell out of there.
