On Trails: Kathmandu

Useful Kathmandu Info

We spent a total of 4 1/2 weeks in Kathmandu and the Kathmandu Valley, and just loved it. It is a huge, ancient but living museum. The whole place is listed as a World Heritage site, with good reason. If you love culture and experiencing wonderful new sights, sounds and smells, you will love Kathmandu. You can wander the narrow, ancient market streets, watch daily rituals and chores, watch life carry on as it has for hundreds of years. Visit famous and incredibly moving temples etc. But take the time to explore the wider Valley, too. There are some incredible towns to visit, including Bakhtapur, Patan, Panauti, Dhulikel, Banepa, Nala, Nargakot and Changu Narayan. See how we did our Valley Rim trek from the Info Pages menu. Also in the Valley visit temples such as Dakshinkali, Budhanilkantha, Bodnath, Swayambunath, Namobuddha and others in the Valley.

The best suggestion I have is to explore as much of Kathmandu and the Valley as you can. The author Pierre Toutain said, "I love Kathmandu, where legends worthy of the Thousand and One Nights overlap with history, and the Middle Ages still linger, gently resisting the advances of the modern world." And, "What I love best is to wander about with no other purpose than to observe the people, perhaps to come upon an old fountain or a monument hidden in a little courtyard, to see children playing, craftsmen at work, and of course to stop a while at one of the many temples that mark out the area of the old city." The author Kerry Moran said, "A pity that some visitors never see this aspect of Kathmandu. For many, Kathmandu is synonymous with Thamel, the busy tourist district north of the old town… Just a kilometre or so south is another world entirely - old Kathmandu, a warren of interlinked lanes and courtyards and bazaars selling items both necessary and delightful."

What I'm trying to say is that Kathmandu and the Valley should be explored. No matter how incredible and unforgettable your Himalaya trek is, a visit to Nepal is far from complete without fully experiencing the ancient heart of this amazing Kingdom.

Accommodation. The best place for accommodation in Kathmandu is probably Thamel (pronounced "Tamel"). This is a suburb I guess, but FULL of budget hotels and guest houses, excellent budget restaurants and heaps of great shops including trekking agencies and trekking gear hire and sale places. It is a very comfortable, but exotic area, an excellent introduction to Nepal. I don't have a specific hotel recommendation (as I say on the Hotels page), because our favourite place where we stayed for weeks was starting to be renovated not long before we left. We paid NR300 (3 Pounds) for a triple room (with 4 beds), attached bath, so it was great for us. The location was fantastic too, very close to central Thamel, but not on a busy (noisy) street. I'm guessing its gone up-market since then looking at the renovations they had started. Anyway, check it out, you never know, its called New Hotel Florid and if you have the 1996 Nepal LP guide (3^rd edition), its number 11 on the page 164/165 Thamel map.

If you do have that book, there are literally 5 times as many hotels and restaurants as that map shows! HEAPS of places to choose from. Just follow my tip of getting one person to scout for accommodation while the other looks after the bags in a cafe. Actually, ask your taxi driver to take you to the nice Pumpernickel Bakery (number 55 on that Thamel map), that way they won't try to get commission for whatever hotel you book into. The taxi trip from the airport will cost R200. You will have 2 people in the taxi with you. The non-driver is a tout, he will try to take you to his "uncle's, brother's, friend's" hotel. Do NOT fall for this, YOU WILL PAY FOR A COMMISSION, despite how hard they deny it if you book into their recommended hotel.

There are a couple of other good places to stay. The "Freak Street" area also has lots of budget hotels and restaurants, but not as many as Thamel. It is a bit cheaper, apparently. Some regular Nepal travelers swear by this area over Thamel. Another great place (which I can't recommend highly enough) is outside Kathmandu, but still in the Valley. It is Bhaktapur, but remember there is no trekking shops there so you might want to leave it until, after a trek if you are going on one. It is an extraordinary place, very old and just oozing with character. Try to spend at least a couple of nights there to explore this ancient city full of narrow streets, markets and amazing sights. There is just so much more to Nepal than just trekking!

Hotel Prices. You can stay in a reasonable double room with attached bath for R150 - R200 per night in Kathmandu and other towns if you look around a bit. Of course, you can do it a lot cheaper too if you don't need the attached bath. I recommend staying away from hotels on the busy central streets of Thamel for example. It stays fairly noisy at night until fairly late (well, late for us was 10.00pm as we had kids). All the shop owners close their noisy roller shutters from between about 8.00pm to about 10.00pm, really noisy if you're trying to sleep. Look for hotels down side streets and alleys. Also, check the roof to see if the solar hot water system stays in a sunny position for as long as possible. All hotels in Nepal cities rely on them - the electric backup systems are NEVER any good either.

Email. There are heaps of email places around in Nepal, they are everywhere! Especially in Kathmandu (Thamel) and places like Pokhara, they are literally on every street corner. And VERY cheap. I didn't use my Hotmail account there, in fact few do because it is much cheaper just to use each place's email account address for sending and returning email. IE, the place I used in Kathmandu was called "Easylink". Tell Mahendra, Ian from Australia said "Hi". In the Lonely Planet Nepal guide pg 164/5 map, they are about south and opposite of item 20. They charged R15 to send each 20kb (about 10 lines), and R10 to receive (conversion WAS about R60 to US$ and R40 to Aus$). You could also Cc to as many people you wanted to for no extra cost there. What you do is send an email, people reply, and a few days later you return and go thru their file of printed out emails for ones to you.

Shopping. Shopping is fantastic in Nepal. There are lots of small shops in Kathmandu, all with odd little names (no chain stores or big Western-style shops there). So it's hard to recommend a single one because I would be hard pressed to remember exactly what we bought where. The best tip I can recommend here is to decide on what you want to buy, then go from shop to shop or stall to stall to get the best price. This is because there are lots of shops that sell similar things. In Durbar Square (a must in all three major Valley cities), especially the Kathmandu one, there is literally dozens of stall holders selling an incredible array of hand-crafted metal goods. Everything from statues, Hindu and Buddhist deities, bracelets, prayer wheels, Tibettan horns and so on etc. There are some great finds there. What we came back with from in Nepal were; a Buddhist Thanka (an intricate painting), a nice Buddha statue, some hand carved wooden "tigers and goats" game (a local board game), great cheap jumpers, great hand-made paper products, Kashmiri shawls and quite a few other things. There are a lot of these shops (including gem and jewellery shops) centred around Thamel. But these shops close to Thamel tend to have owners who are often very proficient at haggling, better bargains can be made where locals shop.

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