Monkey Temple: Kathmandu

May 13

9:57am Nepal time (15 min time difference from India)
Yey! I am back on track with my blogging! Well see how long this lasts haha
This morning I got up around 7am and we met downstairs at 7:30am to catch the bus. When Elisabeth woke up she felt really hungover and was mad because she felt pressured to go out because of Z and he disappeared at dinner and the bar again. She said that was the last time she was going out with this group. At least I know it's not just me.
We didn't end up leaving until around 8 or 8:15am. Maybe even 8:30am. It has for sure been a bumpy ride and everyone is hungover and sleeping.
When I saw Z this morning he said, "Rachel, you ditched us last night." I just told him I went to bed early because I felt sick. Which was pretty much true.
It's pretty comfortable (phone corrected this to indie table) temperature wise right now too. I again have pants and a t-shirt on. The bus is still really bumpy but I'm not sweating balls so that's exciting.
This trip ends tomorrow. It's really strange to think that we've been together as a group for almost 15 days. It is actually making me kind of excited for my 30 day trips because I feel like I'm just getting to the point now where I know what people I enjoy hanging out with.
I've heard there is a lot of air pollution in Kathmandu. It's a bigger city and I'm not sure what to expect. Nepal has been really great so far though.
My trek starts the 15th and I'm getting nervous for it. I don't know if I am in good enough shape and what it will be like. Monica and Curtis spoke with the Brazilian guy that yelled at us in Chitwan (i didn't talk about this. the night my bag was lost and i stayed up after to talk with people, marianna was playing a song and singing and a brazilian guy came out and got mad at us in a very nice way. He told her she has a beautiful voice but that he need to get up early so he would prefer we move our party. He then was on our tour in the morning and the van to the "bus station") and he said that water is very expensive to buy on treks and that you will spend more on water than food. I'm trying to decide if I want to get water purification tablets and just use that and drink the gross purified water or if I want to just be willing to pay a lot for water I know is for sure clean. It's only a 4 day trek. I may find some tablets I can buy cheaply just in case I feel like I want them.
I also am nervous I might get altitude sickness based on how I felt after paragliding but I also could have felt sick for so many different reasons that had nothing to do with the altitude. I don't even know if we were that high when we were paragliding.
I am excited for the Monkey Temple (swayambhunath) and the Everest flight in Kathmandu though!

10:43am Nepali time
I never really wrote about pokhara. I really liked the city. I felt very safe all the time and it was very laid back and relaxed. People really are very welcoming and they want to make sure you are comfortable. The city is cute and is lined up and down the street with shops and restaurants.
Im not going to lie. I know I always come home from being away with gifts for everyone, but I don't think I will be able to do that this time. I don't have any extra space in my bag. So I will try to do my best and bring something back for people but no guarantees. I think it is good though because then I am really spending my money on things that seem to matter rather than stupid trinkets that I think are cool and will probably never use again.
Driving through Nepal, as I already mentioned, it is a lot of green. Mountains and forests (or jungles?). Lots of fields of corn. In the fields there are little pathways that are filled with water. The people also walk through these. It's pretty organized. All the rivers and waterfalls are really dried up though.
Also, at one point Z told us about the government in Nepal and I think he said that Nepal isn't safe and that people don't necessarily like foreigners because of all the government problems. I think he also said that in India most people are in the same socioeconomic class but that in Nepal the government allows people to be very rich and very poor. I don't know if because he is from India that is a bias and just how he feels or if it is actually true. For the most part though I have felt more safe and more comfortable in Nepal than I felt in India.
In India there were a lot of people with weird eye diseases. There also seemed to be a lot more people asking for money than I have seen in Nepal. I also haven't seen anyone sleeping on the street in Nepal. People were still up early but not the whole city like in India. In both India and Nepal there are a lot of billboards for the medical profession... Doctor, nurse.
It seems like people here really wear a lot more of their own clothes rather than the traditional style of clothing. Many women wear what we would wear at home... Minus the inappropriate shortness of skirts or shorts or low cut tops. But the traditional clothing for women seems to be baggy pants that singe around the ankle with a short sleeve shirt that is longer and covers the butt and maybe even goes down to the mid thigh or knee but it is cut on both sides to the waist so the pants show through more. They also have a scarf but instead of wearing it wrapped around them like a saree it hangs backward on their neck. It isn't wrapped or anything. The middle part of the scarf or fabric hangs around the front part of their neck and the ends just drape over their shoulders down their backs. Of course everything is brightly colored still. A lot of them also seem to be wearing a wedged sandal. A short wedge. Not a Rachel sized wedge. They still call this style of dress a saree even though it is different from the Indian sarees.
Santosh told me yesterday Rachel is a Nepali name but I think he is lying because they can't even say all the letters together. It barely sounds like Rachel when they say it. But maybe it is and it's just pronounced differently. No idea.
While I was watching the view on this drive, which has really been amazing, I noticed people sitting on the top of the bus with the luggage because the inside of the bus was full. A large part of the drive was climbing slowly up the mountain while kind of gliding along the edge. Sometimes I was pretty sure we were going to drive off the side. And it was a long way down haha. The worst was when another bus or truck was coming. Sometimes we would hug the mountain side and other times we would hug the cliff side. I don't think we ever went faster than maybe 35mph. Buses are very slow here.
When we got to Kathmandu, we got off the bus and put our luggage into taxis that took us to our hotel. Hotel Harati. It was a nice place. We had an hour and a half to freshen up and they even turned the generator on for us so we could take a warm shower (the power was out). I wanted to shower later in the evening so I washed my underwear and socks in the sink. While I was doing that the power went out and I was standing in the dark. Head lamps are a wonderful thing!
We had to meet everyone for the monkey temple around 5pm I think. We loaded into taxis and drove to the monkey temple (swayambhunath temple). When we got out of the taxis there were a bunch of monkeys right across from the entrance to the temple. I hate monkeys. They're dirty and have rabies and I only want to see them from a distance where I know they can't attack me. Unfortunately, it was the monkey temple so I didn't really have a choice. The first part of it though there were more dogs than monkeys. There were a few dogs with red eyes and they were growling and guarding their area. That was a little creepy too.
I don't really know how to explain the monkey temple because the guide we had none of us could really understand. He didn't speak loudly and he didn't speak English very well. I know it is a world heritage site and was established as one in 1998. Other than that I got nothing. And he only reason I got what I did was because it was written on a plaque at the start of the temple. The temple is for Buddhists but there are some Hindu temples there as well. The big white building with the painted eyes and the colored flags coming from the top was the main sight. You could see a beautiful view of what I think was Kathmandu. There were also a million monkeys. One monkey was fighting with 3 dogs. Monkeys eating fruit, monkeys standing, climbing, playing, baby monkeys. At one point 2 monkeys were in a wrestling match and brushed past my leg. It actually scared me because I didn't see it coming. We got to see the sun start setting but then it was time to climb down. There are 2 entrances. The entrance we left from has 365 stairs to get up to the temple. There are statues and other things in the middle along the way of Buddah. It was really mystifying. There were people praying when we were walking around the top as well. A fair number of monks were also up there. A lot of the monks were children. On my way down I was stopped by a man with an eye swollen shut who was selling... I don't even know what it was actually. It's a small metal bowl with the Buddhist mantra on it (which I don't remember) and then you put it on your flat palm and and move a stick around the top side of it and it makes a nice sound. I think they use it for prayer in the morning but I could be totally making that up. He offered it for 100 rupees which is like $1.20 and I totally would have bought it if I had space in my bag. But alas, I do not.
We took cabs back to the hotel and had half an hour to freshen up before meeting for dinner. It was our last group dinner. All of us went except for American Steve.
We ate at a place called roadhouse and I split a veggie pizza and steamed momos with Stacey. The pizza was amazing. There was so much flavor and the veggies were really fresh. The crust was tasty too.
I don't remember if I talked about momos or not and I can't find it in my entries but I also didn't look very hard. Momos are a Nepalese dish that is basically like dumplings. You can get them with veggies, veggies and cheese, chicken, or other combinations of vegetables. You have the option of ordering them steamed or fried as well. Stacey always calls them moomoos which is always funny. In lonely planet it says they even make momos with apple and cinnamon and serve it with a scoop of ice cream for dessert.
Speaking of dessert, I also split a chocolate mousse with Solvei. Their desserts all looked amazing and tasted great. It seems like it had to be a legit restaurant because the chefs were even wearing a chef coat and chef hat. I haven't seen that anywhere else. Maybe the kitchen is clean too!?
Doing our bills, even though they were separate, probably still look at least 30 minutes. They have to come out and ask you what you had and write it out and add all the tips and taxes and then do everyone else while they either try to get you your change or wait to get everyone's together. With 16 people, it takes a long time!
With Stacey's and my bill, we told them 1 pizza, 1 momo, 2 chocolate mousse, and 1 small wine (we tried a White House wine from India and it pretty much tasted like water). I guess he thought she was paying for all of that and only half the bottle of wine because later, he was all angry because we still owed 497 or something like that for the other half bottle of wine. It was confusing and didn't make sense, especially since we had shown him the bottle we were drinking, but we paid the money.
We got up and said bye to Monica and Curtis because they were leaving at 5am to fly to I think lukla (sp?), the Everest airport. They are doing a 6 day trek to Everest base camp but they will only go half way because they don't have enough time to do the full 14 days. The rest of us went to an Irish pub just down the road.
I didn't want to drink a ton so I figured a shot would be good. Then I am participating but not having to fill my stomach with alcohol. I had an Irish orgasm and it was fantastic. I waited for everyone to get their drinks and people kept telling me to take my shot but I wanted to propose a toast first. We raised our glasses and I said, "To traveling far and wide, making new friends and great memories." Everyone thought it was a good one and really liked it.
Then 5 of us decided to walk back to the hotel and I showered quickly and went to sleep. The rest of the people decided to stay at the bar.
P.S. the bars here close at like 11pm. It's very different than being out until 3am like at home. I think maybe clubs are open later but I am not sure. I also don't have enough energy to try to find out.