K-K-K-K-Katmandu

I left at 11 pm to get to the train station; I had to walk through dark windy alleys, which was a bit nerve racking, until I got to the main road. A rickshaw driver brought me for fifty rupees but when we arrived he tried to charge me more “for parking” sorry buddy, you can’t pull that crap on me. I know he charged me too much already, why so much greed? The train was 1.5 hours late and arrived at two am; this was KILLING me because I had been up since five. I bolted up to my bed and passed out. I woke up at 7:30 am to a nearly empty train; I was talking to a German man the entire time we were waiting for the train and he was in the sleeping berth across from me, yet neglected to be gentleman enough to say anything when we had arrived in Gorakpur. Grumble. I quickly grabbed my things and exited the train before it took off again, accidentally leaving all of my medication, water bottle, and food. Boo. I needed to catch the two and a half hour bus ride to Saunali, the boarder town where I could cross into Nepal-- nice young, obviously educated, Indian man walked me to the bus and made sure they waited for me to load all of my belongings onto the bus. I saw the German man standing by himself at the building, but was too far away to help him find his way, as well…karma? Anway, the driver tried to overcharge me, which I knew, but the ticket guy basically pretended like he didn’t hear me and walked away. Thankfully, another Indian man on the bus helped me out to make sure the guy gave me my change.

Crossing the border into Nepal is easy as pie. Get off the bus and walk ten minutes, tips, to the immigration (DON’T take a rickshaw though they all say something along the lines of “very far”) then walk a bout ten more yards and spend ten minutes and $40 on a visa. Voila! I booked a seven hour bus ride to Kathmandu and also a guest house; I was trying to stay at Peace Guest House, which a friend recommended—they booked me into Hotel Peace Night, because apparently it was the same thing.

The ride along the Himalayas was beautifulyet petrifying; sharp, windy turns at high speeds where there are overturned semi-trucks everywhere…eek. I tried to focus on the mountains so as to not worry abut crashing off the cliffs. We arrived at Kathmandu at around eight pm. I was to be picked up by my guesthouse, so the minibus dropped me off on the side of a dark road in Thamel.

“Wait, you’re just going to leave me here in the dark, alone?”

They shut the door and drove off. Ruh Roh.

Ten minutes after, a man on a motorcycle picks me up.

But, wait, I have a backpack AND a rucksack.

No problem.

I sat behind him and he heaves my bag onto my lap sideways and off we go. Now, I don’t like bikes, in general, so I’m not feeling too safe in the dark along all these bumpy dirt roads. At one point, I almost fell off because my bag slammed into a pedestrian and nearly threw me off the back. We finally got to Hotel Peace Night and y Canadian friends weren’t there. I figured I’d worry about it in the morning; I just wanted to sleep. I get into my room and have a strange urge to check for bed bugs—none to be seen, so I turned out the lights. Within a minute I felt something crawling on me. I jumped up and found a flat black bug—is this what I think it is? I put it in between a plastic bag and squeeze; it pops, shooting blood on my face—ew, ew EW! I run downstairs, but the owner is gone and only a boy that hardly speaks English is there and says my room will be changed tomorrow. Ugh, that doesn’t help!

I went to sleep in my sleeping bag on the floor. I got up in the middle of the night to pee, only to find COCKROACHES all over the bathroom-groosssssssssss. I’ll deal with some disgusting rooms, but this is uncalled for. I got up early and grabbed my stuff at checked out. They told me they’d put me in a room with “no bug.” Sorry, kids, those bugs life in the wood and fabric, you don’t have just one. I moved to another recommendation, Potala Guest House…ahhhh so clean, steaming hot showers and a KEY! I was in heaven. I took a hot shower by candlelight (the city’s electricity is shut off for a few hours in the morning) and then went for breakfast. A Nepalese man started chatting with me and brought me to a popular bakery/breakfast spot. After, I tried to find Jo and Bret at the real Peace Guest House; little did I know there are about four and they weren’t at any of them. I received an email from them later so we could meet up for dinner. It just so happened to be New Year’s Eve in Nepal, so we had some good food and a few pitchers of beer (the first in a LONG time) while telling traveling stories to each other and two guys net to us for a few hours and then headed off to sleep because we were all exhausted. It was a bit scary going home, even thought Katmandu is very safe, because people party and drink in this country and I haven’t seen that type of night life activity in a long time. Everything was totally fine, however.

The next morning, I got up early to meet with a guy from the tour company Trek Nepal to buy my plane tickets to Lukla for my Mt. Everest Base Camp Trek. I had met with him the day before and he said to be there at eight am. He wasn’t there and I didn’t want to deal with a new person, so I kept coming back. Around one they told me that he was not coming in and they’d help me. I was SO ANGRY. They just didn’t understand that that’s not how you should deal with customers; now I have to go through everything again, it’s such a waste of time. We all argued for a bit and finally, I got fed up and caved. I needed to leave the next day and didn’t really have time to shop all over again. After that, things were better, they brought me to rent a jacket and a bag (less than $10 for two weeks) and sent me on my merry little way. I ran around buying supplies for my trek (Iodine tablets, more penicillin, food, and socks) until I met up with Jo for a farewell pizza dinner; It was so good, I can’t remember the last time I had pizza! We then went our separate ways because she and Bret decided to do the Annapurna trek.