In total, I spent quite a few days in Kathmandu. About 6 when I first arrived. One for a visa run. Two for another visa run. Three at the end of my trip.
When I was in Kathmandu, I stayed in Thamel which is a very interesting tourist area of the city. Not at all representative of the rest of the city. Mind you, this happens everywhere. In Cambridge, Newnham is very different from Arbury. In London, Peckham is very different from Marylebone. In Melbourne, Canterbury is very different from St Kilda. In Kathmandu, Thamel is very different from Patan.
I did a bit of wandering around Kathmandu while I was there. I saw a few of the notable sights (but not too many). And I quite like Thamel – it is unashamedly what it is and has many advantages (as well as disadvantages).
But I had three truly outstanding days in Kathmandu across my multiple visits. And they all have a few things in common.
The first was for one of my visa runs when one of the volunteers was about to leave the country. I met up with him for a very long lunch in my favourite café. We met a third volunteer who was also about to leave. We had a few errands to run in the area – picking up laundry, going to a bookshop, etc. So we did a bit of wandering. We ended up in another coffee shop too. Several hours of fantastically interesting conversation with a fantastically interesting person, some good food, some nice coffee, some nice wandering around. The perfect day.
The second was one of my last days. I met up with a volunteer (he’s Nepali but has been living in the USA for several years). We had a very long lunch in my favourite café and then went for a wander through the backstreets of Kathmandu, getting lost, getting found again, defying all laws of physics and reason whilst crossing roads (or just walking down the middle of them) unscathed. I saw bits of the city I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. He told me stories of the city and with a very different perspective than what I would get from either a foreign tourist or a lifelong resident of Kathmandu. Several hours of fantastically interesting conversation with a fantastically interesting person, some good food, some nice coffee, some nice wandering around. The perfect day.
The third was my last day in Kathmandu. I met up with two different staff members from project, both Nepalis. I got a taxi across the city. I had a really lovely lunch with our program director, his wife and their twins. I eventually left there to get another taxi across town to meet our community coordinator for tea and gossip (and I got to meet his mother too). Before a third taxi took me back to Thamel. Several hours of fantastically interesting conversations with fantastically interesting people, some good food, some nice coffee, some nice wandering around (though this time in taxis rather than on foot). The perfect day.
I love Kathmandu more as a result of these three days than I did before. It’s the people and my time with them that matter most to me. The city is a lovely backdrop to the conversations and the walks. And it is a very different backdrop than other cities. So if I had met all of these people in coffee shops in Cambridge, the days would have been very different – though no less perfect. And of course they are all very welcome to come and meet me in Cambridge if they are in the area and prove my point.
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