I have lost count how many flight I have taken, quite a few anyway. This TLV-KTM lag was one of the overnight flight. The flight was not full, so I had the whole two seats to sleep on. I particularly asked for the left side window seat, I thought we would see some mountain view before arriving. And I was indeed correct. I had 4 hours of sleep on the plane after they served us meal. I woke up around 30-40 mins prior to arrival. Looked out, I did see some snow-capped mountain peaks, I was quite excited and was debated whether that was K2. Until I looked on the monitor, Mt Everett was actually east of Kathmandu, so no it wasn't. Still these were some big ass mountains. We were descending to land, until we passed through two layers of clouds, I realized how high those mountains I have saw must have been.


Landed in Kathmandu, I did need a visa, but I could get it at arrival, it was based on the number of days you are staying, 1 day, 15 days, or 30 days. I got a 15 days visa. Grabbed my bag, exchanged some local money, and then I just took one of the airport pre-paid cab to my hotel, 10 euro for just a few km I guess it is expensive, but it didn't seem to have an alternative. As soon as we got out of the airport, I already felt the crowds, everywhere were people, cars, and motorbikes, very polluted and dusty. I talked to the driver a little bit, well, he wanted to sell me tours. Every single person in this city seemed to want to sell you something, a tour, postcards, t-shirt, whatever it is. I was asking my driver about life after the earthquake, he said it is recovering but very slowly, not a lot of tourists since the earthquake, it was down 50% if not more. In fact, he told me, at the 5am of this day, the day of my arrival actually have had an earthquake. He said, earthquakes coming.. on and off.. with his hand gestures. I guess it means it still comes and goes. He didn't seem to worry though. By the way, the entire time when he was driving to my hotel, he honked every few seconds, even when we were constantly going, and there was not a lot of traffic ahead, maybe a bike, he honked. Everyone gets out of my way, that's what it felt like. It seemed the honking was the lesson 1 in his driving room, everyone was doing that. You can imagine how noisy that was.


We passed by buses loading with people, they threw goods on top of bus, they threw people on top of bus, literally on the roof top. It looked fun, but it gotta to be dangerous, riding on top on these bumpy roads. There were so many human here, too many. I was overwhelmed a little bit. Well, at least there was no elephant walking on the street like India. We arrived at the hotel in a small alley, of course, every road seemed to be an one way lane, but cars went both ways, as well as people, motorbikes, animals and anything that moved. They are like liquid and just floated through whichever way they wanted. I was welcomed by the hotel stuff, they were really polite, they offered me teas while I was waiting. I like them, the hotel is Hotel Friend's Home. Some of their rooms including the room next to mine were destroyed by something possibly earthquakes, the guy actually told me, but everyone told me so many things, I can hardly remember any of them. Anyway, I picked a smaller room on the 2nd floor, instead of the bigger room on 5th floor, I mean there is only stairs afterall.


I met the manager of the tour company I booked two tours at my hotel, and he took me out to lunch with some of his friends. Most of his friends were also all tour guides and/or in the business. It was just a strange encounter, I had to say. It was just weird, I didn't know any of them, I did not know their language. He ordered the national dish, which was pretty good. He told me you are supposed to eat by hand, but I didn't, he did. Well, one of the guys there actually will be my guide for a Kathmandu-Nagarkot tour (it is an overnight tour) tomorrow, so I guessed it made sense that I met him. They all smoked, he asked me if I wanted to join them to drink this rum with honey, water and cinnamon thingy. No! Merci beaucoup. Le Aqua is fine. I guess he wanted to meet me right away since I had to pay him the surcharge for the fuel. Due to the fuel crisis, he said, the airline that run the mountain flight as well as the fuel for the car to Nagarkot had a huge hike in prices. Long story short, because of some new policies in Nepal that India does not like, and they created a blockade unannounced for the gas to come into Nepal, or reduced to a very minimal amount. The two tours I joined with them with the surcharge ended up really expensive in any standard. I have kept feeling that I am being ripped off. But at the same time, I was already in (there is no way backing out now), so I just try to go with the flow and see what happened.


Back to the hotel, showered and then I ventured out to the nearby area in the Themal district, basically the entire district was pretty tailored for tourists, it was a giant touristy bazaar if you will, the streets were small and very congested at some corners. One had to really pay attention walking there, there were so many people trying to talk to you, for me, it always started with you from Japan, then china. Good guesses bitches. I would still say No. If they were not trying to sell you tours, they would ask you for money after walking with you for a while, or sell you t-shirt, or one young guy asked me if I wanted marijuana. A kid asked me to buy him ice-cream after he asked where I came from. There were so many scammer, seller, women in their traditional clothes selling vegetables on the curbside, rickshaw, motorbikes, dust, very very dusty. I saw some vans with so many people in it, it is like an open can of sardines with overflowing fish hanging on the side flipping. It was very very overwhelming, if that is not an understatement. I did feel very foreign here at time, but unlike Jordan, this is a kind of foreign but familiar feeling at the same time, I mean, I am Asian after all. Their culture is not far from mine. I think it just takes some getting used to.


For dinner, I had chicken mo mo (dumpling) and fish chhoila (cooked lot of garlic), how to describe the fish dish, it is kind of like a cut up fish pieces and cooked with some chili and garlic and other spices. Tasted pretty good and cheap. Most of the dishes are 2 or 3 US dollar.

See the other photos from Day 11 here.