Travel Day 994-96 – Kathmandu, NEPAL
After running around for my first two days, by now it seemed like a good idea to rather use the bad weather to sort out some things in Thamel…
Shops and Agencies in Thamel, Nepal
In general it already seemed last time that Thamel was the curse and the blessing of Kathmandu at the same time. It was a blessing in that sense that literally everything could be bought or organized in regards to trekking. Every single house in the area was a travel agency and an outdoor equipment store at the same time. It was insane and it was even more so impossible to envision how they all could possibly be making enough money to survive…
But this was exactly where the curse came into play. Because every single shop had the same thing on offer, the amount of hustle and touts trying to sell things was almost unparalleled. Although coming from India, everything seemed almost like business as usual. What had probably once been a very useful outdoor store and travel agency had by now taken over a whole city area. I technically hated it, but I was also happy to be able to get things sorted out arranged…
More Shops and Agencies in Thamel
Well, in the end I spent a good three days walking around, talking to people and trying to sort out some things that I was really interested in, but to no avail. The two things I was interested in, meaning Mustang and Bhutan, were really hard to come by especially to a reasonable price. On top of that the constant power cuts and fading internet connections were not really helpful either to get things done quickly…
For all my destinations I needed a special permit and at least a small group of people to make it feasible, but it seemed impossible to find this. Overall Nepal appeared to be slowly drifting from a cheap backpacker destination to a luxury tour operated resort type of destination. Most people seemed to be arriving in Nepal all of a sudden on pre-arranged packaged tours that were paid for in hard currencies and this circumstance left me standing alone in the rain with my backpack and my backpacking budget…
Endless Shops and Agencies in Thamel
Well, in the end instead of finding a good solution, I listened to a lot of “Om mani paedme hum”, a lot of people tried to sell me Tigerbalm, flutes and little chess games, or they constantly asked me “you smoke?” and “Hashish?”. But at least the fact that nothing got resolved or done quickly was one thing that hadn’t chanced about Nepal and I was slowly getting used to it again…
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