Travel Day 650 – Kopan Monastery to Thamel, Kathmandu, NEPAL
My last day at Kopan Monastery was a very short one, consisting only of breakfast, packing, lunch and then sharing a taxi towards Thamel…
Bye-bye Trekking at Thorung La, Nepal
In the end, the time at the monastery had passed by rather quickly and ideally I would have spent at least a few more days there, but on the other hand I was also looking forward to seeing Bangkok again. It had been a while since I last visited Thailand and I was mostly excited about the prospect of having some nice Thai food. Three months in the country of Daal Bhat, constant power cuts, transportation strikes and brown smelly water from the tap were really enough for now…
Seriously, I had never been travelling in one single country for three entire months before. Actually half of the time, meaning 6 weeks, had been my maximum stay so far and only in countries like Australia, Colombia and India. But a big part of me staying that long in Nepal was also that there was probably the best trekking in the world and so I did not only spent three amazing weeks walking up and down through the Himalayas and Thorung La Pass, but also two entire weeks recovering in Pokhara… : )
Bye-bye nice view of Kopan Monastery
Anyway, somehow I did get used to the water condition, managed to deal with the down times of the power and even the strikes I could handle, but the constant Daal Bhat was definitely too much for me. The entire cuisine seemed to consist of Daal Bhat and nothing but Daal Bhat. All there was, were variations of the same dish over and over again. The whole country seemed to live of rice and lentils, twice a day and every single day. So for me the idea of Thai food and especially Pad Thai became almost like an obsession and for that reason alone, I could not wait to finally be in Thailand again…
In the end I used the rest of my final day in Nepal day to get some things organized in Thamel, catch up on emails, find a hostel in Bangkok, change my money and finally see my friend for dinner. Only then it really occurred to me that within the three months in Nepal, I never really made an effort to learn the language. This was quite a shame and I didn’t really have a good excuse, but maybe I never really intended to stay that long and then got simply seduced by the great culture, the little villages, the friendly local people and the amazing trekking…
Besides the new Buddhist experience of staying in the monastery, the trekking of the Annapurna Circuit and through Thorung La, would definitely be one of the most memorable things I had done while travelling. Either way, bye-bye Nepal…
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