Nepal

It was back in January we travelled to Nepal after spending some days in India that I blogged about here and here. Since Nepal is so nearby, it would be a shame not to visit. I didn’t know what to expect of Nepal – I couldn’t imagine how it is like over there. Would it completely different from India? What about food?

We were based in Lazimpat, Kathmandu. Four days give us more than enough time to see great cultural highlights of the Kathmandu Valley.

Kathmandu’s Durbar Square is the historic centre of old Kathmandu with stunning medieval temples, pagodas, pavilions, stupas and shrines. We started off in the morning with a walking tour from Durbar Square to Thamel that takes about 2 hours. For me, Kathmandu’s Durbar Square is an open-air museum – experiencing Kathmandu’s backstreets that are dense with beautiful temples and shrines.

Apart from that, there are many traditional markets that are frequented by the locals show the daily traditional Nepali life – crowded shopping streets and city dwellers give a great insight of Kathmandu.

Walking around Durbar Square was amazing. For me, the buzzing traditional market was the highlight – many fresh vegetables were on display and some fruits that I have never seen before. There were also shops that sell kitchen items, fabrics, pashmina and many other things.

When comes to food, there is an astounding array of restaurants. Choice of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Korean, Middle Eastern, Italian or Irish cuisines are all there for you to choose. Thamel is the place where most of the restaurants are concentrated. We chose Yangling restaurant that serves Tibetan food. There is quite a big Tibetan community living in Nepal. So, getting almost authentic Tibetan food is not at all impossible.

I truly love this family-run restaurant that serve the best Momos. Momos are the equivalent of Chinese Jiaozi or Japanese Gyoza. There are different varieties of momos, such as fried and steamed momos. I had the steamed ones. They are usually served with fiery chilli or curry dipping sauce in Nepal.

As the evening drew near, we were still shopping around for a driver for the next 2 days to venture out of Kathmandu to other sites in Kathmandu Valley. We negotiated hard at a travel agency that we returned to after checking out some others. We paid 5,000 Nepalese Rupees (approximately £38/$55) for 2 days, which I thought was a great price! 🙂