Reading Time: 12 minutes

Back in Kathmandu, we had one more full day of exploring with Sarah before she leaves us to head back to the States. We got to spend the day again with Dikesh and Umesh. They picked us up at 8am and we headed toward Nagarkot with renewed hopes of seeing Everest for the first time. Our first stop was at a beautiful resort called Club Himalaya that offered excellent views of the Himalaya mountain range. Unfortunately, we had clouds similar to our journey to Namobuddha last week. So, no Everest but different peaks did peak out from the clouds and you can tell that the mountains would be stunning on a clear day.

We went a little further and parked at another observation tower. Before starting a long hike from there, we all shared various street food snacks at a little café.

Our walk took us to a dam and a small pond where we tried another local food – kind of a lightly fried ball, filled with a little meat and then you pour some kind of sauce inside. It’s pretty fun trying all of these different things – hard to keep track of them all.

Instead of turning around and walking back the way we came, we continued to walk in the same direction. I don’t know if we thought it would circle back around but it turned into a very long walk. We saw several signs for a local zipline and Sandy was teasing Sarah that we were on our way to do it (Sarah doesn’t like ziplines).  We came across a long and high suspension bridge that we needed to cross to shorten our extremely long hike – not Sandy’s favorite thing to walk on. She did great, though and she (and all of us) survived.  Sarah told Sandy that it was karma that she ended up having to cross a suspension bridge because she had been teasing Sarah about the zipline. 

Once across, we checked the map and we were still around four or five kilometers from the car. We decided to try a local bus but when that was taking a while, we piled into a small taxi (four of us in the back seat and one in the front seat along with the driver) and he dropped us back at Club Himalaya.

We ate some food and had seriously refreshing peach iced tea after the long day of walking. We left the Nagarkot mountain a little before five and had one of our favorite nights. Dikesh had invited all of us for a night of celebration at his family’s house to wish Sarah well on her journey tomorrow. The night was amazing with some of Dikesh’s friends joining his mom, brother, aunt, the house owner, and others.  Dikesh’s mom gave Sandy a Kurta to wear, that she had sown herself.  We ate so many delicious Nepali dishes.  Dikesh had bought a cake and presents for Sarah.  We had a dance party afterward. Umesh gave us a ride home around 10:30pm. It was a really long day but so much fun. We all talked about how much we laughed all day long.

Tuesday, the 24^th of September was sad because it was Sarah’s departure. Dikesh and Umesh wanted to take Sarah to the airport so they picked us up at 11:45am, bringing flowers and a marigold necklace as a last gift for her.

After sending her in through security, they left and Sandy and I decided to walk home to get a little exercise. We passed the cremation complex and families of monkeys and enjoyed our leftover Indian food from Paradise Garden from a couple of days before. While it was sad to see Sarah go, the upside was having some time to get caught up on things while we were on vacation with Sarah. Having our first visitor (and we hope there will be many more) helped us learn more about how best to host visitors and how we need to plan our schedule when we get the opportunity to host. For dinner, we walked to another restaurant in the neighborhood we had seen and wanted to try called Alice. It was another excellent choice – we both had salmon steaks and I had a delicious banana split.

Wednesday and Thursday were targeted catch up days. Working on our journal, organizing pictures from Sarah’s visit, figuring out health insurance options for 2025, just the normal stuff that needs to get done. Sandy took her jacket to a local shop to get a small tear sown – easy and it cost her less than a dollar (including the tip) – it’s still an adjustment getting used to the cost of things in different parts of the world. Wednesday evening, we first went to the local bookstore and I picked up two books I want to read – one is written by a former Kumari goddess and the other was recommended in Lonely Planet and is called Kathmandu. I am looking forward to reading those. After that, we walked over to Urvin’s Garden Restaurant – I had spaghetti, Sandy had a chicken quinoa salad, and we shared a spicy water buffalo appetizer. Thursday’s only outing from our apartment building was for dinner – we went to Cherish and had popcorn, Sandy had grilled chicken, and I had Chinese Chop Suey. It has started to rain the last couple of days while we have been in the apartment – not a heavy rain, but a consistent rain.

Friday, the rain really started to pick up and stayed consistent all day. We still had some things to get done at the apartment, but in the afternoon, we took a taxi to City Center to see a movie that was recently released here in Nepal. The movie is called Shambhala and is Nepal’s entry for this year’s Academy Awards’ Best Foreign Film. It was excellent. It had English subtitles. The highlights for me were the strength of the main character and the cinematography. It was filmed in the Himalayas in the western part of Nepal. Great movie and it would be cool if it wins. The film was around two hours and 15 minutes – and came with a brief intermission. We enjoyed two movie tickets and two buckets of popcorn for $8.50. Following the movie, it was still raining, so we took a taxi to the Irish Pub Company – their menu said that their wings were made with Frank’s Hot Sauce. Unfortunately, I don’t think that was true, but they were very good – maybe the best I’ve had since we left Sarasota. Sandy had fish n chips and we each enjoyed Sherpa Red Ales. The hunt for a Sherpa Stout continues. Although it was still raining a little, we decided to walk home – just about 20 minutes.

Saturday, we started to really understand the effects of the rain that has been coming down. We started to see headlines of the devastation around Nepal from the rain – lots of terrible flooding and landslides. The death toll was increasing and last report indicated 244 deaths.  Many roads were closed, including the road we traveled six days prior from Chitwan National Park.  Coincidentally, at home, Hurricane Helene was devastating the southeastern United States. Awful impacts in both places. We headed out for breakfast to the Books Mandala Café (this is the bookstore from earlier this week). We had so many things we wanted to try so we ordered more than we needed, but it was all so good. We had eggs benedict, pancakes, waffles, marsala tea with milk, and a banana lassi (this is a drink made with yogurt and in this case, bananas). Sandy did laundry back in the apartment and we worked on some of our upcoming travel plans and for the evening, we walked to the jazz club called Jazz Upstairs. On the way, we stopped for an ice cream cone and then had momos at the jazz club – a mix of vegetable ones and buffalo ones. The jazz was fun to listen to and then we walked home.

Sunday, we combined Starbucks time with breakfast – we enjoyed our time at Bodhi Café, where we had English breakfasts, chai tea, and hot chocolate. Good vibe here and a good menu – we will probably have to come back to try some of their other food items. At 3:10pm, we left our apartment to walk to Lotus Mindfulness and Relaxation Services. We had 45-minute singing bowl massages. This was my first time trying this kind of thing and it was great. Very relaxing feeling the vibrations of the bowls on my body and I like the sound of the singing bowls anyway, so it was a great experience. Afterward, we walked all around the Thamel area – touristy area of Kathmandu – and found dinner at a restaurant called OR2K. Quite a few vegan options on the menu and a neat vibe. This is definitely a place that trekkers like to come. The tables are low so you sit on the ground (that’s what we did), but there were some normal tables as well in the back of the restaurant. We each had a goat cheese salad and I had a lemonade while Sandy had carrot and beet juice. Very good dinner after the singing bowl massages and then a nice walk home. Got home to watch Florida State lose another game and we also got to catch up with Brian Z at home.

The plan for Monday was to focus on the Durbar Square area again. We had done the tour with Dikesh a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to go back and do some more walking and do some reading in the square. Sandy obliged and we put in a lot of steps. We walked around the area south of the square – very much an old residential area – and then checked out Freak Street. Lonely Planet recommended trying the apple pie at the Snowman Café, so of course, we had to do so. I don’t like apple pie all that much, but I liked it and I liked the chocolate brownie even more. We grabbed vegetable pizzas at Himalayan Java for lunch and then walked around the temples in Durbar Square for a little while. We saw Dikesh and went to get a lassi with him and then we found steps at the Trailokya Mohan Narayn Temple on which to sit and I finished my Kumari book and people watched for a while. A nice young man from China came to sit next to us because he wanted to practice his English. After that, we walked home.

Tuesday, October 1^st was celebration day because it’s my mom’s birthday. It was also an office day because it was the first of the month – so all month-end activities took place that day. Sandy made a nice cheese, water buffalo sausage, and cracker plate with olives, dried and salted broad beans, and walnuts to keep us going until we finished. In the evening, we walked to the Narayanchaur Park and got our four-mile cardio walk in. It was busy with families enjoying the park and other people getting their exercise. For dinner, it was back to Bodhi Café and I had the chicken burrito and a butterfly tea lemonade while Sandy had chicken fried rice and a banana lassi.

Wednesday gave me my first chance to play pickleball here in Nepal. I made contact with a couple of players through a Facebook group and learned that they start at 6:30am every morning. That had me up earlier than I prefer, but it was great to get to meet this group of players. My game is understandably rusty, but it was a lot of fun and there are some excellent players here in Kathmandu.

In the afternoon, we taxied to the National Museum of Nepal. They had very good displays of Nepal’s history, the ethnic groups across the country, the coins that have been used throughout the country’s history, and information on Buddhism. One interesting thing I don’t think I knew – it’s really been only since 1951 that foreigners have even been allowed into Nepal. We left the museum and taxied to the Mandala Theater. We like to find cultural events happening and I came across this play that we thought it might be fun to check out. We each had a peach iced tea and shared a cold bottle of water before the show started. We knew the play would be presented in Nepali, but we still thought it would be a good experience – and it was. We understood two words the whole time – two characters said “Namaste” – but the actors were fantastic. It was a heavy topic – about the banishment a female gets from her family and community after being raped and how she deals with it. Afterward, several of the actors came over to us and answered our questions since we did not know any of the dialog. They were so kind and they expressed their appreciation for us coming to their show. We taxied back to the apartment and then walked over to Urvin’s Garden for dinner – this time we both had pasta and garlic bread.

For Thursday, we had a planned outing with Dikesh. We left at 12:30pm and met him in Durbar Square so that we could get a taxi to take us to Patan. Patan is one of the three medieval city-states in the valley (Kathmandu and Bhaktapur are the others). We toured Patan’s Durbar Square – another stunningly beautiful area with the architecture of the temples and shrines. We enjoyed more Nepali food with Dikesh. Highlights in Patan were the Golden Temple, which is overseen by a 12-year old monk. He is selected because of the purity of boys under the age of 13 and they rotate a new one in regularly; also, the temple of 1000 buddhas, which has large and miniature buddhas carved into the stones of the temple; and the Patan Museum, which was Patan’s Royal Palace when it had its own king.

We taxied back to Kathmandu (about 30 minutes with the traffic as Patan is just across the Bagmati River from Kathmandu) and Dikesh joined us for dinner at Bella Vista’s rooftop terrace overlooking the square and Kumari’s Palace. Sandy and I each had grilled chicken dishes and Dikesh had tempura shrimp and potatoes. It was another great day of sightseeing and we taxied home.

On Friday, Sandy went for another workout at the park while I watched the Bucs game. They lost to the Falcons in overtime. We sat by the pool at our apartment complex for a little while in the afternoon and read our books. For dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant called Casa Mexicana and ate really good authentic Mexican food – chips and salsa and guacamole, and pork burritos. We then finally went to the ice cream store close to our apartment called Silk and had cones. We finished watching the recorded Vice Presidential debate and went to bed.

Saturday, we were up early again as I went to play pickleball. It was another fun morning. When I got home, we walked over to Avocado Café – I had eggs benedict, Sandy had an omelet, and we split an order of French Toast. We spent the afternoon getting ready for our next destination – we leave on Monday – and catching up on our journal. For dinner, we walked over to Bagaicha. I can’t believe it took us the whole month here to try this place. It’s a very cool concept. One building with indoor and outdoor seating and then filled with 18 different restaurants and when you sit in one of them, you feel like you are in a distinct restaurant – almost like on a cruise ship with their specialty dining restaurants. But… the menu you select from covers all 18 restaurants. We really enjoyed the experience and it was very nice to have the owner (Amar) stop by and visit with us for a little while. He moved back to Nepal after many years in New York and he has accomplished getting this concept designed and open in a short time. I think he had it open within 12 months (maybe less) and it has now been open for a little over a year. We enjoyed water buffalo tenderloins (delicious) and chocolate fondue (delicious)!

Sunday started with Starbucks time at Bodhi Books and Bakes and then we had excellent pancakes for breakfast there. They were light and fluffy and reminded us of our friend, Chad T’s, pancakes – he makes the best pancakes. We came back to the apartment to finish watching Florida State lose again. After the game, we walked to Ratna Park. It’s a small park in the center of the city. It needs a little love to get it fully in shape, but it’s a nice break from the buzz of the city. After walking around, we read for a little while. We were approached by some locals who wanted their picture with us. I guess we’re getting a little more used to that and we equate it to the same way that sometimes we want pictures of or with the locals. From the park, we walked to OR2K restaurant in Thamel – same place we ate last Sunday. We had salads and juices again and tried the mango cheesecake. Then it was home to pack. Tomorrow is moving day. Headed to Sandy’s number one destination for our initial targeted countries.