Khathmandu

We had the usual terrible passenger experience at Edinburgh airport, i have for a while now hated flying, not the flying itself but the experience. All the changes made to security at Edinburgh are obviously to make sure the passenger cannot miss the vast array of “duty free” shops selling nonsense the average punter doesn’t want or need! The first leg to Doha was just over 7 hours, the Asian family in front had no control over their kids, one of which cried loudly most of the way and the other banged things and generally made as much noise as he could, the Asian kid behind me spent at least half of the flight kicking my seat with no interruption from his parents so no sleep and a measly 2 alcoholic drinks offered in the whole journey time.

Leg two from Doha to Khathmandu was busy, i tried to get some sleep but just snoozed really, I woke up at one point and the Nepali guy sitting next to me had obviously changed seats with a very strange looking Transgender person, around 6ft tall and at the point i woke up was dressed in only a black bra, fishnet stockings and a mini skirt. She/He  went on to have at least 3 outfit changes , swapped the sim card in the cellphone at least 5 times and break at least 4 sets of earphones on the 5 hour leg.

Arrival in Khathmandu was hot and dusty, we made our way through immigration and got our visa’s which was more efficient than i thought it might be, the baggage reclaim area was chaos but eventually thankfully our bags came through and after changing some money we exited. The company we booked the tour through provided transport to get us to our hotel in the Patan area of town. First impressions were pretty much as i expected, the area still devastated by the recent earthquake and the roads infrastructure needing some serious investment.

Most of Friday was spent trying to sleep and then a short walk around town, temples everywhere many ravaged by earthquakes, the people are a friendly and happy bunch, the traffic a nightmare as we expected and the roads and smells assaulting the senses are something else.

Some photos to give you a flavour of the first 2 days, we get the bikes tomorrow hopefully and then it seems set off on Monday which is a day later than we thought.

Patan former palace, now mueseum

Nice carvings

Guards

The main square (£8 to see this bit)

Interesting face but it cost me 80p for the photo

Busy place near our hotel

The beer, everest, of course

Friday nights dinner

According to our new friend Nigel who showed us the way to the supermarket this morning for whisky and gave us an interesting tour this is the only 2 sided wooden window in Patan 

Always temples

The gte out and in of Patan

repairing damage, this used to be a main source of drinking water to the homes around, it looks pretty green just now. Later in the day we watched the same guys netting this and catching a few fish 

Motorbike shop, work probably stops when it rains1

My own translation was throw shite in the street and a guy with a moustache will lock you up

Strange name for a foundry company?