In 2008, I was on an eight month trip around the world. After working in Australia for a few months, I met up with some friends in Thailand for a few weeks.
As we were having dinner one night, they convinced me to join them in Nepal for a month of trekking and adventures in the Himalayas. I had previously planned to head to Bangladesh and India, but the thought of heading into the mountains with my friends made the decision to change my plans quite easy.
It turned out to be one of the better choices I’ve made, as our time in Nepal was magical. Here’s a quick look back at our time in Nepal, way back in 2008.
Yak Steaks and Momos in Kathmandu
I arrived in Kathmandu after an overnight connection in Dhaka on Biman Bangladesh Airlines. My friends had flown in on Thai Airways earlier that day, and we planned to somehow meet at the airport.
After waltzing through immigration without getting a visa (the border officers were on a tea break), I grabbed my backpack and walked out into a crowd of people at the exit. A lovely Nepalese man was holding a sign with my nickname on it, which suggested my friends had arrived safely before me.
Our driver navigated through to the Shangri La Guest House in Thamel, which served as our home base for the next few days. There was an interesting mishmash of characters at the guest house, and the four of us crammed into a small room to save money.
Thamel is the heart of the tourism sector in Kathmandu, full of shops with trekking gear and packed pubs with local musicians playing Western classics. You’ll also find shops selling beautiful wool goods, and a strangely large collection of Tintin memorabilia in every store.
As we prepared to head into the mountains, we enjoyed walking the streets, eating momos, drinking chai, and enjoying the occasional yak steak for a candlelight dinner. The power would often go out, and we’d have candles brought out to light up the dinner table while someone else ran to the rooftop to fire up a generator.
Our trekking company, First Environmental Trekking, arranged for our permits and ensured that we had sufficient gear. We stored some extra clothing with them that we wouldn’t need on the trek, even though we decided that packing a few pints of Guiness for our friend’s birthday was a necessary .
The day before we left for the mountains, we were told to head to the Pashupatinath…
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