Have you ever met someone and your first reaction was “god, you’re annoyingly overwhelming”? But then they sorta grow on you and before you know it you’re thinking “wow, you complete me.” That someone is Nepal. And this is our month-long love story.

Our journey getting to Nepal was a bit rocky and super long. Sometimes the cheapest flight is the worst flight. Fact. When you book your next trip ask yourself if you really want to spend 18 hours (minimum) traveling. If you answered yes, slap yourself across the face. Hard.

We flew from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam to Dubai (for a quick 5-hour layover), Dubai to Kathmandu. But that 5-hour layover in Dubai turned into a 9-hour layover in Dubai. And we weren’t in the fancy posh terminal either. We were in the terminal with no bar. I repeat, NO BAR. But there was a prayer room. So I prayed for a bar. My prayers went unanswered.

I guess we should look at the silver lining. Because our flight was so delayed due to fog in Nepal, we were flying int0 Kathmandu as the sun was rising and we saw the glorious Himalayas for the first time.

Which brings me to my earlier statement about first impressions. Kathmandu was a BIG KathmanDON’T in my book. It’s so crowded, so polluted, and so not what I pictured for Nepal. Call me naive, but I imagined tranquility and cute old men doing yoga poses on the side of the roads in their flowy hippie pants. Instead, we got horns honking all the damn time. Gridlock, terrifying traffic. Cars and bikes going down all the roads, even when there was no damn room for them. Honk, honk.

We had four nights in this chaotic town, so we tried to see all the things without having a panic attack on the streets. Our hotel manager helped us with all the sites to see. So off we went to the Garden of Dreams, which was not the garden of my dreams. Unless my dreams suddenly switched to tons of young girls taking posed/not-posed selfies under archways.

But it was 200 rupees, which is like $1.80, so whatevs. We then ventured to Durbar Square. And it seemed so close on Google Maps, yet with all the people, it took forever to get there. When we finally arrived we were practically chased-down by the man running the ticket booth we just happened to stroll by. Turns out, it’s $10 each (for white tourists, especially) to even walk into this square.

I imagine this square would have been awesome, but after the tragic earthquake in 2015, a lot of the buildings were destroyed. But a few gems survived.

After sensory overload, we slowly made our way back to our hotel. And stumbled upon some really beautiful things along the clusterfucked way. It was stupa dupa…

We also found a pot shop. Which is a lot different than the pot shops of San Francisco.

After our self-guided day walking tour, we found a great cafe, which would be our home away from home, and just chilled. And drank, of course.

The next day we hired a car to take us to all the great sites outside of the Kathmandu. We visited 3 sites during 9 hours of driving. And to be honest, I would only go back to one of them.

We got to Bhaktapur Durbar Square, bought our tickets, and were just going to explore on our own, when a man approached us and said he would be our guide for $10, so we said yes. Best decision ever.

Before starting the tour, we just happened to stumbled upon a ceremony for a young boy. The whole village seemed to be there with food, music … and a goat, to sacrifice. Our guide seemed really excited at the possibility of us witnessing said sacrifice. I was not. We waited for 20 minutes as they sharpened the knife, my nausea building as I sadly stared at the goat (whom I’m 100% convinced knew he was about to have his throat slit), and finally I said “I’m good, let’s start the tour.”

This Durbar Square is WAY better than the Kathmandu one. Yes, lots of stuff was destroyed in the earthquake, but it had a lot more going for it.

It’s also within this square that an intricate carving above a temple door can be seen (but you can’t take photos of it). This carving was so beautiful that the king ordered both hands of the artist to be cut off, because he didn’t want him to create any more beautiful pieces for other people. Greedy, greedy. But I gotta hand it to the king, it worked. Too soon?

Disclaimer: the above photo is NOT of this famous carving. Rule breaker, I can be, but not here. I don’t want my hands cut off.

Overall, the square had an energy to it. Lots of artists working on their craft. It was a real treat to see it all in action (and not buy any of it)

As our great tour was winding down, our guide took us to an art school that had the best example of traditional Nepalese art. If you are ever told this sort of story on a tour, say “no thanks, I’m good.” It’s always someone’s friend that owns the shop and the someone that took you there gets commission on whatever you buy.

Our next two stops were meh. One was of the oldest temple in Nepal. Not to be a dick, but after a while, all the old temples start to look alike. So we quickly browsed through it and were told that we couldn’t go up to the temple because we clearly weren’t Hindu (this would be a theme across Nepal).

Final stop took ages to get to, on shitty roads. We were told that people go up to the village of Nagarkot for the epic sunsets. But when we went, it was super smoggy. So we couldn’t see anything. But Craig did manage to snap this album-cover-worthy pic.

The next day we did the same thing: hired a car to drive us to sites. But this time, we went to sites that weren’t so fucking far away. This was by far my favorite day in Kathmandu.

First stop, Swayambhunath (aka Monkey Temple). I was pumped about this because I thought I may see a handful of cute monkeys. But Monkey Temple lived up to its name. There were hundreds of monkeys. Some were up to some monkey business…

Others were just loungin’ around…

After Monkey Temple we headed to Boudhanath. My favorite of all the stupa things I’ve seen. It wasn’t too overcrowded and it was (finally) a clear day to show off the beauty. Suck it (but don’t), air pollution.

It was bigger than I thought (that’s what she said).

I loved all the brightly colored prayer flags strung about. And after Dubai Airport,  I’ve definitely given up on praying. Not that I was a prayer before.

We did not save the best for last with our stop at Pashupatinath. Here’s a tip, don’t bother with this spot. It’s underwhelming (and dirty) at best. Plus, it’s quite pricy for what it is. I think a lot of people just think it has to be amazing because UNESCO says it’s a World Heritage Site.

Well, it isn’t. Spend more time at Monkey Temple…or at a bar. At least that would be interesting.

Ok, Kathmandu. We started out a bit rocky. I still don’t really like you that much, but I respect you since we slept together for 4 nights. Now it’s off to visit your much more attractive sister, Pokhara.

So we boarded the cheap tourist bus with free wifi and made our way very slowly to Pokhara. What should’ve been 6-7 hours was more like 9, but that seems to be our thing in Nepal. Delays.

If Nepal didn’t have Pokhara, I wouldn’t know what to do. I loved it. It was just what we needed after the craziness of Kathmandu.

We came to Pokhara not to trek (like everyone else), as we’d done enough of that. No, we came to Pokhara for a yoga retreat. We had about 9 days to kill before our visit to the zen den. So you know what we did? Nothing. We had all these grand plans of taking a boat out on the water, climbing up to the World Peace Pagoda, going paragliding.

And instead, we sat around. Walked to restaurants. Sat by the lake. Watched others rent boats and paraglide. You know what, I don’t regret a thing.

A few days before the start of our yoga retreat, we stayed at a place called Maya Devi. It’s a vulture sanctuary where you can handle the birds (and even go paragliding with them). We stayed in an adorable bungalow on-site.

We spent most days reading in the sun and then, one morning, we did The Bird of Prey Experience. You get to feed the birds and hope they don’t bite off your arm in the process. It was truly a one-of-a-kind experience which I recommend to all.

Then, shit happened. And by shit, I mean vomiting (and shit). The next 24 hours I spent crying over a toilet as I puked and then puked again. Oh wait, more puke. It was an awesome time and I felt super sorry for myself. Craig was also sick and had a visit from a place south of Pukeville. #ThirdWorldProblems

Now that we got all that out of our system, it was time to yoga. We booked a 10-day Yoga Holiday at Sadhana Yoga Retreat. Over the ten days, we would do yoga twice a day, meditate three times a day, chant…and do other yogi things. Then, starting on day seven, we would start our 3-day fast and silence portion of the program. Let’s just say we started off strong, but we became yoga retreat dropouts on day eight.

The place was truly breathtaking and so relaxing. It was a spa on steroids. Waking up every morning at 5:30 am was totally worth it with views like this.

We had a beautiful, yet simple room that looked right out on the water.

We ate delicious vegetarian food and prayed before every meal.

We hot-boxed it with daily steam baths.

And even got a bit dirty.

We met lovely people (staff and clients). But I think we are more of a 6-day yoga retreat kinda couple sans the starving and silence. It’s just not our jam. MMM, jam. And the big thing, we didn’t drink for the entire thing! With my puking combined, I went a whole eleven days without drinking #HumbleBrag

But we were ready to bust out to the real world with less talks of chakras and more talks of not chakras. So we didn’t namaSTAY at Sadhana. We went back to Pokhara’s Lakeside. And drank.

We spent Christmas, which didn’t feel like Christmas, in Lakeside and had a constant stream of people wishing us “Merry Christmas” while wearing Santa hats. The next day we said fuck the cheap, but long, tourist bus and we splurged for the 25-minute flight back to Kathmandu. It was worth every damn dollar. We spent our last night in Nepal with new friends we met at Sadhana, drinking and laughing. It was perfect.

 

Next up: India. If you thought the traffic, noise, and air pollution was bad in Nepal…we’re just getting started.