Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in the gallery.
Julie had strict instructions from Ken to leave work by 4pm — she left at 3:53pm. Success! We caught a Lyft to the airport around 5:30pm, and made it to the airport with no problems. At the airport, we got through security quite quickly, and then went to have dinner at the French Meadow Cafe. Once at the gate, we got bumped to First Class for our trip to Chicago. In Chicago, we stayed right on the airport at the O'Hare Hilton. Overall, it was an uneventful night. We upgraded to a Runway View room for $8 so we could watch the planes and general airport activity. This was well worth it since we had some extra time to kill on Saturday morning.
We woke up about 8am, had the hotel breakfast buffet, got ready in the room, then went to our Etihad flight. Check-in was crazy — there was a big line outside the check-in but couldn't figure out why. It turns out that they are picky about carry-on luggage, so we had to repack our rollaboard suitcase and check it. Fortunately, everything we needed to carry on board, just barely fit into our small backpack. We would have brought a second backpack, or a bigger one, if we had realized that our black suitcase would have to be checked.
The flight to Abu Dhabi on a Boeing 777 was long but uneventful. About 90% of the flight appeared to be people traveling to India. Flight time was 13.5 hours, the longest either of us had flown. We both watched several movies and slept as much as possible. The touchscreens really needed to be re-calibrated. Julie was unable to select the "Home" button because it was too close to the edge of the screen with the bad calibration. We had some good shwarma at the Abu Dhabi airport, then got on the plane to Kathmandu. We both slept for part of the 4 hour flight. We got picked up by Kumar, our trek operator, then went to Hotel Thamel where we would stay in Kathmandu. We arrived at the hotel around 9pm, talked with Mark for a few minutes, then crashed.
We got up at 7:20am with the alarm. We were both up a couple times overnight but overall slept OK. We went to exchange money at a local bank and got a huge stack of rupees. The biggest bill in Nepal is the equivalent of $10 USD. We walked to the Garden of Dreams, which were very peaceful even though they were in the middle of the city. They had lots of familiar flowers and also some cute chipmunks.
We had lunch at this nice restaurant called Gaia (recommended by Kumar but also in the Lonely Planet book), then went through the market area to the Durbar Square, the royal palace area of the former Kathmandu Kingdom, including palaces and Hindu temples. Many of the temples were damaged by the 2016 earthquake, and they are still repairing / rebuilding them. Overall that area was a bit disappointing. We had ice cream at a local rooftop café (well, Ken's was cream and ice, not "ice cream") then walked back. Julie got hit really badly by jet lag in the afternoon and returned home on autopilot. Julie took a nap while Ken and Mark met with Kumar.
Next we went to the New Palace, which was built for the royal family in the 1960s. It had the feel of a 60s house, including some blonde wood paneling walls. It was rather shabby and clearly hadn't been maintained well. It was the scene of the 2001 massacre where the crown prince killed most of the royal family.
It had been thundering for a while and threatening to rain, so we ate dinner at the hotel. The food tasted fine, but the service was really slow (15-20 minutes to get the drinks), and when Ken asked for water, for the first time he got tap water instead of bottled mineral water. We were told that we shouldn't drink the water. Fortunately, he never had ill effects from drinking the local water. We never ate again at the hotel restaurant for lunch or dinner. We got a free breakfast buffet with our room, which was nice.
For this day, Kumar arranged a private tour for us — guide Krishna, a Matindra 4-wheel drive SUV, and a driver. We visited several UNESCO sites on the outskirts of the city. Driving in Kathmandu is an adventure — driving on the left, all the traffic "rules" are really guidelines, and we never went through a functioning traffic light all day (or the rest of the trip, for that matter). The traffic circles were a little booth in the middle of the road with a traffic cop, and people try to go whichever way they can. It seems to work, but it can be nerve-wracking for an American. Mark said it reminded him of the traffic in Islamabad where he lived for 2 years, so he was pretty comfortable, but Ken never really got used to it. Everyone drives slowly, and the drivers expect people, animals, and vehicles to do crazy things like cross the street in front of them. Julie observed that it seemed to be a fairly efficient traffic system, for the amount of traffic these roads supported. There was no freeway in Kathmandu.
First, we went to the Swayambhunath temple area, also known as the "monkey temple" for the large numbers of monkeys that lived there. Swayambhunath is a big Buddhist stupa on the hill overlooking the city. The monkeys live there because they eat the flower offerings that people leave at the various shrines. In Nepal, Buddhism is considered to descend from Hinduism because Buddha was the 9th reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. There were Hindu temples next to the stupa.
After that, we went to the Pashupatinath Temple area, which is reportedly the birthplace of the Hindu god Shiva and one of the holiest sites of Hinduism. Hindus are supposed to make a pilgrimage to this place at least once in their lifetime. Krishna, our guide, said it was why there was an open border between and India & Nepal and no visa needed for Indians to visit, because many of Hinduism's holiest sites are in Nepal. They cremate bodies in the traditional way (open fires) next to the holy Bagmati River. We saw several cremation fires and also watched some small ceremonies for people whose relatives had died a year ago. Ken was creeped out because it smelled like barbecue. The river is very dirty (grey) because it's slow-moving at this point, and the cremated remains are pushed into the river.
Next, we went to the Boudhanath stupa, one of the largest stupas in the world. It overlooks a hill near Kathmandu. The original stupa was created in the 5th century or so. We went to an artists' gallery and school, and Mark bought a painted wall hanging of a mandala. They were very beautiful and detailed, and the best ones took months to create. We ate lunch at a rooftop café and looked at the stupa and surrounding city. We watched the workers apply a layer of marigold water on the stupa, which gives it a yellow accent color with the white. They did this twice a week.
Finally, we went to the Pattan area, which is the 2nd of ancient Nepali kingdoms. It had lots of Hindu temples like the Kathmandu Durbar Square area, but it was further along in its post-earthquake reconstruction.
We had some downtime at the hotel then went out for some good and cheap Nepali food at Thakali Bhanchha, near our hotel.