Kathmandu

Kathmandu is a city of about 750,000 that sprawls through the Kathmandu Valley. When I first started researching this trip years ago I was surprised to find that you shouldn't travel here in the summer because it's too hot. The image of Nepal in my mind is of frostbitten mountainclimbers, but Kathmandu is at roughly the same latitude as Miami. The valley is tropical.

The Himalayas sit like a wall on the other side of the valley, so as the monsoon rains roll in (as they are at the moment) the mountains are so high they essentially wring all the water out against them. So one side is a lush tropical valley, while on the other is a desert, the Tibetan plateau. The difference was quite striking to see on the flight in.

I'm staying in a tourist ghetto called Thamel. The first hippie hikers congregated in an area nearby which is still known locally as Freak Street. The streets are narrow and crammed full of people dodging rickshaws, bicycles, motorbikes and taxis. Tourist agencies, restaurants, souvenir shops, internet cafes, etc loom over the street.