Kathmandu

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Bag Copy
I've got a favourite bag that I use when I travel, but I've never seen another like it - so when I saw a shop advertising in Kathmandu that it could copy any bag I jumped at the chance. It meant that I have to hand over my bag for 24hrs, but that wasn't really a problem. I was rather dubious of what I might get back, but in the end I was shocked at how accurate a copy was produced. Same colour, same fabric, same layout and all for less that $10!

My first introduction to Kathmandu was a taxi drive in the very early morning from the airport into the city centre. There's no airport express way, just a rather bumpy road with traffic coming from all sides (even at 3am in the morning). I kinda expected Kathmandu to be a pretty small place - but how wrong was I? It's a huge sprawling city - it may not have any sky scrapers, but there's a lot to Kathmandu.

I took a taxi up to the monkey temple, and for some reason the driver dropped me away from the main entrance, I walked around the perimeter and found the back way into the temple. A short(ish) climb up the hill, past a band of monkeys. As I got into the temple proper the heavens opened in a massive thunderstorm, spectacular but rather soaking. I sat it out for a bit but then decided to make a run down to the main entrance. By the time I had reached the bottom step I was soaked to the skin. The taxi back into town was a little more expensive than the one out - he knew he had a captive market!

Downtown Kathmandu

I needed to send some things back home via the post from Kathmandu and it was an experience. Firstly I had to find the part of the post office dealing with foreign packages. Then show what I wanted to send to the customs official, then he placed it all in a box and taped it up, the box was then passed to two ladies who make up a canvas cover, they then passed the box onto another bloke who sealed it up with sealing wax. Only when all that has been done can you take the package off to actually get posted!