It was a very early morning, as we woke up to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. While it felt like we were at the top of the world, the views of the distant Himalayas were constantly obscured by the cloud cover, and sun rise was the optimal view time for them, before the clouds rolled in for the day. It was beautiful!
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| Don't be fooled, those are all mountains in the distance, not a cloud line |
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| Such an incredible horizon line |
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| The clouds roll in |
So, I spent my morning trying to negotiate a cab ride back to Kathmandu, not being able to tolerate being car sick for another day of our trip. I was out of luck, as it was the holiday and we were in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, a woman from our tour group was flying out that morning from the city, and had a car arranged for her. She graciously allowed us to accompany her and I got to escape the turmoil of the minibus. I felt bad leaving our group behind, but I simply could not endure another prolonged ride on that bus.
One of the things that we were both extraordinarily excited about in Kathmandu was Swayambhunath, aka: The Monkey Temple. It is overrun by monkies! Animals are sacred to the Hindu religion and are seen as living incarnates of their gods and goddesses, so people come to feed them as a token of their worship as the ascend the steps to the temple to continue their prayers. This place was incredible, both for the temple and the monkeys, and you will want to plan for some time here. We enjoyed about 2 hours. It does require you to have some solid knees though, it is MANY steps up a mountain to get to the temple.
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| SOOOOOO excited for the monkeys!!!! |
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| Part of the steps up |
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| Overlooking Kathmandu |
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| Perfect day |
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| Different temples for the different deities |
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Feeding him raisins, this is about 5 seconds before he wound up and smacked me for not feeding him fast enough.
That was the end to his raisin consumption. |
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| We were anointed by a priest |
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Ordered a honey and ginger tea, it did not disappoint!
That is actual shredded ginger at the bottle of the glass! |
Ok, so the next few pictures are literally FOOD PORN. Oh.dear.GOD. We actually went back here for dinner with the crew that night it was so amazing. It seems that every culture has their version of a dumpling, and Nepal has their momo. I would go back just to experience this meal again.
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| Thenthuk: The best soup EVER |
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| Plain momo |
To give you perspective of the cost 100 rupee = $1. We both had tea, thenthuk, and momos. Our bill was a whopping 800 rupee. And we were overfull. $8 for one of the most incredible meals that we have ever had.
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| Incredible chili momo |
Something incredible happened with this meal, I
finally understood the enjoyment of spicy! The chilies that they use are hot (and I am a major spicy wuss), but once you got past the burn, the chili taste was delicious! Adam has been telling me this forever, but I have never been able to graduate from the pain part to the enjoyment part. I get it now. I finally get it. And, of course, he was right.
