Today we walked and walked and walked. We woke up at 8am and went to the Monkey Temple, which took us an hour to walk to and then another 20mins to climb the 365 steps that rival the chief in vertical degrees. Formally known as Swayambhunath, this stupha doesn't have as many monkeys s the one we went to in Jaipur. This holy place belongs to the Tibetan Buddhist branch. It was really awesome to see! Not much to do there but walk around and take photos, but that was fine with me.
We then walked around for a few more hours until our breakfast of oranges was no longer sustaining us and we grabbed lunch. Walking around, we saw how the meat is "stored." Essentially,cut meat is layed out on tables on the edges of the street for people to come and buy. Tere is no refrigeration, nothing covering the meat to protect it from flies and dust (our snot is the blackest I've ever seen), and it's sitting in direct sunlight. It's cold here when the sun isn't shining.. But definitely not cold enough to keep meat. I've already been pretty vegetarian this trip... But the sight of the conditions here was enough to also make Ajda a veg too. At lunch she tried Hot Tibetan Beer.. A strange mix of hot water and mead. She's not sure how she feels about it haha.
We also got sun on our faces today! The high altitude makes a world of difference because the only sun we managed to get was between the shade of the buildings in the fit streets, and at the Stupa.
We were really excited to see the river today, we thought we might walk along it and hang out there a bit. WRONG! The river is better described as a garbage dump. It is absolutely sick how much trash is in it. There were pigs and weird nuclear hybrid fish swimming around in the muck. You can see in the photo I posted below.
Walking around the streets I also spotted a Space-Invader tile! So cool. I love that street artists work all over the world.
A little girl gave me a rose today. When she handed it to me I almost didn't take it expecting for someone to quickly demand I pay them for it, as it was in India. But no one came. It's so nice to be around people who are a bit more kind.
We also switched rooms. They had put us in a deluxe room yesterday because their budget rooms were filled (which we had booked). I'm so happy to be in a budget room it is SO MUCH NICER than our "deluxe" room. It's smaller, and it faces the sun so... Even though its still icy cold... It feels a bit less grungy. Also, the carpet in our last room wet, making the room damp, which only made it feel even more freezing. We no longer have a little washroom attached to our room but that's fine with us. Yayy for budget rooms! I would recommend this guesthouse to anyone coming to Thamal area. It's nice and central, they have free airport service, and the rooms are clean. It is really cold though... We have resorted to using our synthetic paper thin sleeping bag liners in hopes that they give us extra insulation. They also have a generator for night when the cities power is out.
Tonight we are going to check out RumDoodle earlier for dinner and hanging out. Tomorrow we will take a taxi to a farther part of Kathmandu and see some more sights and walk around. Looking forward to it, after a good stretch and sleep. It's only 5pm and I'm exhausted!
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