Sacred Valley Inn Kathmandu

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The sleeping issues continue for some of us

When we went to bed last night it rained which was a welcome surprise. We decided to swap the sheet and quilt around so that the quilt was underneath us and the sheet was on top of us. It was much cooler that way.

I slept significantly better, Ian said he was awake from 4 a.m. onwards and Jeremy said he had a terrible night but then he seems to be coming down with a cold. The poor boy looks quite poorly.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting ready to leave Bhaktapur

We had breakfast downstairs in the undercover garden area. We just had to have Bhaktapur fruit curd one more time. Jeremy spent a while in the lobby checking emails etc. and Ian and I shot off to find a money changer

When we got back we spent a while chatting to one of the hotel owners. We told him we had enjoyed our time at Hotel Vajra. He asked us to put our comments on the Trip Advisor web site. We assured him we would do that (and we have!).

 

Driving back to Kathmandu

Eventually a taxi arrived to take us back to Kathmandu. We asked that the taxi come right into the square to collect us from the hotel rather than us having to drag all our gear back to the entry/exit where we originally arrived at. It was a good size taxi with plenty of room for luggage which was a relief. Jeremy sat in the front and chatted to the driver who told him there are 5 million motorbikes in the Kathmandu valley area! He reckoned 75% of drivers in Nepal get their licences via illegal means, by bribery! No wonder they are not good drivers. The ride from Bhaktapur to Kathmandu cost 1500 Rs which is just over $18 AUD.

 

Sacred Valley Inn in Kathmandu

Arriving at the Sacred Valley Inn we expected to be taken to the twin adjoining rooms we had seen and agreed to a few days ago. It turns out a Chinese gentleman who was there had decided he wanted to stay put for a few days longer so we were given a large triple room. I don’t know why the Chinese man wasn’t told the room was already pre-booked.

Why wasn’t he the one to be shoved into alternative accommodation? This seems to be a common occurrence in Nepal. To my way of thinking if you have a booking then you have a booking! You should come before other people who might want rooms after you’ve booked yours. Anyway, we accepted the triple room. We soon discovered it had an enormous bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sending our excess baggage home

We settled ourselves in to our room and later set off to find either a TNT or DHL office to enquire about sending some excess gear back to Australia. We have bought Buddhist related items which we are told will be confiscated by the Chinese officials at the border into Tibet. We are also finding that Jeremy’s Gho is quite heavy and bulky so we decided we might post that back home too. We found a shipping office and a young fellow in there did some calculations for us. Despite my having a TNT account for my business it turned out to be cheaper to send the goods with DHL. He told us it would cost us $100 USD to send it. The weight was 4.5 kgs. We agreed but we didn’t feel overly confident about the chap we were dealing with. He proclaimed that our goods would be in Australia in about three days time!

 

Well that presented a problem because there would be no-one home to receive them. We asked him to put a note on the box and on the consignment note to the effect that we would collect the goods from our local DHL office upon our return home. He said he would do that for us when he boxed it up. We handed over our goods wondering if we would ever see them again.  Added later:  they did arrive but there was no instruction on the consignment note or on the box, so naturally enough the delivery man delivered them to us. Luckily we had arrived home the day before! So much for the young chap telling us it was a three day service. It took two weeks.

 

Collecting our passports

When we first arrived in Nepal we had given our passports to Birendra as he needed to take them to the Chinese Embassy so we could be granted our Group Visa to enter Tibet. We were headed for Tibet in two days time so we were quite anxious to get them back. After despatching our excess baggage we found our way back to Birendra’s office. We knew he had set off on a hike but he had told us his nephew Ramesh would be looking after the office whilst he was gone.  It turns out Ramesh was not in the office but we were told he would be back in half an hour. We took the opportunity to wander around the area and buy a few more gifts to take home. Half an hour later we fronted up to the office and Ramesh said the passports weren’t back from the Chinese embassy yet! He said they wouldn’t be ready until the next day. We thought that was cutting it a bit fine but what could we do! Ramesh had visitors in his office so he told us he would come to our hotel later on to speak with us. We said “OK” but wondered what he was coming to speak to us about.

 

Dinner at the restaurant at Hotel Utse

We had heard the restaurant was quite good at the Hotel Utse (next to the awful Norling Guest House) so we decided to go there for dinner. We found the restaurant was quite busy but they fitted us in. Jeremy’s throat was so sore he just ordered soup and some spring rolls. I had the same as Jeremy. Ian ordered soup and chicken chow mein. It was a good meal but we got turned off it a bit by this lady who had an awful cough. She was part of a group sitting down the back of the restaurant. This poor, sick soul coughed continually to the extent she even made herself vomit. Being with a group she probably wasn’t in a position to wander back home or go somewhere more comfortable. She must have felt totally lousy.

Jeremy felt lousy too so he ate only half of his dinner and headed the short distance back to our hotel. Ian and I went searching for stamps to go on our postcards. We discovered you buy them from stationary and book shops. That job done, it was back to the hotel for us too.

 

Ramesh arrives

Later on Ramesh arrived. He didn’t have a lot of information to impart other than telling us our 4-wheel-drive vehicle would collect us from the hotel at 5 a.m. the day after tomorrow to head off to the Tibet border. Ramesh talks extremely quietly so it is hard to hear what he is saying. We questioned this early start as we understood we would be leaving at around 8 a.m. We also wanted to check we were in fact hearing him correctly. He assured us it would be 5 a.m. We’ll have to think about what we should do regarding breakfast that morning. He very kindly accompanied us to a little underground shop where we were able to buy some Strepsil throat lollies for Jeremy.

 

Next page - More sighseeing in Kathmandu

 

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