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Bookmark & shareA Top Day in Kathmandu
Assuming I'm jet lagged and can face getting up at , I'd go for a wander around the backstreets between Thamel and Durbar Square, nibbling on a croissant picked up the night before at a Thamel bakery. The streets are alive at this time of day with locals performing pujas and making offerings of marigolds, bananas, milk and coconut, topped off with a ring of the temple bell. Porters wait for customers at stepped temples and farmers set up their displays of carrots, lemons and curd. After an hour or so, I'd head back to Thamel for a leisurely late breakfast at Helena's rooftop restaurant and then browse the bookshops for obscure Tibetan titles or check out the latest canyoning, rafting or trekking trips on offer. Thamel grates after a while so taking a break from the tiger balm sellers and rickshaw-wallahs I'd head for the beautifully restored and totally serene Garden of Dreams or check out some of the amazing antique travel books in the mothballed Kaiser Mahal Library. In the late afternoon, I'd jump in a taxi to Bodhnath to join the elderly Tibetan pilgrims circumambulating the incredible stupa and then visit one or two of the monasteries to get my daily fix of Tibetan chanting and the smell of juniper incense. Back in Thamel, the evening gets kicked off by happy hour cocktails at Maya Cocktail Bar and then comes the toughest decision of the day: dinner. Felafel and hummus at Nargila's? A Thai curry at Yin Yang? Or a steak sizzler at K2? Either way, on the way home, pick up half-price bakery goods after for tomorrow's breakfast. And so it begins again...
Author: Bradley Mayhew
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