Our time in Kopan came to an end and we immediately jumped into a very contrasting experience - the immigration office! We had to extend our visas the afternoon we left the monastery, and the taxi ride downtown in the pouring rain really was a shock to our (previously very relaxed) systems. We walked in on a fight that had police involved and watched as a man was taken away in handcuffs, but we used our fresh teachings to try and feel compassion for all parties involved. Not sure if it helped, but we did manage to get our visas extended pretty easily!
From here we headed up to the north of Kathmandu Valley to volunteer at a Yoga School for about nine days. We arrived and met the lovely team, and were really excited to jump into some work using our professional skillsets, a nice change. Unfortunately, despite the lovely team, it wasn’t going to work out. There were some hygiene issues that resulted in Josh getting sick and a rather sleepless night with too many cockroaches, so we made the call to pull the pin and get out of there.
The next morning we high tailed it to Thamel, the neighbourhood of Kathmandu known for its backpacker haunts, copious food options and more fake North Face than one can even dream of. We went straight to the infamous “Four Stories” cafe and settled in with a top tier flat white, a fat stack of pancakes and some of our friends from Kopan. Despite flinching whenever we thought we saw a crawling roach out of the corner of our eyes, we were quickly feeling better and started settling into a very chill routine for the next week.
It went something like this:
7:30 AM - Alarm goes off, Alice goes back to sleep, Josh dozes and then goes down to buy takeaway coffees and pastries
8:30 AM - Enjoy pastries and coffees in bed while reading our books
10:30 AM - Pack up our things and relocate to Four Stories, ordering another coffee each and a delicious breakfast (some of our favs were the chilli scramble, granola bowl and fluffy cloud cakes)
11:30 AM - Park up for a fair few hours, doing everything under the sun from writing postcards home, reading our books, perfecting Instagram posts, planning for China, watching youtube and working on the website
3:30 PM - Start to feel a little woozy after our third coffee of the day and not enough food, so leave the cafe and walk back to the hostel
4:00 PM - Take a nap or read our books some more
5:00 PM - Toss up the idea of visiting one of the tourist attractions in Kathmandu, but instead get a cheap and easy dinner nearby
8:00 PM - Back home to read our books some more, sleep and repeat
We really wanted to take this time to rest and rejuvenate before leaving South Asia, and honestly we loved every minute. We spent too much money on fancy coffees and food, and didn’t do nearly enough exercise, but to just rest and have no pressure to “travel” was an amazing feeling. My favourite part about this was that by the end we were sooo excited to get on the road again! The idea of being in a new country with new food and new scenery and moving every couple of days was becoming more and more exciting again. We hadn’t “lost” our spark, but this period of rest definitely got it burning a bit brighter again!!
One of the many tourist attractions in Kathmandu we actually made it to was the Pashupatinath Temple. This is the Nepali version of Varansai, where they perform the Hindu death rituals/cremation ceremonies alongside a holy river. It is highly regarded by Hindus and many pilgrims from India try to visit this temple at least once in their lives. We went with a couple of friends from Kopan monastery who had organised a free walking tour with a local guide. He showed us around the temple grounds and explained the funeral process, a very open air affair. The body is cleaned in the river by the family members and then moved to a spot next to the river where it is burned in a pyre. While we were there we saw a body being prepared, and multiple pyres burning. It was quite an experience.
One of our favourite outings from Thamel was to a Saturday market in an upmarket suburb nearby. There was lots of sustainable and handmade items and crafts, and such an amazing selection of food. At times I felt like I was in Paris, not Kathmandu, and we left with some cheese, bread and dips for dinner at our hostel.
Some of our other exciting activities included a much needed haircut for Josh, a trim for Alice, a trip to the movies to watch Jurassic World Rebirth (in 3D!), wandering the Garden of Dreams on a very hot day and visiting a local art gallery. Josh found a BJJ (Brazillian Jiu Jitsu) class to go to and Alice found a pilates class.
Overall it was pretty quiet, with most of our time spent getting very familiar with the comfiest spots at Four Stories! In the end, we were super happy with this time and the break that it gave us, but are looking forward to visiting a few more of the sights next time when we’re in Nepal!