29th April - Chilled Day in Thamal Kathmandu (planning next leg of trip)

We had a relaxed long breakfast at the Mandcap cafe and then a wander round Thamal. I spent a while going to a few different tour companies to find out how much it would cost to go trekking for a few days, white water rafting and paragliding. I needed all this information to plan the next leg of my trip. I was not sure how much it would cost in comparison to biking to Tibet and then on to China. 4 days of trekking and 1 day White Water rafting with all transport, a guide and accommodation is £165. Not bad. This is around the Pokhara region. However, I later found out that I do not need a guide and I could do it much cheaper independently. :-)

It was raining again today and so we were quite happy just to have a relaxed day. I am finally feeling like I have caught up on sleep. So much so that I am now craving getting on my bike again or running up some mountains. When I met Johnnie in Agra I was very happy to have a couple of weeks just sight seeing and chilling.

At lunch time we all checked in at the Northfield hotel and checked out at Madcap Hotel. The Northfield is a third of the cost of the Mandcap for the same type of room. I did not have much sleep last night as the bed was like concrete and it was really noisy. Therefore, I had a 3 hour siesta when we checked into the Northfield hotel while Johnnie went off and sat in a restaurant.




In the afternoon we had a wander around town and a shop for a hippy clothes and some Gorka knives for Johnie. I bought a fake Northface Fleece :-)

We then went to the Northface cafe and stayed there until 11.30pm. We were planning on meeting up with Angela and Emma but did not manage to be at the same place at the same time. I drank so many coffee refills that I was absolutely wired. I was trying to catch up on my diary (which I am about 2 weeks behind on) and also to plan the next leg of my trip on the internet. The internet connection kept on going down (which was very frustrating) and so it took ages to book flights and look at the different options.




So the decision has now been made: I am not going to bike from Kathmandu to Lhasa this trip. I am going to have to come back and do this with a big group at some point in the future. The larger the group the lower the cost. Instead I will use the money I have saved to explore Nepal and the Himalayas on this side of the boarder for the next few weeks and then fly to Hong Kong to meet one of my bestest friends in the world (Jacob Clarke). We will have an long weekend there before I then bike to Beijing to meet my Dad in July.

So booked flights for Hong Kong. Yippeeeee!!!! I'm going to meet up with M'Jakey!