📸 — Kathmandu, Nepal

We set off on a mission we had initially planned to tackle on our first little detour, but timing didn’t work out with monsoon season.

This time around, Olivier did hours and hours of research talking to every person we could find who has ventured to Nepal to complete a Himalayan hike.

Our arrival in Kathmandu was…. fun? The airplane wasn’t able to land due to weather conditions. So the Captain came on the air and told us we would be doing circles in the air until the storm passed (20–30 min) before we could land. Note: The plane ride was already pretty bumpy.

After a safe landing, we hit up the capital. We needed to pick up some hiking gear, find ourselves a guide and make a trekking plan for the next few weeks.

Kathmandu suffered crazy consequences from the April 25, 2015 earthquake that are still haunting the city today. As you walk through the tiny streets (that don’t have side walks) and cars/bikes/animals/people are passing by, you see buildings that remain in ruin, or newly fixed apartments with cement covering their old cracks.

This city is chaotic, and although we haven’t been… I assume reflects a lot of the same hustle, bustle, smells and terrible air quality as some big cities in India.

We spent four nights here and were pretty excited to get out in search of fresh air pretty quick!

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Lots of airports have security as you check into the flight in Asia… it is a bit of an adjustment as you think you are good to go and almost show up too late for your flight! This is the Kuala Lumpur airport.

This is when they announced the storm below and we had to circle until it passed. The clouds were nice and fluffy… but the bouncing that came along with it was not as enjoyable.

Made it in one piece. Dreams do come true!

Nepal is one of only three countries that have non-rectangular flags.

Nepalese food night — we had some Momos which is their version of dumplings and of course.. they are great.

Walking around the main streets are hectic. Power lines inches above your head, cars passing by inches from your toes and animals or bikes cutting in between. It’s hard to walk without feeling stress or a mass amount of concentration.

They money is so awesome here, all the local animals you can find in Nepal.

It is a bit of sensory overload, everywhere you look something is happening. Sometimes in big shops, or tiny little hole in the wall type houses or above you in the many high rise cement buildings.

Prayer flags cover many of the streets.

Walking around Darbar square.

Many buildings are still held up with wooden planks and bamboo as a result of the 2015 earth quake and slowly being rebuilt. It’s sad to see the century old historic buildings getting face lifts as close to the original designs as possible.

In Nepal, a Kumari is a prepubescent girl selected from surrounding villages by the Bajracharya clan to be worshiped by some of the country’s Hindus as a living goddess.

You can go and see her in her residence (above) but no pictures are allowed to be taken. We saw LOTS of pictures, posters, calendars of her around the streets, below is one I pulled from google that was taken a few years ago.

image from trekroute.com

A market in the main square. No one pushed or harassed you to look, but the tables were filled with jewelry, bells and trinkets.

Again, many buildings are propped up by wooden planks across the city.

Cracks like scars left from the 2105 earthquake on the parliament building.

This moment was really special — we were trying to get out of the craziness of the shopping area and found peace in this city square where most buildings had fallen apart or were in the process of being rebuilt. This monk stood quietly and strongly for many minutes as life around was moving by.

It was interesting to see the amount of investment China is putting into Nepal in the form of power plants, roads, tunnels, bridges and rebuilding their holy historic city core.

Working men sleeping to take a break from the sun.

Little did we know that it was Nepalese New Year April 14th! And everywhere we looked there were signs that read 2076… which confused the heck out of us!

In the middle of the chaos, an Austrian man built a park inspired by European design. The park today brings tons of local tourists for selfies and group pictures.

Made a little doggo friend.

Got our stuff, Oli is ready and he is using his rain cover as both a functional jacket and cover.

See more on our website www.alittledetour.ca🌏✈️👫