by Caroline St Clare

Created on: July 20, 2011   Last Updated: July 21, 2011

I have to admit, I knew absolutely nothing about Nepal before visiting there. I was aware there were some pretty big mountains, including a certain Mount Everest. But climbing mountains wasn't the purpose of our trip. After months spent backpacking around South-East Asia, crossing various borders on dilapidated buses, we decided to enter Nepal in style. And so we exited Bangkok, courtesy of Thai Airways, onward bound for Kathmandu.

Although the flight was excellent, our arrival at Kathmandu didn't get off to the best start. After one and a half hours trying to get through immigration, a result of the visa application process, we finally made it through to the luggage area to find it devoid of any signs of baggage or passengers. We finally tracked our backpacks down. Someone had unceremoniously thrown them against a wall, but not before ripping off the badges collected from visited countries, from my husband's backpack, all of which had been painstakingly sown on by me.  

Finding our hotel was the next step. I'd earmarked a suitable looking place in our trusty guide book and showed it to the taxi driver who’d been trailing around after us at the airport. He told us he knew the hotel and drove off at a hair raising pace. Upon our arrival we were charged the princely sum of $4 dollars a night, which didn't tally with the guide book. We later found out he’d taken us to a different hotel with the same name.

After unpacking and reading through the guide book, we set off in search of Freak Street, once a haven for the hippy travelers in the 1960s and ‘70s thanks to its cheap hotels and restaurants. Its real name is Jochne but everyone knows it as Freak Street. Even the signposts call it that.

Walking through Kathmandu was like stepping back 200 years in time. The quaint winding streets were lined with ancient, decaying buildings and open fronted, windowless, dirt floor shops. What appeared to be butchers shops, displayed various pieces of animals lying on wooden tables, completely exposed to armies of flies. No signs of healthy and safety here.

There was so much to take in. Ever present in the background was the imposing outline of the snow capped Himalayas, stark and clean, providing the ultimate contrast to the scenes below. Down in the town our senses were assaulted by the incessant din of people shouting, cars tooting and bicycle bells ringing and the strange sight of cows wandering down the streets. All the while we were engulfed by the choking

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