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Kathmandu on the Cheap

Posted by Intelligent Travel on April 14, 2009
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IT contributor Cathy Healy is back from her recent trip to Nepal, and offers some inexpensive ways to make the most of the country’s rich cultural offerings.

Kathmandu, Nepal — Tala Katner awes me. Her blog about watching Hindu death rites with burning corpses and floating the ashes down the Bagmati River made me glad I dodged the experience that day. We were both in the area at the same time, but had very different experiences, which helps explain why Kathmandu continues to be a mythic destination for anybody who visits.
 
First, we did a fly-by of Everest. Then we explored two of the seven UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley: 14th-century Bhaktapur, a car-free, Hindu temple town where people still live traditionally, and the 15th-century Buddhist stupa at Bodhnath, a center of Tibetan life here. Finally, we kicked back with live jazz at the Cafe New Orleans in Patan. (Which, by the way, is a few blocks from a third UNESCO site.)
 
This was a meandering day, not a dash, and three of the most extraordinary sights in the world were affordable. Here’s how:

1. Traveling by ordinary taxi for the day and evening ($34). My pal

Richard Boyum negotiated with “Denis” for a daily rate when we first

arrived in Kathmandu as presenters at the annual Nepal English-Language

Teachers Association conference.
 
 2. Cruising on Buddha Air

($162) for an hour along the spine of the Himalaya to Everest and back.

All seats have a window. Suggestion: Ask for an A seat, so you see the

mountains immediately, and visit the cockpit on the return trip. 
 
3.

Time-traveling 700 years back in Bhaktapur where cars are forbidden

($25 entrance fee + guide). The busy temple town (172 elaborate

structures at its peak, says Lonely Planet) buzzes with residents

carving yak bone bowls, shaping pots, painting thangka scrolls,

weaving and creating puppets. (Irresistible crafts set me back $265.)

Late lunch overlooking Dunbar Square, home of the infamous copulating

elephant carvings ($6.50 each for lunch, including the gigantic bottle

of Everest beer).
 
4. Circling the massive white stupa in

Bodhnath, with a hundred or so Tibetan monks and Western worshipers, to

the rhythm of a massive brass gong, a late afternoon ritual ($0.) The

white-domed stupa, festooned with prayer flags and crowned with a

golden spire, is surrounded by monasteries, shops and restaurants.
 
5. Retreating to the familiar with live jazz at dinner in the candlelit courtyard of the Cafe New Orleans.

This is the one in Patan, which is just across the Bagmati River from

Kathmandu. The cafe features a Berkeley-style West-East menu and

Chilean wine ($15 each).

Video: Cathy Healy

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Comments

  1. Robin
    April 14, 2009, 2:13 pm

    hmmm. I would never have named the article that. While I can understand how that might be a bargain by western standards for all that you can accomplish, thats probably the most expensive way to visit Kathmandu, considering some backpackers budget as little as $20 a day including accommodation. It looks like you spent over $600. And its not very cheap to get to Kathmandu to begin with.

  2. Lindsay
    April 14, 2009, 5:41 pm

    I would have to agree with you completely Robin. I expected to scroll down and read about day’s under $20 not a $162 hour plane ride and $15 bottles of Chilean wine at a New Orleans style cafe. I rather sip yak’s milk tea in a hut than eat western style food. Why make that big of a trek?

  3. Cathy Healy
    April 15, 2009, 5:14 pm

    Robin and LIndsay, thanks for commenting. You are absolutely right, and I understand your disappointment when you saw my story. I’m sure there are many bargains in Kathmandu for people on tight budgets, but I don’t know any personally.
    Do you have some recommendations?
    My stay in Kathmandu was not on the cheap, it was luxurious. I stayed in the nicest downtown hotel, the Yak and Yeti, which is right near the Thamel district, the liveliest district in Kathmandu. I had a special rate at the hotel, but still, I paid only a little less than the special rates at hotels in my neighborhood in Washington, DC. (I paid about $110.) NOTE: The Yak and Yeti is not one of the new five-star hotels farther out of town.
    Given that benchmark, I found it amazing that in one day, you can see three different UNESCO sites, fly by Everest and have a bottle of Chilean wine with dinner for so little money.relatively speaking I pay more than the Everest flight to take the same kind of Beechcraft home to northern Wyoming from Denver. We see mountains out our windows, but I can tell you, nothing like the 100 miles of Himalayan peaks that I saw. That was the sight of a lifetime.
    Cathy Healy

  4. Shashank Garg
    April 19, 2009, 11:49 pm

    Cathy, thanks for sharing your experiences of Kathmandu and Mount Everest with us in your beautifully crisp way, as usual.
    While agreeing with some of the correspondents that you could probably have had a cheaper trip, it is fine if you think you received a good deal. After all, global tourism must also benefit the local economies of the places that international tourists visit or else tourism wouldn’t be sustainable. So, as long as a tourist feels she had great experience at relatively low cost and the locals were happy too it is a win-win for both parties.
    Tourism is not, and must not be, a zero-sum game where one party wins and the other loses. Both parties should take away some positive pay-off. I am sure that was the case here. We missed you in Bangalore.
    Cheers,
    Shashank Garg

  5. Yamil Dutra
    April 23, 2009, 11:58 pm

    I have known Cathy Healy for so many great years and I would only expect that she would travel taking herself and her life experience along. She, as many of us, like good hotels and enjoy the special Andean accent of Chilean wines. Why not drink them in Nepal? Thank you Cathy for your report.

  6. Tala Katner
    May 1, 2009, 1:20 am

    Kathy,I agree that you have done your part by contributing to the local economy! Sure, it could be cheaper but I think the point is that you got way more for your money that you could have at home. I don’t know how many times I’ve said “Gosh, if I bought this at home, it would be this much more” and so if I actually did buy all those things, I would have ended up spending a fortune, even though each thing was incredibly cheap. It’s hard to resist but the ever increasing weight in my backpack makes it easier. My boyfriend and I ate at the New Orleans cafe for our anniversary and loved it too. An anniversary dinner with a bottle of wine would have cost us at least $100 at home, but we got it for $30 in Kathmandu! :-)

  7. Suman Shrestha
    November 20, 2009, 4:22 am

    You can virtually travel the places of Nepal from this website. This is 360 X 180 rotation virtual panorama. Use you mouse to drag left-right-up-down to travel different location.
    Click for virtual travel.

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  11. seodofollows
    October 28, 2010, 10:10 pm

    vMy pal Richard Boyum negotiated with “Denis” for a daily rate when we first arrived in Kathmandu as presenters bags manufacturer

  12. cartus
    January 11, 2011, 10:20 am

    An anniversary dinner with a bottle of wine would have cost us at least $100 at home, but we got it for $30 in Kathmandu! :-)