Under curfew in Kathmandu

Since the 9 of February I'm in Kathmandu. Yesterday and today we are under a strict curfew starting at 9 pm in the evening.

This due to the fact that tomorrow there will be a protest by the opposition parties. However this rally is forbidden by the king. In this case
both parties don't want to back down . Tomorrow will be an interesting day... I probably stay in my room and watch live the "Australian open". 

 

On the 8 of January I took a bus from Varanasi bus station to the border town of Saunali I slept one night there. The next day I took a day 6:15 am bus  to Kathmandu. Due to the many roadblocks we we arrived around 8 pm in Kathmandu. The roadblocks are police check posts, the police check  the luggage from the Nepalese people. They don't check the tourist people. 

 

The first 3 nights I stayed in Hotel Elite, the hotel was OK but i did not like the staff so I moved to hotel Tashi Delek???? this is a very nice clean place with nice staff. 

 

Kathmandu  is a very nice, relaxing clean place with at the moment just a few tourists. The food is amazing all the western food is available. It is great if you travelled overland from Amsterdam to Kathmandu and then arrive in Kathmandu and i can eat a lot of yummy western food. There are pizza's in India then they try to make them but there is always this little Indian taste in the pizza. Here in Kathmandu there is pizza with a real Italian pizza taste. 

 

There is also " frituur" in Dutch a "patat zaak" here you can get the best "Finger chips"  or "Patat"  since leaving Amsterdam. So the first few days I had a very nice "patatje oorlog"  yummy.

 

But all this nice food comes with prize tag It is expensive compared to India. So I'm back at the Thentuk (Tibetan soup) this is a very nice soup and the more cheaper foods like momo's. The day before yesterday I  had some Samosas I start to miss the Indian food.

 

Since 3 days I do meditation at the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre. This is a nice place to meditate they have a nice gompa and after the meditation we have breakfast togther.

 

Saturday I will move to Kopan Monastery. Kopan is just outside of Kathmandu and I can stay there for a few days for a personal retreat aft that I will move to Pokhra and then to Lumbini and back to India.

 

I'm looking forward to go to India.