The Skinny: The capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu is located in a valley surrounding by terraced hills and lush, green forests. It's a bit noisy and polluted, but the Nepalese are making an effort towards conservation with new, electric tuk-tuks! If you don't mind some dust in your mouth and eyes, Kathmandu's quite an interesting city to walk around in (it's really quite compact) and you can witness everything from crawling, deformed beggars to huge golden Buddhas. It's a good place to stock up on necessary provisions or just blow a buck ot two on booze and western food, before heading on to more remote areas.
What Thar Be: The valley itself holds more towns than just Kathmandu proper, and is home to around 2 million people. The Tibetan settlement of Bodnath is centered around a huge white stupa, the Swayambunath monkey temple sits upon a hill overlooking the city impressively blending Hindui and Buddhist customs, and the burning ghats of Pashupatinath on the Bagmati River feel almost like a little Varanasi. Unfortunately, these attractions cost 50-75R entrance fee nowadays, but what are you gonna do? The Royal Palace, Durbar Square, New Road, and the area around Ratna Park are all worth a visit, but that's just too much to go into indepthly here, so consult your trusty guidebooks for more detailed info. It's a bit difficult to choose where to stay in the city, but it depends on what you're looking for. The area of Thamel is within walking distance of pretty much everything you could possibly need or want, is stocked full of cheap hotels, but also has the feeling of an overcrowded, super-charged, Asian-style Disneyland at warp speed. Freak Street's a little slower and about the same price, or you could stay out of town a bit in Bodnath, which is very quiet but a bit farther away from The Action. The Sulti Hotel (which looked like it was only for people with steadily paying jobs) has a glitzy casino with no cover charge, and if you play your cards right you can eat and drink for free for hours! We took a free shuttle bus back to Thamel at 2 a.m. (who knew?) with many less rupees, but a good deal more intestinal bacteria than when we started. But we reckon it was worth it.
Digs: Hotel Horizon--good gated parking for motorcycles on an alley off the street in Thamel with a tv in the lobby, relatively clean rooms with private baths, and a comfortable seating area in the garden in front. We paid 350R total for three beds (in the off-season of late May) which could probably cost as much as 3x more in the high season of October to March.
Vittles: We couldn't really afford the Thamel restaurants with their western food and near western prices, so we wandered a bit down Jyatha St. and found the Junbesi: a restaurant run by a Tibetan family with a cute little baby, damn good veggie soup, hearty chowmein, and the thickest alu paratha yet all for under a dollar. They even had cold lemon Fanta most of the time.
Hooch Factor: 22 oz beer for 67R at the market, bar prices were 110-120R, Mt. Everest whiskey 80R for 180 ml.
Navigability: The traffic is pretty heavy in the early morning and late afternoon -- a good, loud horn and a bit of aggressive driving come in handy. The cows, children, and goats in traffic increase proportionately as the streets narrow, but overall the city has pretty good roads, lots of traffic police to ask where the hell you are, and an easily decipherable flow.
Sliding In and Out: We came in on the Tribhuvan Highway from Hetauda, which started out in very poor condition (unpaved, washed out, and rocky) but improved at Daman after about 30 or 40 kilometres ( 20-25 miles). 'Twas windy but not too busy. We left the same way, but took a turn west onto the Prithvi Highway and scooted on towards Pokhara, a beautiful, flat and sealed drive.
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