The Holi festival was supposed to be one of the highlights of the visit to Nepal and it really was. The whole city stops for one day to celebrate this Hindu festival to say goodbye to the Winter and welcome to the Spring. Even if it was still a bit cold, the experience of being in Durbar Square surrounded by thousands of happy Nepalis and having the face totally painted with colorful powder was amazing! An entire day of celebration, of saying 'Happy Holi!' to everyone and ending up covered by dozens of different colors made our day! We had the 5th of March as a special day in the calendar. It was the annual Holi festival day in the Hindu countries and we didn't want to miss it. So we took another painful bus from Chitwan National Park back to Kathmandu, stayed at the same hostel we were the first time and prepared to enjoy a day of total celebration.
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Unfortunately I'm writing this post after the earthquake that devastated Nepal last April. We were lucky enough to leave the country 15 days before the tragedy, so we could enjoy this beautiful country and see all the impressive monuments. Now, most of the places we saw are just gone or are a pile of ruines and a lot of people we met are still suffering and trying to recover. However, Nepal is a really beautiful country full of lovely people, so the best thing you can do to help is go and visit it. Even after the earthquake, it has still lots of things to offer for the traveller. No doubt about it! This is how we saw Nepal a few weeks before the earthquake. The crossing from Tibet into Nepal was quite a shock. After the thrilling drive along the Friendship Highway, we just crossed the Friendship Bridge and we were in a total different culture: Women dressed in colorful sarees, English widely spoken, friendly people... and chaos, quite a chaos everywhere if only being a small border town.
Kodari, the border town with Tibet, is just an unpaved road with a few shops, guesthouses and restaurants around and a bus stop at the end of the road. The first thing we did was to have our Nepali visa stamped valid for 3 months in a small office in Kodari, and after that we went straight to the bus stop to take the first bus heading to Kathmandu. |
AuthorBorn in Barcelona and raised in Olot, I've been interested in travelling since I was a child, when every Summer I crossed Spain from coast to coast with my parents. Listening to my siblings' stories about their trips all over the world also helped, as well as watching Around the World with Willy Fog on TV :)
As I grew up, and while I was still studying... read more
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