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5 August 2015
Leaving Dubai We set the alarm for 0640 and had banana, yoghurt and muesli before taxiing to the airport around 0800 for our 1050 flight. We had been issued our staff travel boarding passes already online; Emirates processes these 6h before the flight unlike our own airline which does it about 1h before the flight. […]
4 August 2015
For breakfast I made muesli and yoghurt with a fruit salad from the supermarket. We taxied to the nearby Sheikh Zayed Mosque (named after the man who united the seven emirates into one country) but the route was quite circuitous due to the one-way system (and coming back wasn’t that straight forward either). It was […]
3 August 2015
Today was Kim’s big day at Ferrari World. I had as much interest in that as I have in Hello Kitty Land or Lego Land. Incidentally, Lego Land is opening up in Abu Dhabi but I think it might melt away in the 45 degC heat during summer. The hotel had a free shuttle to […]
2 August 2015
We allowed ourselves to sleep in, in order to adjust to UAE local time which will hit us tonight. That didn’t quite work as we still woke around 0715. We had breakfast at our now “regular” place and went shopping. There was little that I needed but it’s always nice to be tempted; we looked […]
1 August 2015
After breakfast, we walked out of the old city to a taxi stand in order to have better competition and bargaining power for our ride to Dakshinkali. We managed to get a price slightly lower than that asked for by the hotel’s taxi driver. The ride took about 45 minutes. Once we left the valley, […]
31 July 2015
After five nights in Kathmandu, we still hadn’t walked around Durbar Square yet. The weather was dull but dry so we made our way there after dropping laundry off (NPR50 per kg) and having breakfast. The destruction at Durbar Square was really bad. Key stupas are gone; the wooden structures have fallen leaving leaving behind […]
30 July 2015
Having experienced a taste of the monsoon yesterday afternoon, we decided to repeat our early start in case the afternoon was wet and gloomy. We taxied to Patan (Lalitpur) which we didn’t visit last time. The taxi dropped us at the north end of Durbar square and where the ticket kiosk wasn’t (it just happened […]
29 July 2015
We set the alarm for 0615 and got going early for Pashupatinath, which we reached by taxi. We got dropped off before the stalls of trinkets and flowers which were aimed mainly at local devotees. We walked to the main temple area into which we weren’t admissible (but we knew that). We found our way […]
28 July 2015
We woke at 0630 and were slow to get ourselves ready. After yesterday’s slow service at breakfast in the hotel, we decided to eat out. We found a garden courtyard not far away which served up the morning spread slightly more promptly. Nevertheless it was about 0830 by the time we set off for Bhaktapur. […]
27 July 2015
Breakfast in the hotel ground-floor courtyard was painfully slow. We walked to Thamel thereafter. The shops were a mix of hiking apparel/gear, souvenirs and cafes. During the walk, we saw a few of vacant lots with signs of destruction. All but one could have been interpreted as normal construction or demolition in a third world […]