Woke up and started reading my book, whilst Ollie got bored and went to get some money and came back with warm apple strudels, yummy. I ate mine still in bed finishing of the chapter that I was on. Once I was up we began today’s adventure by walking west through the streets of Kathmandu in search of the famous monkey temple.
On the way we passed through streets that were filthier than rubbish tips back in NZ, the filthy grim was unimaginable. We watched people simply empty sacks of rubbish next to river.
We ended up crossing the polluted river on a bamboo bridge spanning some 10m. We continued on the path of filth until we reached a main road, we went west until the road began to climb, too far so we headed south towards the hill with the fancy temple on top. Little did we know this was the monkey temple. We asked for directions from an armed police officer who had an old Chinese assault rifle that looked as if would shoot as far as you could throw it. We realized that we were on the right track when we saw locals crowd around tourists trying to sell them all sorts of nic nacs.
It only took a few steps up the hill to spot our first monkey busily feeding away on raw rice. I tried to get Ollie to sit close to the monkey for a photo, but the monkey was quite protective of rice dish, and gracefully showed his teeth when Ollie neared. We watched the monkeys for an hour and headed back to the hotel. It took a while to find the hotel again in the crowded streets.
We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning our bikes to perfection for the NZ customs. I ended up needing a mechanic for an enlarged allen key as my pedals wouldn’t come off. A motorbike repair shop helped sort this out. On the way there I got hit by a car in the back of the leg, but only at low speed, I didn’t even bother to turn around.
Once we had the bikes packed we treated ourselves to some more backed goods then headed back to our hotel for some R and R until hunger brewed. We ended up having a set Tibetan menu which was our first dish we couldn’t finish off. I enjoyed an Everest beer whilst thinking about the adventures of the past few weeks. I was glad to be heading back to NZ tomorrow, but somewhat sad that our Himalayan holiday was at an end.
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