9 Day Trip to Nepal (from Delhi)

Hi Folks, I will talk about our 9 day trip to Nepal, that we went from 22^nd Dec,2017 to 2^nd Jan, 2018, in this post. All costs mentioned below are in Indian Rupees(INR), for 2 pax.

Suggested Itinerary:

Day 1 Night 8:00PM: Train from Delhi to Gorakhpur

Day 2: Reach Gorakhpur, and transfer to Sunauli -> Kathmandu

Day 3: Arrive at Kathmandu in morning, Local Sight-seeing:  Durbar square, Hanuman ka Dhoka, Garden of Dreams, Thamel Shopping, Café Hopping

Day 4: Kathmandu Local Sight-seeing: Pashupathinath Temple, Boudha Stupa, Kopan Monastery, Swayambhu Stupa

Day 5: Day Trip to Bhaktapur – Durbar Square, Nyatapola Temple, 55 Window Palace, Kal Bhairav Temple and Shopping

Day 6: Transfer to Pokhara, and arrive Pokhara in the evening

Day 7: Phewa Tal, Tal Barahi Temple, Mahendra Caves, Davis Falls, Peace Pagoda

Day 8: Sarangkot Sun-rise, Para-gliding, Bindhya Basini Temple, and transfer to Chitwan

Day 9: Chitwan Jeep Safari, Tharu Cultural Show, Haathi Chowk and Rhino Chowk Shopping

Day 9: Transfer to Sunauli-> Gorakhpur -> Delhi

Few pointers about the Nepal Trip:

·      Weather in Nepal from Dec 23^rd to Jan 1^st was very similar to Delhi Weather. The temperatures did not go below 7-8 degrees centigrade in the nights, and days were warm and pleasant. Plan warm clothing keeping the prevalent temperatures in mind.

·      Roads in Nepal are very few or rather non-existent. This is the case post the 2015 earthquake is what many locals told us. So, plan a delay in inter-city transfers and even while travelling within the city. Taking domestic flights for inter-city transfers would probably be a more comfortable option.

Because of lack of decent roads, Nepal is a very very dusty country. Locals wear masks every time they venture out. We also bought masks over there and wore it during transit.

·      For Indians, while it is advisable to carry passport, we were not asked anywhere in our entire 9 day stay. 1 Indian rupee = 1.6 Nepali Rupee. They accept all Indian currencies, except probably Indian coins. 500s were also accepted, however 2000Rs notes might be a problem. We carried cash accordingly.

·      Few other places that can be visited, but we could not, due to paucity of time were – Nagarkot near Kathmandu, Lumbini, Janakpuri and Maithili.

Cost of Trip:

Train to & Fro Gorakhpur: 5600Rs

Hotels: 8100Rs

Food & Sight-seeing: 14700Rs

Total: 28,400Rs

Things to eat in Nepal:

Chatamari: This is the Nepali Rice thin crust Pizza (That’s the closest I can describe it)! It has eggs/meat thinly spread on the top.

The Thin egg topping on the rice-flour pancake - Chatamari

Price: 80 Nepali Rupees, Where to Eat: Street side joints in Thamel, Kathmandu

Newari Khaja Set: This is the set meal lunch of Nepal. It has dal(lentil), Bhaat (rice), a curry, and typically accompanied by a leafy Gundruk (side dish), and some pickles. Non vegetarians get an additional serving of chicken, mutton or buff serving.

Khaja Set with Rice, Dal, Chicken and Gundruk(Leafy side dish) along with pickle

Price: Anywhere between 200-400 Nepali Rupees. Where to Eat: Street-side Joints, as well as all restaurants in Nepal.

Yomari: This is a rice flour dumpling, with a sweet filling inside. The shape is quite peculiar and cute!

Rice Dumpling with sweet filling - Yomari

Price: Nepali 50Rs; Where to Eat: Any Nepali Road-side joint

Bajuko Sekuwa: This is barbequed meat – in three variants – chicken, mutton and Buff(Buffalo meat is called Buff here)

Barbequed Buffalo Meat - Bajuko Sekuwa

Price: Nepali 100Rs, Where to Eat: Thamel Market, Kathmandu

Bara: These are small pancakes made of ground lentil – it does have egg or meat as add-on options!

Lentil Pancake - Bara; Chicken and Egg variants also available

Price: Nepali 50Rs; Where to Eat: Bhaktapur, Kathmandu from any Newari Joint

Bhatmas Sadeko: It’s a kind of a salad, made from soya beans. The one we had was adequately spicy, in the cold weather of Chitwan!

Soya Beans Salad - Bhatmas Sandeko

Price: Around 150-200 Nepali Rs, Where to Eat: Chitwan, Kathmandu road side

Thingmo & Phing: Thing-mo is a porous bread, and Phing is the soupy broth (with noodles, Buffalo/Chicken/Meat added), which is the side dish the Thing-mo is served with.

Porous Bread with Noodles and Buffalo Soup - ThingMo & La-Phing

Price: 200 Nepalese Rs; Where to Eat: Yak Restaurant, Thamel, Kathmandu

Ju Ju Dahi: This is a special curd make from Buffalo Milk, and is available in the Bhaktapur Durbar Square area. No pictures of it though!

Trip in Detail:

We started on the 22^nd of Dec, 2017 from Anand Vihar Terminus in Delhi. We took the Humsafar express at 8PM, which was scheduled to arrive in Gorakhpur at 8AM on 23^rd. However, the train was late by 7 hours, and reached Gorakhpur at 3PM (It is usually late by 5 hours on an average apparently, which we didn’t know before the trip!). We quickly grabbed some lunch at the Gorakhpur station and got a shared cab to Sunauli border(300Rs per person). We reached in around 2.5hours at the Sunauli border. It was 6.30PM in Sunauli, and since it was winter, it was pretty dark. 

At the Sunauli Border, on the Indian Side

We were looking for a cab/bus to Sauraha (Chitwan), but were not able to find any. Finally at around 8PM, we bought tickets for a bus headed to Kathmandu. The tickets were 510 Nepali rupees per person. (Our hotel bookings were all last minute and flexible, with no advance payments. Hence we were open to travel to any destination where we could get transport). Journey to Kathmandu took around 12 hours. We boarded the bus at at 9PM, and it halted for dinner at midnight 12. After a long long traffic jam, due to highway construction activity, we finally reached Kathmandu bus park at 9AM. 

From the bus park we took a bus till Thamel (around 500m from Thamel), and walked to the hotel. We freshened up, and started for local sight-seeing in Kathmandu. Listing down the places to visit in Kathmandu (Not in the order we visited, but the most logical order of visiting I could arrive at, keeping distances in mind)

Thamel & Indira Chowk: Thamel is the equivalent of “Mall Road”, in all Indian Hill stations. This place bustles with shoppers, looking for great deals in items like saffron, Himalayan oils, Teas, woolen garments, etc. There is some amount of bargaining that one can do here.

Royal Durbar Square: This is the square in front of the Royal Palace of former Kathmandu kingdom. This is centrally located, bustling with tourists and pigeons. Parts of it have been destroyed due to the earthquake in 2015.

Hanuman Dhoka: This is also near the Royal Durbar square. It has a Hanuman statue and a Kal Bhairav statue in its premises.

Kal Bhairav in the Background

Garden of Dreams: This is located in in Central Kathmandu, and is also called Swapna Bagaicha. There is an entrance ticket for SAARC and foreign nationals. Walk in for some great seasonal flowers and trees on display and a quaint lovely café in one of its entrances.

Narayanhiti Palace & Museum: This is the place where the previous kings of Nepal stayed. We could not visit this, since it was closed for Christmas. But people in Kathmandu claim it to be a must-visit monument to understand Nepal’s rich history.

The Entrance of Narayanhiti Museum

Thamel, Durbar Square, Hanuman Dhoka, Garden of Dreams and Narayanhiti were walkable from our hotel in Thamel. For Pashupathinath onwards, we took city buses. People are helpful when we asked them directions, and all our local sight-seeing was done through google maps, and city buses!

Pashupathinath Temple: This is a very sacred temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is one of the UNESCO’s World Heritage sites. Apparently the head of Lord Shiva is present in this temple, while there are 12 Jyotirlingas in India, representing the other parts of his body. Photography is prohibited inside the temple sanctum complex. A click just at the entrance of this great temple is below.

Pashupatinath Temple in the background

Boudha: This is the crown jewel of Nepal. A very huge and majestic monument with the eyes of Buddha painted on it. Foreign national and SAARC nationals have an entry permit, but it’s a very beautiful monument, with apparently around 365 steps to reach the top/portico of this monument. There are lot of cafes and eateries inside the Boudha complex, to sit-back and enjoy the view of the great eyes, with some great food.

The Majestic Boudha

Yours Truly!

The Lovely Pigeons!

Shechen Monastery: Kathmandu has sizeable Tibetan influence with lot of Buddhist Monasteries around. Shechen is one such monastery in the vicinity from Boudha. We walked to this from Boudha. It is a very quiet monastery, with hardly any tourists around! (I love such kind of places)

At the Beautiful Shechen Monastery

Kopan Monastery: Kopan Monastery is quite far from Boudha to walk. We realized this on the google maps and changed two buses to reach Kopan. On reaching, we realized it was already 5PM, and the monastery closed. But we did manage to get a few pictures!

Inside the Kopan Monastery

Swayambhu Stupa: This is a huge statue of Buddha located in the vicinity of the main Kathmandu Bus Park. We visited this in the last evening of our stay there. Evening clicks below!

Night Time Click of the Swayambhu

Places to visit in Bhaktapur:

The next day, we explored Bhaktapur. This was a day trip we took from Kathamandu. We started at around 10AM, and took a bus from Ratna park again to Bhaktapur. It is situated around 20kms from Kathmandu. This place was badly affected by the earthquake, and the same was reflected in the current state of these monuments. Places we visited in ideal Walk Order:

Durbar Sqaure: This is the central square of Bhaktapur, and has an entrance ticket for all SAARC and foreign nationals. Within the same Durbar Square complex, there any many ancient monuments, that one must visit.

Bhaktapur Durbar Square in the background

55 Windows Palace: One can apparently count the 55 Windows in this place. It has a temple inside it, (which has been closed for visitors now), but the complex is huge and majestic to warrant a mention!

Nyatapola: This is another palatial structure with two lions at the entrance. It is very rich in heritage and a feast to the eyes. It has 5 layers of roofs, and hence the name Nyatapola.

The Five-Layered Nyatapola

Kal Bhairab Temple:  This is on the side of Nyatapola. This is a 3-storeyed temple dedicated to Lord Shiva in his dreadful incarnation.

Triple Layered Kal Bhairav in the background

Pottery Square: This is a very picturesque street around 500m away from the Central Durbar Square. It has lines of potters either making pots, or drying their already-made pots. We saw hordes of very experienced photographers trying to click pictures in varied angles. Some amateur photography below!

Pots Galore @ The Pottery Square

That was our day-trip to Bhaktapur. We returned to Kathmandu at around 7PM and retired for the night. Our next destination was Pokhara. Pokhara is around 200kms away from Kathmandu. We took a micro van from Kathmandu, and reached Pokhara at around 8PM. It took us 8 hours to cover the distance. We checked into our hotel in Pokhara and retired for the night. 

Places to visit in Pokhara:

Phewa Tal & Tal Barahi Temple: Pokhara is also called the Lake City. Phewa Tal, is a huge lake in the heart of Pokhara. There are boats lined up which take tourists to the Tal Barahi Temple situated in the centre of Phewa Lake.

Phewa Lake has many cafes and eateries lined around it. It makes a great place to hang-out in the evening, after a long day.

The Lake, the Temple at the center and the Peace Pagoda on top!

Mahendra Cave/Gufa: From Phewa Lake, we took a bus to reach Mahendra Cave. This is a large limestone cave consisting stalactites and stalagmites. It was a very unique experience of exploring this place! There is a small Shiva Temple inside the cave.

At the Entrance Gate

The Walkway into the Cave

The Davis Falls descending into the Caves!

Davis Falls: This is opposite the Mahendra Cave entrance. It was initially called Devi’s Falls, but was re-christened to Davis Falls, after a tourist, Mrs.Davis got washed away by the falls and died. These falls, pass through the Mahendra Caves, and can be seen from inside the cave!!

The Falls before descending into the Cave

International Peace Pagoda: Also called Shanti Stupa, we headed to this place by a bus from Davis Falls. It is built at a great elevation and offers panoramic views of Mt. Annapurna, Phewa Lake and the whole Pokhara city.

The Majestic Peace Pagoda, and Annapurna Peak in the Backdrop

Bindhya Basini Temple: This is a beautiful temple that we took a bus to, from Peace Pagoda.

Bindhya Basini in its glory

Pokhara Street Festival: The last 4 days of 2017 hosted the 19^th Pokhara Street Festival. It was a very lively carnival, with the local Nepali culture coming out through various dance and skit performances on the roads. The evenings were very bright with great food stalls, and live food counters across the lakeside road! It was a feast to our eyes!!

The Carnival Look!

Our Dinner!

That was our short two day trip to Pokhara. We regretted our decision of allocating only 2 days to Pokhara in our itinerary. The weather, the people, the street festival and the whole carnival like look was very difficult to come out of! If you have a day extra, do visit Sarangkot, which is around 15kms from Pokhara. It is famous for the beautiful Sun rise in the Annapurna peak, and for Para-gliding.

Things to do in Chitwan National Park:

We next headed to Chitwan. We took a bus from the Pokhara bus park to Chitwan, at around 2PM. We reached Chitwan at 9PM. We checked into the hotel we had pre-booked at Chitwan and retired for the night.

While there are many things to do in Chitwan, we chose to do Jeep Safari  and Canoeing.

Chitwan has two main squares – The Haathi Chowk and the Rhino Chowk. Around both these Chowks there are many tour operators, who arrange Jeep Safaris.

At Haathi Chowk

Chitwan Jeep Safari: After a lot of bargaining, we got a deal for 1600Rs for 2 people in the Jeep Safari. They take you inside the forest around 22kms, till the Crocodile breeding centre, and then bring you back. The trip starts with a short river crossing in a canoe. There are alligators lined at the banks of the rivers! The round trip is around 45kms, with a 30 minute halt in the Crocodile Breeding Centre. We spotted Rhinos, Deers, and Alligators along the way. There were innumerable birds of different species( There was a guide in our jeep, who was identifying them, and many of them were migratory, is what we were told)

Canoeing to cross the river!

Crocodile Spotting

 

At the Alligator Breeding Center

And Finally spotted the Rhino!!!

On our way, we saw people doing Jungle walks as well. The hiking trail is along the motor pathway itself, and we were told that Jungle walk is more fun than the Safari!

We returned at 6PM, after the safari, and roamed around the place. There are lot of souvenir shops lined in Chitwan. There is a Tharu cultural show at 7PM, portraying the local culture. It is 200Rs per person for foreigners. Do watch this show! There are many cafes lined up in the road between Haathi Chowk and Rhino Chowk. We explored few of them.

Next day was pack-up for us. We took a bus from Chitwan to Bharatpur, and then to Sunauli/Bhairawa. From Sunauli, we took a bus to Gorakhpur, to catch our train to Delhi.