Kathmandu is apparently more polluted than Delhi. People everywhere are wearing masks and they tell us this predates COVID-19.
They’ve always been worn to protect from the pollution, although now they run a double use. The only problem being where as before they sold for 5 rupees, in light of the current world situation the price has sky rocketed to 50 rupees per mask.
People everywhere are excited to see Tom, and grateful for us spending our money with them as they lament the hard times they’ve fallen upon, which will not be changing anytime soon. We try to limit contact, while gearing up for our Everest Base Camp expedition. We hadn’t figured being prepared for -20 when we set out on this journey nine months ago so there’s a fair bit of kit we need.
Finally we head to the tourist board to purchase our trekking passes (TIMS & Sagarmatha National Park). The third pass we can only pay for on the mountain. At the front desk a man in a mask greets us with some hand sanitizer and a thermometer to the forehead, one by one. We can’t help but speculate what might happen if one of us were to be running a fever, everyone is on high alert.
The general air is subdued with few other travellers in the building, picking up the passes is a routine amount of form filling but nothing onerous. Under 10s don’t need a permit. With that we are done. We then go separate ways from our friends as we need to extend our visas for another month. We didn’t want to pay the three month visa fee of $125 USD as we were planning to only need two months, which can only be organised in country. Everything we’ve read online says this is a straight forward and inexpensive affair.
That information we find is outdated. The price has increased significantly, but under fives are free. The process is somewhat ridiculous as you need to line up at four different counters before all is said and done. We ask immediately if we can pay by card and the answer is yes but of course an hour or more later the gentleman at the third counter tells us no. Mark then heads out on a half an hour round trip to find an ATM that will accept our card. Eventually we hand over our passports at the fourth counter and half an hour later we are good to go.
Few things remain on our list. Our days in Kathmandu are done which we are glad for but the excitement that would normally be felt at this time, about to embark on our next epic adventure is just not there. We are reading everything we can which is helpful to stay informed but it’s more than that, the media, social media is creating panic, we start receiving messages as people offload their anxiety into us. We need to shut it out. Thankfully the two most important opinions are the voice of reason. Well my mum’s is worry & reason, but anchored by faith in our decisions. We are doing this thing. While we are thinking that in a months time we may need to head to a home that we don’t have, we also realise there may be no option to do that as the situation is changing as fast as the days. We can accept that.
Spend long enough in Kathmandu and you can’t help but see some of the sad and seedy side that is typical of most capital cities I’m sure. The young boy huffing glue who sleeps with dogs in the alleyway near our hotel and can’t be older than Nate the most painful.
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