Sightseeing in Kathmandu where my $190 has gone?
We are a couple of sixties and recently we have done the sightseeing in Kathmandu with professional live tour guide and air-conditioned well maintained clean private car. On reference of that sightseeing we are writing the experience that we got and impressions that we received during the trip as well as our vote for that sightseeing we are expressing through our blog.
The Journey from airport to Hotel
We researched on internet and booked the hotel through online. The people have written a good review about the hotel. As we landed in Kathmandu airport as we have booked our hotel through online booking platform we didn’t booked transfers. Immediately when we came out to search for taxis we have seen no taxis there but a whole bunch of people with name plates we are sure there is nobody to find us as we didn’t book the transfers. Somebody suggested us to go out of the airport to get regular taxis. We were thinking it must be too far to go out and decided to take a prepaid taxi. The gentlemen in the counter charged us 750 rupees and made a classic small cab ready for us. As we entered the cab after putting our luggage in the trunk my wife likes to seat next to the driver, immediately there shows up a man and told to my wife please go to the back seat with me as he is seating next to the driver. I protested why he has to go with us then he said the hotel we booked is in the small street and we get difficulties to find and he will assist finding the hotel we convinced and said Ok. As we came out from the airport he started scanning our program, as we were booked different type of activities with different online portals and different local operator we said to the man that we are fully booked he seems little upset then told us we paid more for the trip and he can offer the sightseeing for $80 only. We were thinking the portal might have a commission and administrative cost of $20 and the price we paid is reasonable but the actual cost price would be just $80. As we reached the main tourist hub Thamel, the hotel we booked has so tiny street our taxi cannot reach the entrance of the hotel. We have to carry all our bags with us to the entrance to the hotel. The gentlemen who came from the airport said us whether we like to give some tip to driver as he is waiting for the tip, we have given couple of hundred rupees he didn’t seemed happy but he moved away, we felt little bit uncomfortable but there was no choice and we checked in to the hotel and got a room in 5th floor and the hotel didn’t have lift so we have to walk all the stairs. The boy from the hotel carried our stuff and we gave him $1 as his tip, he seems happy. As we were tired then we hangout outside found a small restaurant got our dinner and gone to the bed.
The sightseeing in Kathmandu
We booked the trip through popular online portal that has an offer to do sightseeing in Kathmandu covering the major highlight of central Kathmandu. We paid $100 there. The portal has their own policy we had no idea how the money get paid to the operator and how much is the cost of the trip as well as how much is the benefit of the portal. As the travel portal is reliable we were pretty sure there will be somebody for doing our trip. We even got some points as we book the trip through Portal. The time of the sightseeing was fixed 9:30 in the morning for a booked day. As we were having breakfast at the rooftop of the hotel we were informed that somebody down there looking for us we were sure that is for sightseeing. After breakfast we came down we met him the first thing he asked us is whether we have Nepalese rupees to pay the entrance tickets, we know we don’t have entrance fee included in the trip we bought but we had no idea how much it would be. As the gentlemen told us the entrance fee would be roughly$55 equivalent and there will be extra photography fee if we like to take picture with Sadhus and there will be donation if we want to see Kumari, the living goddess and some extra for lunch and coffee. My wife has gone to change $100 thinking we will get some extra money to find some typical souvenirs also. Mean time there comes a driver we get in to the car and they brought us to Swoyambhunath also popular by the name monkey temple, the temple was beautiful with view of Kathmandu Valley. We drove to Kathmandu Durbar square where we have seen the popular temples from the area and old palace complex. Later the tour was continued to Pashupatinath where we got an experience that we have never seen in our life. They were burning the dead bodies on the right bank of the river and bunch of tourist were even taking picture from the small classic bridge of the burning pyres. The tour by around 2 o clock reached the last place of the day, the popular Tibetan village as well as great Buddhist temple of the area Boudhanath. We were dying of hunger as it was already 2 o clock so we told our guide we wanted to go for lunch. He brought us to one of the rooftop restaurant which has a stunning view of the stupa, he said the restaurant is middle priced but we felt overpriced. We got a simple couple of dishes and a bottle of beer and paid around $25. The guide explained the restaurants are expensive than Thamel because they open only for Lunch and there will be no business after that. We trusted this funny and informative guy and as we were tired we decided to go back to our hotel. Our guide even offers us to make a small local market walk but we were happy to go back to hotel. Around 4 o clock we reached our nest. Before entering the hotel we said goodbye to our day team and left them a tip of $10. We didn’t know whether they were happy or not but we liked the tour a lot. We were thinking the tour is expensive at the beginning but after doing it we believe it worth doing the trip. The company and guide with his driver are very nice and hope to do the trips in the future. We felt Kathmandu is not cheap regarding tours, hotels, sightseeing and even souvenirs but the experience we brought home is very nice. We recommend the tour company for everybody Himalayan Travel Consultant which can be reached at www.himalayantravelconsultant.com the team of Gokool seems very nice he can be reached at +977 98511 26351 through Viber or even Whatspap you can write an email to them at info@himalayantravelconsultant.com and enjoy the trip with them.
