October 15, 2006 - Taxi for 6 Please!

This is Leila Silveira reporting from Kathmandu. Today was a hectic day, but really fun. I met with the team at noon and we went off on quite an adventure. I wanted to take them to my favorite restaurant in Kathmandu but since the location is off the beaten path, the taxi driver didn't have a clue how to get there.

But that was just part of the fun, we were willing to get 2 taxis for the entire team being a total of 6, but as I was the only one who knew where the place was, I was a bit skeptical about separating the group.

Bottom line, we all went in one cab, the 6 of us plus the cab driver. We are talking a real small taxi here. We were all literally one on top of another. It turns out I am glad I did that since the driver got seriously lost and it was good that we were all together after all.

Catherine couldn't believe it. Between being claustrophobic in the back with Wendy on her lap and scared of driving around Katmandu, we could only hear her screaming. Anyway, she had a trip of a lifetime. The driver would get lost and do some U-turns without warning. Pretty wild.

Chuck made a good comment….he could see that wherever we were everyone was looking at us. He said "it does take a lot to actually shock people here; they think that we are doing something weirder than what they do on regular basis".

Driving in Kathmandu you see wild things all the time. We are talking serious traffic with sacred cows all over the place making the traffic even worse. There is also the problem that the garbage in Kathmandu has not being collected in 5 days since the negotiation for the new garbage dump failed and the garbage men can't pick up the garbage since they don't have anywhere to dispose of it.

Finally we made it there after some police gave us directions. I was sitting in the back at the bottom so I couldn't really help with the directions at all. Actually I could barely see which direction we were going in.

But it was definitely worth it, we had an amazing meal, between fancy gourmet salads to duck "magret de canard", amazing sandwiches, brownie with vanilla ice cream, nougat ice cream to name a few. They definitely had their best meal in Kathmandu.

After the meal we walked around the area a bit and did some shopping since they have nice shops in the area. Elegant shops that take us out of the Thamel shopping district feeling of being overwhelmed.  Chuck had some fun talking with a shop owner specialized in textile which I am sure it brought him back fond memories on his textile background. 

Katherine, Linda and I bought some beautiful necklaces as well and before we knew it, we were all back in one cab to the Yak and Yeti. This time Catherine sat in the front and enjoyed the ride taking photos of us being squeezed in the back. Quite a ride.

Well our adventures haven't ended yet, please keep tune for another day in Kathmandu. 

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