The passengers to Kathmandu had nothing to do with those from the earlier flights. The vast majority was clearly going to do some treking, others seemed to go for a sentimental return to the 60's. That was clearly the case of a group of guys from Argentina and a paraplegic from Switzerland. I then would talk with this one in Kathmandu. I think we were a little bit unlucky as we saw little of the Himalayan landscape. The airport didn't look bad seen from the plane. It didn't seem to be very movimented, there weren't much planes around. Our first contact with Nepal was that hall before customs, where we had to fill the visa forms and we changed some money. We knew by the employees of the exchange counter that the next 3 days were holidays, it was Diwali time, one of the major hindu festivals in Nepal. Newari, one of the main ethnic groups of the Kathmandu Valley was also commemorating their New Year.

When we go out the airport we were surrounded by little boys trying to get our luggages, a really confusion. I noticed that the taxi drivers weren't getting close to the entrance, I had the feeling they were respecting any police directives. We had instructions of a friend of Maria Jose to go to Kathmandu Guesthouse, so we went talking to a man that handled a banner of that place. He didn't appear to understand english very well. Then another young man came and quickly made us following him. That was my first contact with a taxi and hotel tout, which happily is a species not very common in Nepal. Maria Jose did all bargaining. We agreed on US $12 by day for a double room with attached bath, taxi ride included. We were about to begin moving when a police man came. It was looking for me, I had forgotten my passport and some other things on my trolley... This was my first contact with the nepali honesty. It was one of those hassling boys that found my things and delivered it to the police man.

It's not easy to describe those first impressions of Kathmandu, taken from inside that run down taxi. Disorganisation, dirt, ruined houses, lots of people, a strange smell of unsusual engine oils and combustibles, these are some of the things that come to my head. The tout didnt stop talking, but I wasn't paying much attention. The airport isn't too far from downtown, so we arrived to the guesthouse really quick. The tout "explained" to us that the main building of the Kathmandu Guesthouse was full, so we were going to a newer building not really close to the old one. The place was fairly acceptable and the price seemed ok. There was some confusion with the exact price. I don't remember very well the details, clearly it had something to do with the tout's comission, who we thought naively that was someone from the hotel.

We were really tired, in desperate need for a nap. It was about 1 or 2 pm, we had leaved our homes more than 24 h ago. After some hours sleeping and a big shower, there we were in the streets of Kathmandu, in the Thamel district. Although it can be a little bit crowded for some persons' likes, I liked the area from the begining. It was clearly a "touristic area", with handicraft shops and little hotels and guesthouses everywhere. There weren't much hasslers and people seemed truly kind. The same for the tourists, the whole atmosphere was very pleasant. I feared a little bit that we could face some environment like Moroccan bigger towns, where I had been 2 monthes before, with lots of hasslers and really boring shoppers, so I was very glad to discover that it had nothing to do with it. I think that one of the pros of expecting the worse is that we avoid some disappointments.

Inside a shop we were surprised to be identified as portuguese by hearing our talk. It was a shop run by threee Kashmiri brothers. They showed as some business cards from Portuguese from Macao, who they claim to be their friends and customers. We found them very charming, not only because they didn't try to force any buying, they really seemed nice persons. On the following days it would become an habit to come talking a little bit and taking a tea.

One of our discovers of that late afternoon was the *real* Kathmandu Guesthouse. We began to feel really suspecious that we had been swindled. Another discover was the restaurant that would became our dinner place in Kathmandu. Its name was Tashi Deleg, it was run by a family of kind smiling tibetans. It appeared to be a place frequented mainly by usual customers, perhaps a little bit like us, who went in by hazard and we became "usual customers" instantly. It's atmosphere is very propicious to meet and talk with people around us. Their menu was varied, but that is quite common in touristic areas in Nepal, with italian, mexican, chinese and tibetan dishes. These aboundance of dishes can be rather ilusious, as they all tend to taste very "oriental" ("indian" to my little expertise), because of the spices used. Sometimes they can be very similar with each other, and it's not uncommon to eat a lasagna that looks like a spiced chop suey... As I am no purist and I wasn't going to Nepal for a gastronomic excursion, I have no complaints on the food, well at the contrary.

The prices were a pleasant surprise. The majority of the dishes were less than 100 ruppees ($1 USD was about 46 r.), many were below 80. Beer could raise prices anormally, as a bottle costed about the same as the food portions. They were 0.65 l. however. There were 3 common brands, their price being much the same: the well known Tuborg, San Miguel, a brand which I thought was spanish, but came from Philipinnes and another one, the only local, Sun.

As it would become usual, we stayed at the table talking for some time. On several occasions we had company for those talks, people that were around. This time we met some felows on the next table found our Kama Sutra postcards very interesting, so they asked where we had bought them. We had found them in a library nearby. They were made of small hand painted tissue pasted on a folded paper. The paper and the hole which served as frame to the tissue was also clearly cut by hand, with small imperfections. We bought some of these to joke a little bit with some of our more close friends. We bought also others, more "respectful", with a painting on a dried leaf, also pasted on a folded paper. Of course that both kinds of postcards were a success!