Nowadays we don’t travel with country guidebooks, preferring to just use maps and trekking guides. So when we come to larger cities and towns it normally takes us a few days of trial and error and asking for recommendations to find places we like. Here are some of our favourites from Thamel, with a map of where they can be found:
Accommodation:
- Backpackers’ Inn – comfy beds, wifi and hot showers. The en suite rooms here are very good value in off-season (the only time we’ve stayed).
- New Namaste Guest House – if Backpackers’ is full, try this nearby place which also has good value rooms.
Food & Drink:
- Cha Cha Spaghetti Cafe – some of the best tourist food we found in the Himalaya. The pasta dishes are especially good.
- Anjana’s Tea and Coffee Shop – on an alley in the centre of Thamel, opposite ‘Yala’s Newari Restaurant’ this place (which doesn’t have a sign) does basic but delicious food at cheap prices. While you wait, enjoy watching a chapatti-making master at work.
- Weizen Bakery – join the 50% discount post-20:00 scrum!
- Lumbini Hotel – good deluxe thalis, great tandoori aloo parathas and curd.
- 65 Momo Soup – tasty and cheap momos and chowmein.
- Sandwich Point – as the name suggests, this Thamel institution is the place to go for sandwiches.
- Sam’s Bar – a nice place to while away an evening or two. Classic tunes, interesting wall graffiti.
Outdoor Gear:
- Shona’s – run by a Nepali/English couple this is a reliable place for good quality down clothing – their own brand is ‘Alpine Designs’. We have sleeping bags, down trousers, down jackets and down mitts from this place! Andy, the owner, is also a good source of trekking info.
- Mount Everest Summiter’s Shop – run by Nima Gombu Sherpa who has climbed Everest many times, this is a good shop to pick up some new or 2nd hand kit.
- Sherpa Gear – the flagship store is wonderful to visit just go to touch and feel some beautiful kit. All the while wishing you had more money to buy some of it.
Cycling:
- Dusk till Dawn – Sonam at the branch on Amrit Marg (there’s another office in the Kathmandu Guest House) has plenty of spares and is a reliable guy to go to for repairs. He’s also a goldmine of information about cycling in Nepal.
Interweb:
- MSN Cyber Cafe – in the Narsing Camp alley, this place is expensive and has a rubbish name, but is good.
Beer: (Not KTM specific, but extremely useful to know nonetheless)
- Everest: piss. Nepal Ice: Special Brew. Gorkha: yum yum.
Thamel Map
View Pikes’ Kathmandu in a larger map
Thanks for the update and all the info. You guys are doing well. Cheers, Ken