🚧
Under Construction — This post is a work in progress. Thoughts, structure, and content may change.

Day 0 / 15 : Permits and Thamel

Daily diary.

Date : 9/5/2025

Today I was woken up by shyam and Niranjan for breakfast. Though half asleep, I dragged my body and brushed my teeth and threw myself downstairs where the rest of the group was hanging out.

The breakfast was a set breakfast of toast and eggs and coffee. That was actually very nice, however the coffee was absolutely weak. I would not feed this coffee to my enemies. Fortunately they obliged when I asked them to add more instant coffee to the existing cup itself. That made it palatable.

We were just done with our breakfast when sid arrived along with Jangbu sherpa. Soon we were deep into the weeds of the whole process. Sid said that "we looked fit" as a group so we should not have a lot of trouble on the hike.

He had gotten the MCAP and the ACAP permits for us. The only permit remaining was the MRAP for which we needed to go to the immigration office with our passports. Hassan volunteered to do this. We also decided to clear all the bills (guide and permit cost) before the trek.
Since we needed cabs for this business, all of us went to get our money changed from a guy that Hassan had found for us. This was waay too easy than what I was imagining. With the money changed we headed back to the hotel where sid was waiting a d we paid him all the dues. Then we went out separate ways. Sid and hassan would be back in a while with the bus tickets (for next day).
Me, Niranjan and tejas decided to walk to Astrek climbing wall and explore the place. This was fun.

The astrek climbing wall is a combination of a climbing-wall, a bouldering gym, a cafe and two different stores. They all share the same common space so it's all very near to each other. I looked at a bunch of climbing gear that I want to get. The prices are very competitive especially compared to what we get in india.

Soon it was time to meet sid and hassan, so we headed back. This meeting was short, we discussed the ticket and tomorrow's plan. After that shyam and Sonam went away to complete some office work and the rest of us decided to have lunch together.

Lunch was a nepali traditional buff thakali. The buff was a bit too chewy for me, but it was extremely good food.

Post lunch hassan and tejas took off for some work, so now it was just me and Niranjan. We started walking and exploring the city, we went to a Himalayan java coffee store and had a v60 pourover which was recommended by the barista there. Just adjacent to this store were a couple of stores that were selling branded expensive gear, and we decided to have a look. Well, I decided and Niranjan had to tag along. This continued for an hour or so after which we retired to the room. We bought matching t-shirts on our way back. I had a pending shower to take as I had not showered in 2 days. Also, I would not showering for the next 20 days MINIMUM, so this shower was essential.

After showering, me and Niranjan headed out again, this time to a rock cafe called purple haze. When we reached there it was almost empty but things soon picked up. There was live music and a band called "The Apostles" were playing some really good music. It was fun. This is the first time im attending a live band perform. It was too noisy, so I stuffed some tissue paper into my ears which made things bearable. The food here was phenomenal.

While returning, I picked up pepsi (my personal anti-puke juice for long bus rides) and some metos. Tomorrow we have a 12 hours bus ride. I could not be more excited.

Toodles. This is 23:30 and I'm officially signing off for the night.