Kathmandu (6 Feb.'04)

Writing from Kathmandu, where we just finished the last meeting with the country management team of our office here. Now we have about half a day free - we're currently finalising the schedule for our next visit early April. After lunch, we should be able to leave office & lounge around somewhere, before we check out from Annapurna & go to the airport, hopfully to catch the RNAC flight at 2140 (if it moves that is! It didn't last Sunday). I just hope we don't have to check in again to try for the IC flight tomorrow.

Weather here has been fine since Monday when we landed up - 16/17 C max. & 5-7 C min. - though our colleagues from Senegal & Thailand are feeling cold. The Summit Hotel had pretty basic facilities, though the view of the city & surrounding mountains from there was picturesque. 

Tuesday morning, we two took up our usual routine of half-hour walk & ambled across till the main road leading to the Himalaya Hotel. But we shifted the next day to Annapurna (mainly as our 'cold' colleagues were very intersted!).

Annapurna is a good enough hotel. It's almost next to the Royal Palace, and nearer to many markets including New Road & Thamel. But I don't know why the Taj Group has designated it a 'Luxury Hotel', when the acco. & facilities are inferior to even that at Taj Residency Hyderabad, which is a business hotel! We continue going on our morning walks, mostly around the block where the hotel is. Yesterday, we went to New Road & later in the evening to Thamel, where we had our dinner. The markets are OK, but nothing great. Things are in general costlier than they are in Delhi or perhaps anywhere else in India. Our colleague from Thailand freaked out on stones, and ended up buying quite some jewellery.