My Experience in Nepal
October 2, 2019
The Green Lion
By Elke, from the Netherlands
Hi! My name is Elke and I’m 21 years old. I’m living in the Netherlands and I will be travelling for one year and my first country to visit is Nepal! I just finished my Bachelor’s in Psychology and I wanted to travel before I will start my Masters. The reason I chose The Green Lion is that you can do a lot of activities, but you can also do things on your own or with the people you meet. I also think it’s a good balance to be a tourist in the country you visit and do some community engagement after. It was my first trip alone and I liked the idea of staying in a house with other people, but still have your own program. I stayed for 4 weeks at The Green Lion Center in Kathmandu and I would like to give you some information about my time there!
After arriving at the airport on Sunday, I went to my new home for the next 4 weeks. My first impression of Kathmandu was actually not really good. There is so much traffic, chaos and there is a lot of dust. But when I arrived at the Green Lion house, House In-charge Mr Bhumi welcomed me with a few house rules and so much enthusiasm.
Week 1: Culture Week
With excitement, on Monday we started the culture week. I definitely recommend you to do the culture week. You’ll learn your way around Kathmandu, you meet new people and after this week, I could say for the first time that I really liked Kathmandu!
We had some introductory lessons, culture lessons and language classes. On Monday, we ate Dal Bath with our hands, because that’s normal in the Nepalese culture. We visited the Monkey Temple on Tuesday that was my favourite! There were monkeys everywhere and you have to walk 365 stairs to get to the temple. Every stair is for a sin a day, so when you’re upstairs you’re purified and I think that’s a beautiful idea.
On Wednesday, we made our own lunch and that was so much fun!! After all, it tasted so good too. Before dinner, we had a culture night! Everyone had to make a presentation about their country. It was so much fun! We danced the polonaise (a dance people in the Netherlands dance when they are going out) and everyone tried our Dutch candy. The coordinators danced a Nepalese dance and for example, the girls from China drew a map with explanations about their food and culture.
We saw some other historical temples on Thursday, for example, the sex temple. The government made a temple to break the taboo around sex. In the afternoon, we ate MoMo’s at a restaurant, and also tried a typical Nepalese dish. On Friday, we did a hike in the morning and the view from the top was so nice!! In the afternoon, we took a nap and after dinner, we went to Thamel. We booked a hotel and went clubbing! Tip: LOD (Lord of the Drinks) is one of the biggest clubs with a lot of Western music.
On Saturday and Sunday, there’s no lunch, so we went outside for lunch. Nearby the centre you can have a nice lunch at DIYALO (15 min walk) or you could go to Thamel (500 rupees cab).