Introduction For the fi­nal two weeks of my three month stint in Nepal I lived near the ab­so­lute­ly spec­tac­u­lar, world her­itage Boud­hanath Stu­pa. It is a beau­ti­ful part of the world and was a rea­son­able place to get some work done. For the pre­vi­ous three months I had been al­most ex­clu­sive­ly trav­el­ling, so I was look­ing for­ward to some respite, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing my re­cent ill­ness. I se­lect­ed Boud­hanath as the place to stay for a va­ri­ety of rea­sons; first­ly the air qual­i­ty com­pared to the rest of Kath­man­du is re­al­ly quite good, if you stay in the right side street. Sec­ond­ly I want­ed some­where spir­i­tu­al to think about my time spent at Kopan Monastery. And fi­nal­ly it is just a lot more low-key than the fran­ti­cal­ly in­fa­mous streets of dusty, crum­bling Thamel. While stay­ing here I spent most of my time get­ting my web­site up and run­ning, and edit­ing the ar­ti­cles that I had punched out on my phone while trekking in the Hi­malayas.

Accommodation AirBnb near Boud­hanath - Copy­right © joshfug­gle.com For ac­com­mo­da­tion I stayed in an AirBnb with­in walk­ing dis­tance to the stu­pa. I de­cid­ed to stay here as I wished to have a place where I could cook by my­self, and most guest hous­es don’t have that op­tion. I lucked out and found a place near the Tsechen Shedup Ling Sakya Tharig Monastery, which I be­lieve is the best street to stay on for a cou­ple of rea­sons. First­ly there is very lit­tle ve­hi­cle traf­fic, it’s most­ly just foot traf­fic, which made the ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing in the area much more pleas­ant. Next this is the on­ly ma­jor street that I found that didn’t have a tick­et check­point for you to en­ter the stu­pa ring. There are quite a lot of al­ley-ways and ar­cades to get in to the stu­pa with­out pay­ing, but by liv­ing on this street you don’t need to go out of your way to find one, you can just walk straight on in. I don’t mind pay­ing en­trance fees as a tourist, but pay­ing to en­ter an area that I lived in made a tad less sense. Monks light­ing can­dles near the stu­pa - Copy­right © joshfug­gle.com An­oth­er op­tion for liv­ing near the stu­pa is to stay at one of the guest hous­es; there are many guest hous­es avail­able, a lot with­in the stu­pa ring it­self. If you plan to stay here for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time, then I would sug­gest pre-book­ing for just a cou­ple of nights, then hit the streets when you ar­rive to check out the avail­able op­tions. I was stay­ing here dur­ing De­cem­ber and could find emp­ty guest hous­es for the fol­low­ing day, but per­haps Oc­to­ber (high sea­son) would be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. In the last few days of my time here I booked a guest house right along­side the Tsechen Shedup Monastery; it was an awe­some guest house in my favourite quite street that fea­tured sun­ny rooms over­look­ing the walk­ing street and a rooftop kitchen, while on­ly cost­ing 1500rs per night for a twin room. The on­ly prob­lem was the in­ter­net be­came quite con­gest­ed in the evening. You can get rooms for 1000rs per night in the stu­pa ring, but a lot are tiny and don’t have win­dows, such as the Boud­ha Inn Med­i­ta­tion Cen­ter. Lo­cals and trav­ellers light­ing can­dles near the stu­pa - Copy­right © joshfug­gle.com

Working Spaces I was on­ly stay­ing in Boud­ha for two weeks, so didn’t both­er try­ing to find a co-work­ing space, though there are some around but in oth­er ar­eas of the city. With­in the stu­pa ring there are quite a lot of cafes that al­low you to use their Wifi and oc­cu­py a ta­ble for ex­tend­ed du­ra­tions, how­ev­er con­sid­er mak­ing a rea­son­ably-sized or­der for their hos­pi­tal­i­ty, typ­i­cal­ly I would or­der a cof­fee and lunch. This is a tourist area and ac­cord­ing­ly there is a fig­u­ra­tive tourist tax (and lit­er­al ser­vice fee) ap­plied to restau­rant bills. How­ev­er, in re­turn the cafes here re­ward you with an ex­cel­lent view of the stu­pa, great wifi (from my ex­pe­ri­ences), com­fort­able ta­bles, and a will­ing­ness to stay for ex­tend­ed hours. I spent quite a few days at the Hi­malayan Ja­va Cafe and most days would spend around 700rs, how­ev­er the cof­fee here was fan­tas­tic, al­most at Aus­tralian stan­dards (😎). They al­so gave in­ter­net speeds of 36.2Mbps. Yikes!

Internet 4G in Nepal is re­al­ly quite ex­cel­lent; on Ncell I was get­ting speeds above 30Mbps in Kath­man­du, and for 500rs (about $6AUD) you could buy a da­ta pack of 2500mb. Al­so, note that Ncell sim cards cost 100rs, af­ter that you can buy quo­ta for them in the form of recharge cards. The recharge cards costs 100rs, 200rs, or 500rs each, which you can then spend on da­ta packs. A word of warn­ing: I heard of some ven­dors sell­ing Nepal sims with da­ta for more than 2000rs, so be care­ful. When you go to buy a sim you will need your pass­port and a pass­port pho­to handy. Fi­nal­ly make sure to get the ven­dor to ac­ti­vate your sim for you, oth­er­wise you’ll strug­gle as all the prompts are in Nepalese. Here are some links: Ncell da­ta packs

Ac­ti­vate a recharge card

Food Boud­ha had quite a few good eat­ing op­tions from Pizze­rias cost­ing al­most as much as Aus­tralian piz­za (read Road­house Cafe, I don’t rec­om­mend it, though I re­alise some will rel­ish it), to hid­den Nepalese gems that cost just a cou­ple of dol­lars per meal. My favourite Nepalese Restau­rant in the ring, which was rec­om­mend­ed to me by a Ti­betan Monk, was called Thakali. It had re­al­ly great meals with­out the un­apolo­get­ic tourist prices of some of the west­ern-styled restau­rants near­by. You can’t find this place on Google Maps, but is right next to Ti­betan Kitchen, which is on Google Maps. Since this restau­rant isn’t list­ed on­line, it’s not filled with droves of tourists, more com­mon­ly it had a gang of Monks or Nepali’s eye­balling you as you en­tered, which I con­sid­er to be a good sign. If you wish to cook then there are a lot of street ven­dors sell­ing veg­es and fruit on the side streets sur­round­ing the stu­pas. For 50rs (60c AUD) I could buy enough veg­es for 2 nights, then for an­oth­er 55rs I could buy 500 grams of hand­made noo­dles! Al­so, you have to try the curd in Nepal, it is ex­cel­lent, but ask for an unsweet­ened one, it is much bet­ter. Curd, for those that aren’t fa­mil­iar, is sim­i­lar to yo­ghurt. Out­side on the main roads you will al­so be able to find a va­ri­ety of su­per­mar­kets / gro­cery stores, just Nepali style. Cook­ing up lo­cal in­gre­di­ents - Copy­right © joshfug­gle.com Hand­made noo­dles - Copy­right © joshfug­gle.com

Culture Man in Patan - He agreed to a pho­to - Copy­right © joshfug­gle.com One of the best things about vis­it­ing Nepal is the peo­ple; they are, for the most part, ex­treme­ly kind, and wel­com­ing. This is es­pe­cial­ly the case when vis­it­ing the non-tourist ar­eas. So, re­mem­ber to re­turn the re­spect and to say your Na­mastes. Some­thing to be aware of in Nepal are the beg­gars, you will be asked quite a lot for mon­ey while walk­ing around. To man­age this I would keep a dai­ly bud­get of small notes in my pock­et, as well as buy and keep food stuffs in my back­pack for them. It wasn’t much mon­ey, just a few dol­lars per day, but didn’t leave me a feel­ing hor­ri­ble when I didn’t give them any­thing. A mem­o­rable sight is each morn­ing a huge num­ber of blind beg­gars would come out and line the foot­path of the stu­pa, then monks and nuns from the near­by monas­ter­ies would hand­out food and mon­ey to each of them as they com­plet­ed their morn­ing cir­cum­am­bu­la­tions.