Himalayas Magazine – June 2019

Utse, both with head-bashingly low entrances.

(14) The Jamaly café run by Narayan offered

superb pies and cakes. (15) KC’s, whose

amiable owner had migrated from Pie Alley,

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pie, rum and raisin cheesecake along with

his renowned Nightlife cocktails. The Bistro

garden restaurant broadcast the Nepal radio

news in English at 8pm daily, almost the

only source of news for foreigners. The only

watering hole for any western-style nightlife

was the Joker, and later the Up and Down

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with dancers and loud music.

By the late 1970s the overland trail from

Europe to Kathmandu had become a torrent,

with half-broken-down buses, well equipped

trucks and VW minibuses crunching their

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the fabled valley. Adventurers poured into

the lanes of Kathmandu, already fat from

the strawberry pies of Chicken Street in

Kabul, the dubious ice-cream parlours of

Delhi and the exotic delights of Varanasi.

(16) When the Shah of Iran was ousted

in 1979 by the revolutionary guards of

Ayatollah Khomeini and the Russians

invaded Afghanistan, the golden days

of the overland route were suffocated. A

trickle did still drive to Kathmandu, but

the heady days of wild overland adventure

virtually died; it was time for a new breed

of traveller to seek out the charms of Nepal.

The trekking scene really grew quickly in

the 1980s and with it the leafy lanes of

Thamel began to disappear under shops,

new hotels, restaurants and bars. (17) &

(18) Mountaineers and adventure-seekers

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never silenced. Trekking fever spread

in the 1990s, while more well-heeled

visitors realised that the splendours

of Kathmandu’s cultural assets and

traditional festivities held as much interest

VALLEY OF THE GREEN-EYED YELLOW IDOL

52 | TRAVEL HIMALAYA SPRING 2019 http://www.himalayamagazine.com